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Elena FitzPatrick Sifford Presents Research on the First Images of Africans in the Americas

Art & Design, Research, Art History, Art, Faculty, Doctor of Design,
elena fitzpatrick sifford

Sifford in Michelangelo’s Laurentian Library, San Lorenzo, Florence

This summer, Elena Fitzpatrick Sifford, assistant professor of art history at LSU, traveled to Florence, Venice, and Padua to conduct research for her Italian Renaissance courses, and she presented a paper at the Sixteenth Century Studies Conference in Bruges, Belgium. Her travel was supported by the LSU School of Art and an LSU Office of Research & Development Junior Faculty Travel Grant.

Sifford’s paper, “Sixteenth-Century Mexican Painted Manuscripts and the First Images of Africans in the Americas,” was presented in the “Issue of Iconography” panel at the conference. Art historians have long pointed to images of the black magus or, alternatively, the work of seventeenth-century European traveler artists as the earliest images of Africans in the Americas. It was, however, indigenous artists who first visually notated the presence of Africans in the Americas a century earlier. Mid sixteenth-century Central Mexican manuscripts such as Diego Durán’s History, Codex Telleriano-Remensis, and Codex Azcatitlan, feature Africans as both conquistadors and enslaved subjects.

elena fitzpatrick sifford

Sifford conducted research in Florence, Venice, and Padua for her Italian Renaissance courses at LSU.

Sifford’s study looks at such images within the context of their larger manuscripts as well as documentation on the African presence in Mexico, revealing their ethnographic complexity and the development of concepts of alterity in the early Viceregal period. Her paper dislodges dominant discourse on the wholly indigenous and Spanish contributions to Mexican history. The indigenous artists’ renderings of the first Afro-Mexicans showcase the liminal space that Africans occupied in early colonial society as chattel under civic law but human under canon law.

“This subject is particularly salient on the wake of the recent 2015 Mexican census, which, for the first time, acknowledged the category of Afro-Mexicans after centuries of denial of the country’s African population,” explained Sifford.

Sifford was invited to present her paper this spring at Rice University, sponsored by their departments of art history and history. She is currently working on a book-length project based on her research.

A Legacy of Excellence

Art & Design, Landscape Architecture, Honors & Awards, Alumni, ,

LSU Alumni, Students, and Faculty Win Bevy of ASLA Honors & Awards

LSU landscape architecture alumni, faculty, and students will receive top honors at the 2016 ASLA Annual Meeting & EXPO in New Orleans this October, including three medals, seven professional awards, and three student awards. On top of these honors, two landscape architecture faculty, Associate Professor Lake Douglas and Professor Charles Fryling, will be elevated to the ASLA Council of Fellows, and the current president of the national organization is LSU alumnus Chad Danos, FASLA, BLA 1990.

“We are so proud of all the student, faculty, and alumni awards, medals, and Fellow elevations this year,” said Mark Boyer, FASLA, director of the Robert Reich School of Landscape Architecture. “This recognition is further testament to the Robert Reich School’s legacy of excellence.”

Alumnus Kurt Culbertson, FASLA, BLA 1976, is the recipient of the ASLA Medal. Awarded once annually, the ASLA Medal is the society’s highest award for a landscape architect. Culbertson is CEO and chair of Design Workshop, Inc.’s international practice, which also won a 2016 Award of Excellence in the residential design category and two honor awards.

2016 asla awards

Jim Burnett, BLA 1983, recipient of the 2016 ASLA Design Medal

“Any success I have found in my career I owe to the enormous support of my wife, Gene Anne, and family and the education that I received at the Robert Reich School of Landscape Architecture,” shared Culbertson. “It is an honor to follow in the footsteps of LSU’s first winner of the ASLA Medal, Dr. Robert S. Reich, and particularly special to receive the award in Louisiana in the company of my many LSU friends and colleagues. The night is also special as my good friend, Jim Burnett, will be honored. Love Purple. Live Gold.”

The ASLA Design Medal was awarded to LSU alumnus James “Jim” Burnett, FASLA, BLA 1983, president and founder of the Office of James Burnett, which won the 2015 ASLA Firm Award. The ASLA Design Medal annually recognizes an individual landscape architect who has produced a body of exceptional design work at a sustained level for a period of at least 10 years.

2016 asla awards

Austin Allen of Design Jones LLC, recipient of the ASLA Community Service Award

Design Jones LLC, led by LSU Associate Professor Austin Allen and Instructor Diane Jones—received the Community Service Award, annually awarded to one individual and one organization for providing sustained pro-bono service demonstrating the sound principles or values of landscape architecture.

“Receiving the ASLA Community Service Award is a humbling experience,” said Allen, “especially in Louisiana, where design must begin with community engagement.”

Out of 456 entries, 30 professional projects won top honors; seven of these winning projects were completed by firms led by LSU landscape architecture alumni. SWA, a leading international landscape architecture, planning, and urban design firm led by LSU alumnus Kinder Baumgardner, BLA 1987, won three honor awards, including an award for the analysis and planning of the Baton Rouge Lakes, completed in association with CARBO Landscape Architects. Led by alumnus Jeffrey Carbo, FASLA, BLA 1975, CARBO Landscape Architects also received an honor award in the general design category for the new St. Landry Parish Visitors Center.

Out of 271 entries, 22 students—including three recent LSU graduates—won top honors. Sunantana Nuanla-or, MLA 2016, won a student honor award in the analysis and planning category for her thesis project, “Creating a Sustainable Future for Mae Kha Canal in Chiang Mai, Thailand.” William Baumgardner, BLA 2016, and Alexander Morvant, BLA 2016, won student honor awards in the analysis and planning category for their senior capstone projects, “Harnessing the Beating Heart: Living Systems Infrastructure on Tonle Sap Lake, Cambodia,” and “The Vermilion Corridor: Rediscovering the Waterways of Southern Louisiana,” respectively.

On top of the celebration at the ASLA Annual Meeting & EXPO, the Robert Reich School is hosting a separate alumni reception for alumni, friends, faculty, and students at the Preservation Resource Center on Friday, October 21, 6–9 p.m., to celebrate the excellence of the school as well as beloved professor Max Conrad’s 50th anniversary as an educator at LSU. Conrad received the 2013 ASLA Jot D. Carpenter Teaching Medal in recognition of his sustained and significant contribution to landscape architecture education.

ASLA is the national professional association for landscape architects, representing more than 15,000 members in 49 professional chapters and 72 student chapters. Since the 1980s, no fewer than 70 alumni have won national ASLA awards, including four firm awards and six medals, and 43 LSU students have won national ASLA student awards. The 2016 alumni, faculty, and student awards are listed in more detail below. Visit asla.org/HonorAwards/aspx for more information about this year’s awards and landscape.lsu.edu for more information about the LSU Robert Reich School of Landscape Architecture.

2016 Medalists

ASLA Medal: Kurt Culbertson, FASLA—BLA 1976

“Culbertson, the CEO and chair of Design Workshop, Inc.’s international practice, is a longtime leader in sustainable development, and communities from around the world have benefitted socially, economically, and aesthetically from his projects. His skill at navigating difficult but important projects to build broad consensus is clearly recognized by the profession through seven national ASLA awards and dozens of regional and state ASLA awards. Culbertson has also served as a mentor to hundreds of landscape architects and demonstrated a lasting dedication to landscape architecture education.”

ASLA Design Medal: James Burnett, FASLA—BLA 1983

“Burnett has consistently delivered graceful, human-scaled and sustainably built landscapes that have yielded some of the most recognized and beloved urban environments worldwide. Klyde Warren Park in Dallas; Sunnylands Center and Gardens in Rancho Mirage, California; and the Park at Lakeshore East in Chicago are just a few examples. Burnett founded the Office of James Burnett in 1989, which has become one of the most influential landscape architecture firms in the world and received the ASLA Firm Award in 2015.”

Community Service Award—Organization: Design Jones LLC

“The firm’s principals, Diane Jones and Austin Allen, associate professor of landscape architecture at the LSU Robert Reich School of Landscape Architecture, address projects predominantly in urban areas with a focus on New Orleans, Key West, St. Louis, Baltimore, and Cleveland. The two landscape architects have pushed community service far beyond any single locale or region and have helped to foster diverse communities near and far.”

2016 ASLA Professional Award Winners

 

CARBO Landscape Architecture

Honor Award—General Design Category
Converging Ecologies as a Gateway to Acadiana, St. Landry Parish, LA
Client: St. Landry Parish Tourist Commission

“The proposal for a new visitor center along Interstate 49 was an opportunity to provide visitors their first glimpse of the forests, swamps, and prairies typical of this diverse landscape. Through interpretations of these native landscapes at the new St. Landry Parish Visitors Center, travelers are able to gain an understanding of the region’s distinctive character.”

“A great response to orienting visitors to the ecology of Louisiana.” —2016 Awards Jury 

SWA 

Honor Award—General Design Category
Eco-Corridor Resurrects Former Brownfield, Ningbo, China
Client: Ningbo Planning Bureau – East New Town Development Committee

“Through an innovative and carefully composed tapestry of topography, hydrology, and vegetation, the project transforms an uninhabitable brownfield into a linear ‘living filter.’ Ningbo Eco-Corridor creates vital habitat for native flora and fauna, enhances public health, creates beautiful public spaces, and raises the bar globally for sustainable development.”

Honor Award—Analysis and Planning Category
Bayou Greenways: Realizing the Vision, Houston, TX
Client: Houston Parks Board

“The recently completed Bayou Greenways Master Plan for a new 300 mile long linear park system connects over 1.9 million citizens along Harris County’s 10 major waterways. With a multitude of economic, environmental, and physical and mental health benefits, Professor John Crompton of Texas A&M estimates annual benefits to be in excess of $117 million. Running from headwaters to confluence, each of Bayou Greenways are based on a diverse ecological heritage and commitment to quality of life for all.  The resulting work is a source of civic pride and an emphatic expression of place.”

SWA Group in association with CARBO Landscape Architecture

Honor Award—Analysis and Planning Category
Baton Rouge Lakes: Restoring a Louisiana Landmark from Ecological Collapse to Cultural Sanctuary, Baton Rouge, LA
Client: Baton Rouge Area Foundation

“The Baton Rouge Lakes project recognizes opportunity in crisis. The 275 acre lakes system is a series of six lakes in central Baton Rouge. Adjacent to Louisiana State University, three major parks, and a demographically diverse mix of neighborhoods, the Lakes historically functioned as a cypress swamp. Shortly after their conversion, poor water quality resulting from inadequate water depth, ongoing sedimentation, elevated water temperatures, dissolved oxygen levels, and nutrient loading occurred immediately and are currently accelerating. Based on sound ecological underpinnings, the Lakes Master Plan uses restoration techniques and nature as a catalyst for healthy living where man and water exist in equilibrium.”

Design Workshop, Inc.

Award of Excellence—Residential Design Category
DBX Ranch: A Transformation Brings Forth a New Livable Landscape, Pitkin County, CO

“Until recently, this 3.5-acre property was the maintenance boneyard for a nearby working ranch. Piles of wood and debris, covered with a layer of fill, had created an artificial landform, resulting in a site that was both ecologically lifeless and unsightly. A collaborative effort combining the creative talents of the landscape architect, architect, and interior designer resulted in a new vision for the property, one that reimagines the disturbed site as a livable landscape, emblematic of the heritage of the surrounding pastoral setting.”

Honor Award—Residential Design Category
The Restoring of a Montane Landscape, Rocky Mountains, CO

“The design for this 28-acre property combines the landscape architect’s creative vision with the owner’s commitment to land stewardship, environmental sustainability, and responsible management. The site, a complex and dynamic natural ecosystem, was a virtual wasteland for almost a century, its natural resources—centuries old Ponderosa pine trees and gravel—harvested and mined for use in building the infrastructure of a burgeoning city. Through an artful application of ecological principles, a multidisciplinary team transformed a dark-side-of-the-moon landscape into a high-performing montane ecosystem challenged by harsh climatic conditions and condensed growing seasons.”

Honor Award—Communications Category
Landscape Architecture Documentation Standards: Principles, Guidelines and Best Practices
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

“This book is the first comprehensive publication of its kind in the profession. It has been field-tested in landscape architecture offices on a variety of national and international projects for over a decade, used as part of course materials at universities, and focuses not just on technical aspects of documentation but also on how documentation relates to the design process. This publication provides an important tool in improving the quality of built work, thereby elevating the stature of the profession.” 

ASLA Student Award Winners

 

Sunantana Nuanla-or, MLA 2016

Faculty Advisor: Austin Allen
Thesis Committee Members: Instructor Diane Jones Allen, LSU; Dr. Manip Kaewmoracharoen, Chiang Mai University; Ekpanith Naknakom, Dream Action

Honor Award—Analysis and Planning Category
Creating Sustainable Future of Mae Kha Canal in Chiang Mai, Thailand

2016 asla awardsSunantana Nuanla-or’s thesis project focuses on the Mae Kha Canal, the most degraded urban canal in northern Thailand, aiming to promote an ecological and sustainable approach in improving the canal’s water quality. At an urban scale, it suggests a green corridor along the canal, where people can interact with nature and enjoy recreational spaces. It promotes a stewardship program that encourages participation of communities, government, organizations, stakeholders, and private sectors in coordination with Mae Kha Canal development. At a site scale, her thesis proposes landscape infrastructure of an urban wetland park that integrates ecological processes and recreational spaces. As a pilot project of wetland water treatment, the infrastructure will demonstrate and help educate people on how to purify water by using ecological methods and the benefits of long-term maintenance and development. Moreover it will articulate Mae Kha Canal’s historical significance and cultural richness in order to encourage a sense of preservation and respect. The study and the proposal were disseminated at municipality headquarters and were showcased on April 08, 2016, at the 720th anniversary of Chiang Mai. “With over 200 participants from multiple stakeholders, the study was publicized and, hopefully, will be fully implemented at many levels,” said Sunantana.

“Far from being constrained by a one-size-fits-all approach, this project offered specific responses for different areas. An obvious strength was that the team took a close look at nodes and corridors. You can use a project like this to turn around the public’s thinking and that of decision makers.” —2016 Awards Jury

Sunantana is currently a landscape designer at PLAT Studio in Berkeley, California.

William Baumgardner, BLA 2016

Faculty Advisors: Forbes Lipschitz and Kathleen Bogaski

Honor Award—Analysis and Planning Category
Harnessing the Beating Heart: Living Systems Infrastructure on Tonle Sap Lake, Cambodia

2016 asla awardsAs the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia, Tonle Sap, located in the heart of Cambodia, is a highly productive and volatile system. Currently, 1.2 to 1.5 million people living in poor and unhealthy conditions move with the lake’s temporal change each year. William Baumgardner’s capstone project aims to interpret the native landscape and nature of the lake while improving the overall quality of life for the communities that call it home. Three main strategies are designed to improve the ecosystem, health, and economy: waterless toilets and an anaerobic digester, fabricated mangrove reef balls, and a constructed wetland and silvofishery. Each implemented system would create a new network that would positively impact the surrounding human and environmental communities. With the success of one primary site, each technology could be adapted and phased into the other major community sites around the lake’s perimeter and potentially improve the quality of life for over 10 percent of Cambodia’s population.

“The analysis was strong, educational, and the planning was clear and straightforward. The core idea was to take a complex ecosystem and upgrade it without disturbing current life-ways. It was achieved with great sensitivity.” —2016 Awards Jury

William is currently an MLA candidate at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Alexander Morvant, BLA 2016

Faculty Advisors: Lake Douglas, Forbes Lipschitz, and Bruce Sharky

Honor Award—Analysis and Planning Category
The Vermilion Corridor: Rediscovering the Waterways of Southern Louisiana

2016 asla awardsAlexander Morvant’s capstone project aims to establish a connection among open spaces along Bayou Vermilion in Lafayette, Louisiana, in order to enhance its use as a cultural, economic, ecological, and open space amenity. Like many other small communities in Louisiana and elsewhere, Lafayette turned its back on the waterway that facilitated the area’s original settlement. Much of the land along the bayou is privately owned and residential, with public access limited to a few critical points, where Alexander proposes a transit hub, a mixed-use center, and connections to existing public recreation and open spaces. To reinforce these new uses, a trail will connect several destinations by utilizing land on the banks of Bayou Vermilion adjacent to existing residential properties. The intent of this project is to create public access to Lafayette’s historic and scenic Bayou Vermilion, thereby providing local residents access to the bayou’s unique cultural, ecological, and open space potential. In addition, this project can provide a model for waterfront access for other Louisiana communities that share similar conditions.

“I was captivated by the graphics that explored an innovative river trail program that would connect communities. They provided different examples of what they were dealing with and came up with well-designed solutions. The project, once implemented, would introduce people to places that might otherwise be inaccessible. Quite compelling.” —2016 Awards Jury

Alexander is currently a member of the design team at Ten Eyck Landscape Architects in Austin, Texas.

Designing for Senior Living

Students, Interior Design, Community Outreach, Doctor of Design, , ,
Janet Dewey and Cori Lanclos attended the studio’s final reviews and selected three projects to be presented to administrators at St. James Place.

Janet Dewey and Cori Lanclos attended the studio’s final reviews and selected three projects to be presented to administrators at St. James Place.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Community Living (aoa.acl.gov), America’s population of people 65 years or older numbered 44.7 million in 2013—about one in every seven Americans. The population is expected to grow to 21.7 percent by 2040, and by 2060 the 2013 number will almost double to 98 million.

It is no wonder that senior living communities, like St. James Place in Baton Rouge, are reaching out to designers to help ensure that this growing population experiences environments that are wellness-focused, stimulating, safe, and comfortable. St. James Place, the area’s only continuing care retirement community, includes independent living, assisted living, nursing care, and memory care neighborhoods, encompasses 52 acres, and is home to some 400 residents. In 2015 Janet Dewey, community relations manager at St. James Place, worked closely with Jun Zou, associate professor of interior design at LSU, to develop a design project for St. James Place. Zou incorporated the service-learning opportunity into a design project for her third-year interior design studio this spring.

Dewey was particularly interested in seeing programming and designs for four spaces at St. James Place: 1) model living units that reflect current trends for independent senior living; 2) a community gathering area in the memory care assisted living neighborhood; 3) a restaurant space for independent living seniors; and 4) the assisted living neighborhood’s “country kitchen,” a gathering area for enrichment activities. The students were instructed to keep the shell of the building as is but they could change windows, doors, room sizes—whatever they imagined. They spent the first part of the semester conducting research on current trends for senior living. They visited—and measured!—St. James Place spaces and interviewed residents, collecting data for the different types of senior living areas. They used this data to develop programming and produce designs for their selected spaces.

 

“Our students did much more than expected. Indeed, it was a whole-space planning project,” said Zou. “They had to consider all the issues, such as occupancy load, ADA codes; they researched evidence-based design principles and the effects of daylighting. It was a great opportunity and experience for them to learn as this was their first healthcare design related project.”

Dewey and Cori Lanclos, assisted living counselor and life enrichment manager at St. James, attended the students’ mid-term and final reviews and chose five projects to be presented to St. James Place administrators and President and CEO Tom Farrell at the senior living community the following Friday.

“This was an interesting interactive project for us, and the students’ work was great on many levels,” said Dewey. “They got a dose of reality thinking about what they’d want for their own parents and grandparents.”

“This was the first time we worked on a project for real people, with real dimensions,” added Samantha Sierra, third-year interior design student. “We learned a lot by interviewing the residents—like how much the residents at St. James love the common areas. It was a really good learning experience.”

This studio project was of particular interest to Zou, who is currently working with Xiaoyan Wang, a visiting scholar from Shaanxi Normal University in Xian, China, to investigate senior living solutions for the United States and China, incorporating universal design concepts and daylighting strategies.

“China has a vastly growing aging society, similar to baby boomers in the United States, but in America the senior living system is more mature,” explained Zou. “In China, generations like my own are struggling to care for aging parents. Because of the one-child policy, one couple is responsible for taking care of four elders. More and more often, we don’t live in the same city, or even country, where our parents reside. There is a big need for these facilities.”

“Before working on this project, I definitely thought that I wasn’t interested in healthcare design,” said Kayla Calongne, “but I very much enjoyed how the project brought in aspects of psychology and how our designs could benefit the users.”

Kilning It

Art & Design, Art, Ceramics, , ,

LSU’s MFA ceramics program ranked seventh in nation by U.S. News & World Report

lsu mfa ceramics

(From left) Grace Tessein, Jodie Masterman, Jenni Lombardi, Melodie Reay, Naomi Clement, Bri Ozanne, Mike Stumbras, and Adam Meistrell

Associate Professor Mikey Walsh was in Kansas City attending the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) when she received news that LSU’s MFA ceramics program had moved up two spots in U.S. News & World Report’s 2017 Best Graduate School rankings, from ninth to seventh in the nation.

“Being there at NCECA with 19 LSU students and getting the rankings at the same time, I felt as much a strong responsibility to the legacy of LSU ceramics as I felt proud to be a part of it,” shared Walsh. “Our students, overall, were great ambassadors for LSU.”

For example, graduate student Naomi Clement was selected as the student ambassador at large at the conference, a prestigious and competitive two-year post. Jodie Masterson was a presenter in a well-attended panel, and Mike Stumbras, a second-year graduate student, was in several prominent shows, including the NCECA student juried show, one of the premiere exhibitions at the conference each year.

“Our students are really driving for success themselves and for the program, too,” added Associate Professor Andy Shaw. “They are exhibiting widely, applying for summer scholarships and studio assistantships at national arts and crafts workshop schools, and taking part in residencies in the U.S. and abroad. As much as each one is studying here at LSU for very specific and personal aspirations, our students know that they succeed best when they assist and promote each other. They invest in each other, making the studio a very happy and productive space.”

LSU ceramics faculty are great ambassadors for the program, as well. Shaw, who was selected for a 2014 McKnight Residency for Ceramic Artists, spent three months at the Northern Clay Center in Minneapolis in 2015, where he presented an exhibition of work completed during the residency. His tableware has received multiple awards, is shown widely across the U.S., and has been featured in recently published books. During his sabbatical in fall 2016, Shaw will take part in a two-month Sím residency in Iceland at the Korpúlfsstaðir studios and will complete a short residency at the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design. Walsh recently returned from sabbatical and completed a two-week residency at Haystack School of Crafts in Maine. Her work will be featured at the Harvey Meadows Gallery in Aspen, Colorado, and in Northern Clay Center’s Annual American Pottery Fest in Minneapolis this fall, and she has been invited as one of seven artists for “Artist and Mother,” a two-week residency at Red Lodge Clay Center in Montana for summer 2017.

“The ranking is the result of decades of hard work within LSU ceramics,” stressed Shaw. “Tremendous gratitude goes out to former faculty Joe Bova, Linda Arbuckle, Bobby Silverman, and Kate Blacklock, as well as to the generations of LSU MFAs who define the best elements of the field of ceramics.”

“My word for now is momentum,” added Walsh. “We now have a new building on the horizon, as well as a strong and ambitious group of grad students. My hope is to remain in forward motion with the full support of LSU.”

The LSU Studio Arts Building is undergoing a much needed renovation, with expected completion only a few years away. “The renovation will give our students opportunities that feel like only dreams right now,” Shaw stated. “We will use our current momentum to take the program in new directions.”

Alumni Spotlight: Shelby Prindaville, MFA 2013

Art & Design, Art, Painting & Drawing, Sculpture, Alumni, Alumni Profiles,

shelby prindaville

Shaping an Ecological Balance

A lone buffalo stands in empty prairie with the weight of the world on its shoulders. A charcoal rendering of a puffin overlaying gray skies and deserted beach simultaneously confronts and turns its back on viewers. A partially submerged frog is swallowed by three-dimensional boggy flora. A grinning donkey is photobombed by its ghostly, cloud-like cousin lurking in the blue skies above.

LSU alumna Shelby Prindaville (MFA 2013) uses a variety of media and approaches to connect the public with her passion for preserving earth’s flora and fauna.

“I am interested in the human role in shaping an ecological balance and create images centered on the beautiful fragility and resilience of the natural world,” stated Shelby. “I want viewers to interact and emotionally connect with my work and for that experience to demonstrate the joy of contemplative engagement with nature as well as provide a taste of the sorrow a disconnect with nature can bring.”

Shelby’s naturalist subject matter is grounded in her rural Kansas roots. “I don’t know of a time when I wasn’t interested in art. Growing up, the center point of my year was submitting artwork in the local county fair,” she laughed.

 

Despite her interest in art, Shelby considered the pre-law undergraduate program at the University of Pennsylvania. She ended up earning a BA in fine arts with a concentration in sculpture while taking random law classes, participating in the debate society, and completing legally-focused internships. After graduation, Shelby worked in a business environment where she realized she didn’t want that kind of lifestyle—sitting in front of a computer in a cubicle, all day, every day. Seeking a more active, engaged profession and more time to work on her art, she decided to pursue an MFA in painting and drawing at LSU in the hopes of becoming a professor of art.

While in graduate school at LSU, she began experimenting with light relief works in her painting, which led to her collaboration with LSU chemistry professor John A. Pojman. They worked together to develop 3P QuickCure Clay, a cure-on-demand polymer clay for artists. 3P QuickCure Clay cures after being heated with a heat gun, allowing artists all the time they need to sculpt. Shelby frequently integrates QuickCure clay into her relief paintings and sculptures.

“It’s a cool medium with interesting properties,” said Shelby. “It’s also great for classrooms as you don’t need to wait for a kiln firing.”

While nearing graduation from LSU, Shelby did her research. She learned that roughly four percent of qualified artists seeking full-time professorships receive appointments. With that statistical difficulty in mind, Shelby applied to more than 100 professorships worldwide and was ultimately selected as the art program director and assistant professor of art at the University of Saint Mary in Leavenworth, Kansas. USM is small school with approximately 1,400 students across two campuses, so the art faculty at Saint Mary can’t be too tightly specialized in any one medium, Shelby explained. She teaches a wide range of classes, “which is one of the reasons why I haven’t moved on. I prefer teaching a wide variety of media; otherwise it gets repetitive. In larger schools, you might have to teach three sections of the same class. Here, sometimes I only teach a particular class once every two years. It helps me keep a fresh perspective on current trends in all the areas.”  Having smaller class sizes with repeat students is another benefit.  “USM is a teaching-focused school, which means I have the time to really get to know each of my students.  I enjoy the balance of teaching during the school year and working on my artistic practice during the academic breaks.”

Shelby’s artwork has been exhibited in a variety of national and international venues, including Philadelphia, New York City, Washington, D.C., Minneapolis, Kansas City, Baton Rouge, Fort Worth, and Los Angeles. In 2015, Shelby was chosen by the World Wildlife Fund as a featured tour artist within the Art Works for Change’s curated exhibition, Footing the Bill: Art and Our Ecological Footprint, for her artwork capturing the beauty and frailty of the natural world.

Shelby has been awarded a variety of grants, prizes, and international and domestic residencies, including month-long residencies at Gullkistan in Laugarvatn, Iceland;  Sachaqa Centro de Arte in San Roque, Peru; and Nau Côclea in Camallera, Spain. Because of her subject matter, Shelby prefers residencies in rural, agrarian, or natural places. In summer 2016, she was awarded a five-week residency at La Maison Verte of the Jardin Botanique de Marnay-sur-Seine in France.

Shelby credits the interdisciplinary fine arts program and her connections at LSU for her success. “LSU was good to me and definitely helped me get to where I am now.”

View more of Shelby’s work at shelbyprindaville.com.

 

 

 

A Monarch Motorway

Students, Research, Landscape Architecture, ,
pollinator highway

Student Michael McGill’s project focused on how weigh stations along the I-35 corridor could be used to attract monarch butterflies. His rendering of a weigh station in Texas includes places for the butterflies to “puddle” and plenty of space to grow milkweed.

In some cases, highways can work for rather than against wildlife, especially when a thoroughfare extends along an endangered pollinator’s migratory route.

In 2015, President Obama established the Pollinator Health Task Force to address imperiled pollinators critical to the nation’s economy, food security, and environmental health, such as birds, bats, honey bees, and—butterflies. Part of the task force’s National Strategy to Promote the Health of Honey Bees and Other Pollinators is to create a “Pollinator Highway” along the 1,500 miles of Interstate 35, a federal highway extending from Duluth, Minnesota, to Laredo, Texas. The I-35 corridor closely coincides with one of the migratory paths of the Monarch butterfly, a species whose numbers have dropped by nearly a billion in the past 25 years, according to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

pollinator highway

To help students understand the GIS overlays, Steiner took a step back from digital to analog. The students went “old school” and used a light table to view their overlays.

Each year Monarchs set out on a multi-generational, 2,000 mile journey from Minnesota to Mexico. Along the way they battle pesticides, predators, and disappearing habitats in their efforts to eat, grow, and mate their way to warmer weather. Roadways and adjacent infrastructure provide the perfect butterfly habitat—low vegetation, lots of sun, and government-owned right-of-ways. For example, 100 miles on either side of I-35 is federally covered in the Pollinator Highway project, creating the potential to restore 200,000 acres of Monarch habitat! And who better than landscape architects to plan large-scale habitat mitigation along a massive transportation corridor?

pollinator highway

Using the GIS data, the students created 3-D models of their system overlays. Isabel Rountree’s model, shown here, represents power plants and monarch migration paths.

In spring 2016 second-year Bachelor of Landscape Architecture students in Assistant Professor Halina Steiner’s studio explored landscape interventions that could be implemented along the I-35 corridor to save the Monarch butterfly.

“For these second-year undergraduates, this is the first studio where research informs design,” said Steiner. “They needed to understand the systems that affected the corridor and determine what elements of those systems could be reimagined for butterfly and pollinator habitat while maintaining their original functionality and layering on the temperature changes, migration routes, and plant seasonality for each unique site along the corridor.”

It is also their first foray into GIS (geographical information system) mapping. Analyzing the data for a project of this scale—the entire I-35 corridor—is an enormous undertaking. GIS provides a method for capturing, storing, manipulating, analyzing, managing, and presenting all types of spatial or geographical data. In the case of Monarch butterflies, the GIS results showed how different systems, such as temperature, topography, hydrology, infrastructure, ecoregions, park space, and population density, overlap and come together over the corridor. After identifying the big takeaways, the students wrote mini

pollinator highway

The class tried growing several varieties of milkweed on their studio balcony.

research papers and designed double-page spreads on specific aspects of Monarch life—from metamorphosis, feeding and mating habits, and different species of milkweed to migration, lifespan, predators, and other threats.

Each student was assigned a system that could be used to attract the Monarchs and encourage the butterflies’ presence along the corridor. Students explored a variety of options, such as roadways and clover leaf intersections, weigh stations and visitors’ centers, existing streetscapes and parking lots, prisons, military bases, and other government-owned lands. For the final project, the students designed mini master plans exploring their specific system of interest. As a whole, their work identified available assets, potential test sites, and campaign strategies to help get the “Monarch Motorway” rolling.

Marie M. Bickham Chair Kathleen Bogaski on Restorative Gardens

Landscape Architecture, Faculty,

kathleen bogaskiKathleen Bogaski has more than 25 years of professional experience working at exceptional design firms including Design Workshop, Inc., EDAW/AECOM, and Land Design Research. Her research and design practice, Bogaski Design Studios, focuses on site designs using low-water-consumption plantings and sustainable materials, landscape renovation and redesign, and creative surface-water management and reuse techniques. She has advanced training and certificates in healthcare garden design, fire-wise design, and quality management.   Read more about Kathleen Bogaski here.

In fall 2015, fourth-year landscape architecture students at LSU were given the opportunity to study the evidence-based approach to designing for healthcare facilities in Portland, Oregon. The students toured a memory garden for Alzheimer patients and five Legacy Health System facilities, which included a wide variety of well-designed therapeutic gardens serving staff and users of the Oregon Burn Center, children’s hospital, birthing center, and rehabilitation facilities. Guided by Teresia Hagen, coordinator of the Legacy Gardens, students learned that the success of a healthcare garden is more likely when using a collaborative design process involving the people using and caring for the garden and a strong understanding of the patients’ health outcome goals.

restorative gardens

Landscape architecture students enjoy the garden space at the Legacy Health System Emanuel Children’s Hospital in Portland, Oregon.

The concept of nature as a restorative environment is not a new or modern idea. Since ancient times, gardens have been designed to aid in the healing process. From the first tablets of herbal medicine to the Asclepius gardens in ancient Greece, monastic cloisters to Zen gardens in Asia, and public parks to modern healthcare facilities, the garden has been proposed as a place of care, restoration, and healing of the spirit.

The idea of “nature as a healer” has waxed and waned over the centuries. Advances in modern medical science led to a dramatic decline in access to nature by the 20th century as hospitals were institutionalized and designs were driven by costs, efficiency, and infection control. By the 1980s, the AIDS epidemic, virulent new viruses, and the high cost of medical care became prominent issues and possibly compelled researchers to examine the physical and psychological benefits of nature in the healing process.

In 1984, Dr. Roger Ulrich, one of the most influential evidence-based healthcare design researchers in the world, provided the first credible scientific evidence to support what most people knew intuitively about the restorative benefits of nature. He found that surgical patients with views of nature had shorter post-operative stays, fewer negative observations from nurses, took less pain medication, and experienced fewer minor post-operative complications than those with views of only a brick wall. Ulrich’s studies in the 1990s indicated that only 5-7 minutes spent in nature or viewing natural scenes reduced the physiological indicators of stress (such as elevated heart rate, blood pressure, production of stress hormones), resulting in a calming effect that improved mood and aided in the healing process.

Similarly, Rachel and Stephen Kaplan’s research in 1999 indicated that exposure to nature and natural scenes could restore a person’s ability to concentrate after mental fatigue due to focused effort. Further research revealed a 20 percent improvement in both memory and attention span for people who walked for one hour in nature as opposed to those in an urban setting; elderly stroke patients who received as little as 15 minutes per day in sunlight had 84 percent fewer hip fractures than those not regularly exposed to sunlight; and women 50 years of age or older who gardened at least once a week had a higher bone density reading than those who performed other types of exercise.

restorative garden

A restorative garden at Legacy Health System Meridian Park Medical Center in Portland, Oregon.

These research findings demonstrated to the medical community that the physical environment—specifically, views of nature—had a measurable positive effect on patient health and established a business case for supporting the development of gardens and access to nature. Medical authorities began to see nature/gardens in hospital settings as not just cosmetic extras but as ways to improve health outcomes for patients that translated directly into potential cost savings for hospitals and insurance companies (Marcus, Sachs 2014).

The need for design reform became even more evident in 2000 when a report from the Institute of Medicine revealed that medical errors were involved in more than 98,000 hospital deaths per year, and in the same year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the annual cost for U.S. hospital-acquired infections was estimated at $5 billion (Ulrich, et al., 2008). These findings resulted in a promising new direction in healthcare design where gardens were created for specific patient populations through a collaborative design process with clinical staff, former patients, therapy occupations, and maintenance staff. But it could also be argued that any garden can have a therapeutic effect and aid in the healing process if thoughtfully designed with the users’ needs placed first and foremost at the center of the design process.

In the 21st century, the goal is to continue to train more professionals in this specialized area and gather additional evidence on how the design of therapeutic gardens can more appropriately support the healing process for specific diseases and injuries. What specific design components lead to the creation of an environment that supports health benefits? How might healing gardens become an integral part of the healthcare design process? With the recent trend toward more outpatient facilities, we may need to rely on all landscape types to provide restorative qualities. Fortunately, most of the evidence-based design guidelines for healthcare gardens can be applied to any site, as they are developed from the foundational principles of design, access for all, and creating aesthetically pleasing and sustainable landscapes designed to meet users’ needs.

Master of Architecture Candidate Awarded AAUW Selected Professions Fellowship

Art & Design, Students, Honors & Awards, Coastal Sustainability Studio, Architecture, ,

lsu aauw fellowship

The American Association of University Women (AAUW) awarded a 2016–17 Selected Professions Fellowship to Ana Orosco of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, a master’s candidate in architecture at the LSU College of Art & Design.

Ana will use this $18,000 award to cover tuition fees, materials, and living expenses. The funds will also be a huge help as she spends the fall 2016 semester studying abroad in Rome.

“When I learned I had received the award, honestly, my eyes watered, and I went in search of the three women—LSU professors—who helped me succeed,” said Ana. “It is an honor and also a responsibility to receive this award. Women are poorly represented, underpaid, and left behind in countless fields. What AAUW is doing is amazing. Because of this generous award, I can summon more focus and strength to keep growing in my studies and career, while helping other women do the same.”

Orosco came to LSU with a background in visual arts. From a very young age, she has made a habit of donating her time to charities and participating in community meetings and activities. She is a member of the National Organization of Minority Architecture Students (NOMAS), and volunteers as a yoga instructor and at Habitat for Humanity through their Women Build Program.

“Architecture came as a more mature decision on a profession in which I could use what I had already learned to impact the world in a more feasible way,” said Ana of her decision to pursue a master’s degree in architecture. “The sense of belonging to a community comes with the responsibility of caring for it.”

Inspired by her architect aunt, Ana said she never perceived architecture as a masculine discipline.

“On the contrary, I grew up believing that this was a field dominated by independent and talented women who were conquering the world. When I actually started to work in an architecture office, reality proved to be a little different. I was the only woman in the company and from my experience, respect came from hard work, believing in myself, and treating my colleagues as equals.”

Ana’s research focuses on strategies to increase resilience and bring about social inclusion in urban coastal settings. As a graduate assistant in the LSU Coastal Sustainability Studio, Orosco explored these strategies and was exposed to design thinking at work in an interdisciplinary environment.

“The intersection of architecture and urban coastal planning is a specialty in the discipline that will allow me to use the set of skills I have been developing throughout the years while providing constant room for growth and improvement,” Ana shared.

For the 2016–17 academic year, AAUW awarded a total of $3.7 million to more than 230 scholars, research projects, and programs promoting education and equity for women and girls through six fellowships and grants. Established in 1970 with a $25,000 grant from the Max C. Fleischmann Foundation, AAUW Selected Professions Fellowships originally focused on opening doors for women in the male-dominated fields of law and medicine. The program has since expanded to include science and technology because, while the demand for a technologically skilled workforce has grown, women remain underrepresented in these professions.

Former AAUW Selected Professions Fellows have made significant contributions to women’s lives in many areas, from mass-producing a low-cost incubator for infants in the developing world to researching new ways to detect breast cancer.

“AAUW is in the business of making sure that no doors are closed to women and girls, because we know that true innovation can only happen when everyone has a place at the table. We are proud to support women’s entry into underrepresented professions that will ultimately benefit society as whole,” said Gloria Blackwell, AAUW vice president of fellowships, grants, and global programs.

AAUW is one of the world’s leading supporters of graduate women’s education, having awarded more than $100 million in fellowships, grants, and awards to 12,000 women from more than 140 countries since 1888. To find out more about this year’s exceptional class of awardees, visit the online directory and read AAUW’s announcement. To reach an award recipient, call 202.728.7602 or e-mail fellowships@aauw.org.

About AAUW

The American Association of University Women (AAUW) empowers women and girls through advocacy, education, philanthropy, and research. Our nonpartisan, nonprofit organization has more than 170,000 members and supporters across the United States, as well as 1,000 local branches and more than 800 college and university partners. Since AAUW’s founding in 1881, our members have examined and taken positions on the fundamental issues of the day — educational, social, economic, and political. Learn more and join us at www.aauw.org.

About LSU’s Master of Architecture Program

The LSU School of Architecture graduate program focuses on engaging students and faculty who share interests in design and the built environment. The backbone of the Master of Architecture program is the design studio, where students engage in the design education process. The graduate program integrates innovative design with technical, social, and practical concerns to address complex global conditions. Courses and studios focused on history, theory, sustainability, digital media, and community design provide the knowledge to concentrate on solving real-life problems in the built environment. Studio projects focus on spatial design, Louisiana coastal issues, and community design efforts. For more information, visit architecture.lsu.edu.

 

Art History Professor Darius A. Spieth To Publish Two Books on Art Markets

Art & Design, Research, Publications, Art History, Art, Faculty, ,

darius spiethThis summer, LSU Art History Professor Darius A. Spieth had the rare pleasure of signing, within a few days, two separate book contracts with renowned international academic presses. Brill, located in Leiden, The Netherlands, will publish his single-authored study, Revolutionary Paris and the Market for Netherlandish Art, while Oxford University Press in New York recruited Spieth as general editor for its Grove Guide to Art Markets and Collecting. Both books will appear in 2017 and will highlight distinct aspects of Spieth’s expertise as an internationally recognized authority for the study of art markets and their history.

brillRevolutionary Paris and the Market for Netherlandish Art will be divided into five chapters analyzing developments affecting the taste, market, and circulation of Flemish and Dutch artworks of the “Golden Age” in Paris between roughly 1770 and 1830. These artworks were produced about a century and a half prior to the era of the French Revolution. The study is based largely on archival research and data gathered from extant French auction catalogues dating to the turn of the 19th century. The first chapter will retrace the rise and fall of the French infatuation with Netherlandish art from the age of Voltaire through the industrial age in France, thus taking a longer view of the phenomenon. Chapter two is based on a close analysis of the business papers and auction catalogues written by Jean-Baptiste Pierre Lebrun, the husband of the famous Mme

Brill

Brill, Leiden, The Netherlands

Vigée-Lebrun, painter to Queen Marie-Antoinette. Jean-Baptiste Pierre Lebrun was a leading tastemaker for northern art before, during, and after the Revolution. The vicissitudes of Lebrun’s career as an art dealer were also closely interwoven with the establishment of the Louvre as the first modern art museum. The French Revolution, thanks to the introduction of inflationary paper money, triggered a massive exodus of old master paintings from France to Great Britain. Chapter three will use the example of the dispersal, in London, of the Netherlandish works from the collection of the Duke of Orléans as a case study for this phenomenon. Another chapter is quantitatively driven and measures the price shock of the French Revolution on the Parisian art market, using a representative sample of some 50 Dutch and Flemish artists, whose price fluctuations are traced from the age of Louis XVI through that of the July Monarchy. Special attention is given to the issue of government confiscations of leading aristocratic collections during the heyday of the Revolution. The book will conclude with a look at how the Enlightenment shaped first the growing demand for Netherlandish art in France and how this taste then migrated from the aristocracy to the bourgeoisie. As the collector base widened with the economic, demographic, and urban expansion after the Revolution, so did the demand for imitations and forgeries of original 17th-century Dutch and Flemish works. In Spieth’s book, the rise and fall of this fashion is therefore retraced not only from a financial but also from a sociological perspective. Published in Brill’s Studies in the History of Collecting and Art Markets series, Spieth’s Revolutionary Paris and the Market for Netherlandish Art will be about 500 pages long and will contain about 170 illustrations, in addition to a small number of graphs and charts.

oxford university pressSince 2014, Spieth has been the subject editor for Art Markets, Law, and Economics of the Grove Dictionary of Art, published by Oxford University Press. The appointment came about after Spieth co-organized the “Art, Mind & Markets Conference” at the International Center for Finance at Yale University that same year. Over the last months, he was busy identifying hundreds of authors for Oxford University Press. He defined, commissioned, and edited numerous new entries and advised on the revision of an even larger pool of existing subject categories. So far, these entries have appeared as part of the Grove Online Dictionary of Art, a leading reference tool for art historical research worldwide. Spieth has now signed a contract with Oxford University Press for the print version dedicated to this subject, which is anticipated to appear under the title The Grove Guide to Art Markets and Collecting. As such, it will be part of the prestigious Grove series of dictionaries and guidebooks in the arts. The volume will bring together the expertise of hundreds of leading specialists and scholars in the field, scattered across the globe. In fact, it will be the very first dictionary dedicated to art market research, which is a growing field within the discipline of art history. The Grove Guide to Art Markets and Collecting will not only find its place as a standard reference in libraries, museums, and research institutions around the world, but it can also be used as a companion volume for the growing number of classes taught on the subject of the functioning and nature of art markets then and now.

Spieth’s collaborator, Alodie Larson, editor of the Grove Dictionary of Art / Oxford Art Online in New York, commented, “It has been a privilege to work with Professor Spieth to update and expand the coverage of art markets in the Grove Dictionary of Art. Under his guidance, important new scholarship on art markets, law, and collecting has reached specialists around the world through Oxford Art Online, and we look forward to publishing this material in a print volume in the near future.”

Painting by MFA Candidate Justin Bryant Featured in ASC’s Permanent Collection

Art & Design, Students, Community Outreach, Art, Painting & Drawing, Exhibitions, ,
All the King's Men, tryptic painting justin bryant

All the King’s Men by Justin Bryant is featured in the Arts & Science Center for Southeast Arkansas’s permanent collection.

Artwork by LSU MFA candidate Justin Bryant is featured in an exhibition and catalog titled Here.: African American Art from the Permanent Collection, on display at the Arts & Science Center for Southeast Arkansas in Pine Bluff.

justin bryant

Justin Bryant, LSU MFA candidate

The exhibition features work from the Harlem Renaissance and Black Arts Movement and contemporary works by nationally renowned African American artists and acclaimed faculty and students from the University of Arkansas. The exhibition, sponsored by Simmons Bank, “focuses on these artists’ experiences here in America, here in the South, here in Arkansas, and here in Pine Bluff.” The catalog, published on the occasion of the exhibition, includes scholarly essays related to the permanent collection of African American art. The exhibition will be on display at the Arts & Science Center through October 15, 2016.

Bryant’s featured work, All the King’s Men, a watercolor triptych, is from a series of paintings that deal with plantations and architecture built by slaves, depicting contemporary African American figures crowned with buildings or architectural elements.

“I arrange and reimagine these people and structures in the way I want them to be seen, allowing the person viewing the work to do the same,” stated Bryant. “By claiming these buildings, I want to spark a conversation about how they were created. Hopefully, this creates a form of welcome to spaces that were not historically available to African Americans, positioning the work through a form of pride instead of fear.”

Bryant said the series was inspired by Langston Hughes’ poem, “Negro,” in which Hughes illustrates the behind-the-scenes work of the “negro” from ancient Egypt to what was then the 1920s. “Since I didn’t live during the time of slavery or Langston Hughes, I try to approach the past through a more contemporary framework,” explained Bryant. “Therefore, part of the subject matter is about looking back and creating a visceral experience that best illustrates a present state of being.” He also drew inspiration from Carrie Mae Weems’ Roaming and Africa series. “In these two bodies of work, Weems questions the power of structure that is in place. Through her photographs, she is visually describing how buildings are an affirmation of the social structure.”

Bryant is excited to be included in the exhibition and catalog. “It sounds cliché, but what got me interested is the Arts & Science Center’s involvement with the community. A lot of school kids come in, and I remember being a kid and going to a museum, how that experience influences you and inspires you to make art. But not everyone has access to museums, especially in rural areas.”

Originally from Stuttgart, Arkansas, Bryant lived in Little Rock for eight years before coming to LSU to pursue his MFA. He received his BFA in studio art from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and he mentored and taught youth from underserved communities in after school programs for Art Connection, now The Hub, a nonprofit organization based on the Boston Artists for Humanity program.

Bryant is teaching at the Little Rock Arkansas Center and Stuttgart Art Center this summer, and he plans to continue teaching and working with youth from underserved communities after he receives his MFA. He is currently creating work based on similar themes for his first solo show, to be exhibited in spring 2017 at the Arts & Science Center for Southeast Arkansas.

Read more about the Arts & Science Center for Southeast Arkansas at asc701.org, and the exhibition was featured in an article published by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette at arkansasonline.com/news/2016/may/29/find-of-a-lifetime-20160529.