There’s a lot coming up at the WKU Art Department but this one is this week so I’ll just get it out there real quick like. I won’t be able to make it but I highly encourage all to attend. Elissa Cox is coming for a double-whammy visit. First she’ll be the focus of an informal (open to students and others) Q&A during the Studio-Portfolio class. This should go from 3:30 to 4:30 in room 454 of the Fine Arts Center. Afterwards, from 5 – 6pm she’ll be providing an open lecture in room 156. All are welcome to it as well.

Regardless if you’re going to be there, be sure to visit Elissa’s website.

This is a gratuitous “arts and culture” post and horn tooting, your weekend chance to grab a cup of coffee or a Goose Island and do some art and music browsing.

I really should actually be getting ready for this show instead of writing about it, but hey, it’ll only take a few minutes, right? (more…)

Kentucky Library and Museum’s Print Collection – Now showing in the FAC Corridor Gallery (second floor) is one of the best print collections I’ve seen in a while. Some of the artists includeLouise Nevelson, Frank Stella, Paul Cadmus, Jim Dine, Wayne Kimball and Nathan Oliveira. This show is giving Ceramics Invitational a run for it’s money in terms of balls-to-the-wall amazingness.

And while you’re here be sure to wander up to the Cube gallery on the fourth floor to see what’s going on there.

Above is “Five Paint Brushes,” an etching from 1973 by James Dine. It is one of the pieces in the show, all of which are on loan from the permanent collection of the Kentucky Library and Museum. The majority of the work on view were originally collected in the early seventies through an NEA grant. They were collected by Ivan Schieferdecker, Professor Emeritus and have not been displayed since sometime during the 1980′s.

The show will be on view through finals week which I believe is Friday, May 11th. The prints are screenprints, lithographs, etchings and others.

2007 Graduating Senior Art Exhibit – Also, the Senior show is now up in the Kentucky Museum and will also be on view until May 11th. I haven’t had a chance to get any photographs (or even see the show yet) but I hear it’s quite a collection of work, taking up the whole place.

Above are works by 2007 graduating seniors Sara Truman (left) and Perry Hooks (right). Go check it out.

Thus far the war in Iraq has been a war over many things, both concrete and abstract, stated and hidden. And those ideas seemed to have all morphed and adjusted and been realigned with disorientating rapidity. Before it was a war over democracy it was against a plausible neuclear/chemical/biological threat. Then a regime swap-out. Or to make progress in the war on terror. Or because of Al Queda’s links with Iraq. Or because of 9/11. It is revenge to some and a result of selfless world leadership to others.

Everyone is pretty confused by now, I’d say. Perhaps, most importantly, our troops themselves. A February 28th Zogby poll states that “Almost 90% think war is retaliation for Saddam’s role in 9/11.” But there are soldiers in Iraq and home in the US who believe that is not the one, categorical reason and speculate that there was no such reason – or, finally, that the consequences have hardly been honorable.

Some of those soldiers believe the later very adamantly and vocally and have made the decision to not fight. Many of them have suffered “dishonorable discharge,” or “punitive separation” as a consequence. These paintings are part of a series by Greg Moore, one-half of Block, Street & Building. These three subjects are soldiers who have filed status as conscientious objectors. Other resisters have been incarcerated or have fled to Canada.

Greg has done done a total of 4 portraits and plans on more. You can see more of Greg’s work at Art Amiss or at our website. dsklj

Click here to check out a neato diagram of 21 reasons Bush and his administration gave for attacking Iraq – statements made between September 2001 and October 2002.