Cumberlands art gallery open to public

As a way to introduce students and community members to an array of professional artists’ work, University of the Cumberlands is offering a free showing of collected works in its art gallery on campus. The gallery is located on the second floor of the Luecker Building (across from the campus fountain) and is open Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. The exhibit will close November 22nd, the Friday before Thanksgiving.

Visitors will get to peruse a mix of print media, etchings, lithographs, monoprints, drawings, watercolor paintings, and more. The artwork spans many decades, giving viewers glimpses into multiple artistic movements – some of which weren’t yet popular when the trailblazing artists created them.

“We try to vary the exhibits as much as possible from year to year, picking and choosing from the collection we’ve amassed over time,” said Russell Weedman, art professor and department chair of the art department at Cumberlands. “Looking at photographs of works of art is one thing. Nowadays, many of us are looking at them on tiny phone screens. But that’s nothing at all like seeing it physically, right in front of you. Art is a physical thing, not just a visual thing.”

Typically, this kind of exhibit, one which features professional artwork, is on display at Cumberlands for approximately half the school year, and Cumberlands students’ work is displayed the other half. Additionally, just before a senior art major graduates, they create artwork as part of a required senior project and display it in the gallery for a couple weeks or so.

When professional work is on display, Weedman often brings his art students into the gallery to examine the art. For general education and lower-level art courses, he may ask the students to describe the art using the vocabulary words they’ve been studying, or, for higher level classes (usually for students pursuing art as a major or a minor), he will ask what they notice about the art’s coloration, juxtaposition, technique, and so forth.

“When a student comes in and looks at this stuff, I want them to say, ‘Wow, I want to try that, how did they make that?’” said Weedman. “And I get to say, ‘Well, that’s a technique called blah, blah, blah, and we do it in this other class. So, if you take that class next year, I’ll teach you how to do it.’ You won’t get that kind of reaction, at least not most of the time, if students are just flipping through images virtually. The colors, the scale, so much of the art is lost if it’s only on a screen instead of being viewed in person.”

The department occasionally takes art students on trips to art museums. The experience is completely different than studying images on a laptop screen or in a textbook. For instance, when the students see art pieces that are especially large, they’re often a bit blown away by their magnitude because, even though the students have “seen” the art before, size-restricted platforms like books and screens simply cannot do justice to large, monumental artwork.

All community members and Cumberlands students, faculty, and staff are welcome to visit the Luecker Building art gallery from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. from now until November 22nd. 

To learn more about Cumberlands’ Department of Art, visit www.ucumberlands.edu/academics.