{"id":12472,"date":"2016-09-21T09:00:09","date_gmt":"2016-09-21T16:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=12472"},"modified":"2016-09-19T12:46:58","modified_gmt":"2016-09-19T19:46:58","slug":"camosun-staff-art-exhibit-showcases-diversity-in-mediums","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2016\/09\/21\/camosun-staff-art-exhibit-showcases-diversity-in-mediums\/","title":{"rendered":"Camosun staff art exhibit showcases diversity in mediums"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just because a piece of artwork hasn\u2019t reached the traditional stage of completion doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s not art that its makers can display with pride. At least that\u2019s Camosun Visual Arts prof Mike McLean\u2019s opinion; the R+D<\/i> exhibit backs him up, and it\u2019s up and running on campus until September 26.<\/p>\n

McLean says that it\u2019s really important that students see this work, which features the art of the Camosun Visual Arts staff. It\u2019s not often that the college highlights the talent of its employees rather than its students, but McLean says the exhibit is essential in creating the creative independence aspiring artists often need.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something that we\u2019re always challenged to do in terms of teaching,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

McLean says that it\u2019s always a challenge to create that delicate balance of having students \u201cknow where you are coming from\u201d without having them unintentionally emulate the work they see in the early stages of the learning process.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The R+D art exhibit is up now at three locations at Camosun College\u2019s Lansdowne campus (photo by Greg Pratt\/Nexus<\/em>).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe really want our students to come up with their own ideas and have their own voice within the medium that they choose,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s one of those things where you don\u2019t necessarily want to put your work on display too often\u2026We really want our students to develop their own language.\u201d<\/p>\n

McLean is no stranger to outside-the-box art\u2014he says one faculty member chopped off his own facial hair during a particularly passionate moment of performance art. Other mediums utilized at R+D<\/i> include photography and video; McLean says that, within reason, there are no limits to what students here can explore.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot all of them are completely finalized work that you would normally see in a gallery. Some of the edges are still a little bit loose, but that\u2019s intentional,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s been a lot of years since we put an exhibition [for the staff] together, to show not only the students but the greater college community what it is that we\u2019re up to and what some of the things that we\u2019re interested in exploring artistically are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aside from more typical mediums such as photo documentation and performance art (where the shaving of the moustache took place), R+D<\/i> features the work of one faculty member who, McLean says, \u201chas been researching different types of plants and grinding them up to make pigments out of them.\u201d That faculty member is Visual Arts instructor Brenda Petays, who spent much of her summer searching for indigenous plants to put in her project.<\/p>\n

\u201cI kind of see it as a relationship between myself and the land,\u201d she says, regarding her pigment project. \u201cI\u2019m becoming much more conscious of our relationship with indigenous people.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are also sculptures and work shown on video monitors, which will add some \u201ctime-based elements\u201d to the show, says McLean. One instructor uses poetry to explore a unique medium where photographs intertwine with the written word.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a really wide-ranging cross-section of what we do in the classroom,\u201d says McLean. \u201cI think how open the field can be is well represented in the show.\u201d<\/p>\n

R+D<\/i> is on display now at Lansdowne campus between Young 111 and 117; in the entrance to the library; and in the second-floor library mezzanine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just because a piece of artwork hasn\u2019t reached the traditional stage of completion doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s not art that its makers can display with pride. At least that\u2019s Camosun Visual Arts prof Mike McLean\u2019s opinion; the R+D exhibit backs him up, and it\u2019s up and running on campus until September 26. McLean says that it\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12473,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,15,171],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-campus","category-september-21-2016"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12472"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12475,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12472\/revisions\/12475"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}