#inform-video-player-1 .inform-embed { margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 20px; }
#inform-video-player-2 .inform-embed { margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 20px; }
PITTSBURG, Kan. — Several art exhibits, displays and activities are planned this month by the Pittsburg State University art department in Porter Hall, 202 E. Cleveland Ave. All are free and open to the public.
• This year’s faculty exhibit is called “Process.” It dives into the techniques that artists use to complete their work.
• A reception is planned from 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday in the Harry Krug Gallery to highlight the work of visual artist Jo-Ann Morgan, whose “Cotton Collages: Remembering the Innocent” will come to a close. A lecture is planned by the artist at 5:30 p.m.
“I consider artmaking to be a form of activism,” she said in a statement. “’Cotton Collages: Remembering the Innocent’ is presented in remembrance of people who, through circumstances not of their own intentions, became victims of senseless violence.”
Morgan is professor emeritus of African American studies and art history at Western Illinois University, and author of “The Black Arts Movement and the Black Panther Party in American Visual Culture.” Her book “Uncle Tom’s Cabin as Visual Culture” won the Seaborg Award for Civil War Scholarship in 2008.
Since 2020, Morgan has been a full-time fiber artist, creating stitched fabric wall hangings on themes related to social justice and gun violence.
“My most recent work is a series that brings attention to the mass shooting of 19 children at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas,” she said. “These quilted memorials are individualized portraits but they are also meant to be universal. They celebrate the short lives of the 10-year-old victims and are meant to evoke our collective outrage.”
• The exhibit “Family Secrets: The Storytelling Art of Steve Head” will open Monday in the Harry Krug Gallery in Porter Hall and will run through Jan. 18. An opening reception will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. Tuesday, with a lecture by the artist starting at 5:30 p.m.
Head, an award-winning artist and photographer living in Southwest Missouri, became a professional artist at age 59.
“I try to convey on canvas or in print the scars that remain on my own heart from the past,” he said in a statement. “In doing so, I have found many, many people who relate, appreciate and personally connect to the stories I tell through my art.”
• Under the direction of ceramics instructor Mayumi Kiefer, local artists and members of the public may join in the making of clay bowls from 4 to 6 p.m. Friday in the ceramics studio in Porter Hall. No experience is required.
Participants may wheel-throw or hand-build bowls, which will be donated to the First United Methodist Church for its Empty Bowls project. The bowls will be sold as a fundraiser, and all proceeds will go to the Wesley House food pantry.
• A reception will be held from 4 to 6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 30, to spotlight the student art showcase, a juried exhibit for Pitt State art majors.
#inform-video-player-3 .inform-embed { margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 20px; }