A New Decade, a New Year, and a New Semester

Gosh, that's a lot of NEW stuff.

I have been busy so posts have been minimal. But I will try and keep up better this semester.

So far classes are looking good, pretty full. So full that we have four 3D classes. Gosh that room will be busy back there. I think all the ceramics courses are closed as of now. All but one of the 3D classes is closed. Sculpture I has enough to make and the upper level sculpture courses are pretty close, but will be OK I am sure. We have had so many folks graduating it's killing our numbers. That's a good thing, I guess. We will have three more folks graduating this spring as well, I hope.

We had an incredible senior show last semester. It had excellent work, all of it unique and not without it's share of controversy. It really raised the bar for a lot of up coming students.

In that light there is an excellent website to check out ART ON TRIAL. It does a really amazing job of opening up the discussion about censorship and how it works in today's contemporary society. Some of the stories are just outrageous. ART 464, the Theory class for the sculpture majors will be taking an open and detailed look at this very topic when the semester starts.

Our Honorable Judge of Liberty, (3' by 4' oil painting), by Franciszek Kulon

Some Pour Images

Images by Aimee Guido

What's Up Right Now

Annual Iron Pour Pot Luck Dinner

All invited, bring your friends and family and BRING a DISH, side or main.

Chips and drinks will be provided!

Friday at 6:00 PM, in the 3D Room
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IRON POUR

Burn in begins at 10:00 am on Saturday.

All participants need to be on-site by 9:00 AM to help out and set up charges and whatever else needs to be done. We hope to start charging around noon and maybe have hot metal around 2:00 PM. Make sure you bring lunch on Saturday and snacks, it will be a long day. There will be Gatorade and water for the work crews only.


SCRATCH BLOCKS will be for sale, as long as they last until pour time on Saturday, $15 a piece.

Interesting Site

Gwynn Murrill Art

As many of you know I am NOT a lover of clearly objective art, however this is one artist I find very exciting. It is clear that a whole lifetime of investigation and experimentation has gone into finding the true essence of the animal. Enjoy!

A Blog to Check Out

ARTwork by Joe MacGown

Some cool work at the blog of Mississippi artist Joe MacGown. Take a look at this how he has linked his professional website with the blog and how he represents his work.

Second Trip to the Scrap Yard

The Green Machine

Trip number two was pretty easy. The machinery operators knew we were coming and had set some iron on the side for us. It was a quick trip and we got some good metal. Next is the trip to Birmingham for other raw materials; coke, core paste, and ladles. Pictures of that later.

The Pincher

A Monster from the Scrap Yard- The Pincher

Chris and I went last Wednesday to go get our first load of scrap iron from Shemper's Recyclers here in Hattiesburg. It's always an interesting experience. Normally Shempers is buying scrap, but once a year they agree to switch things around so we can come in an buy metal from them. Thank God they do, or we would never have iron pours.

Getting there and actually getting the metal is the easy part. Everything we do up to that point, especially when making purchases at the University, is so complicated; paperwork, people to call, arrangements to be made. Uggh! In the end I guess it's all worth it. And a big thanks to Shempers, I know it's trouble for them to help us out, but they do it every year!