School of Art and Design invites students, public to its spirited Open Studios event
IU Bloomington art students and their guests will create a collaborative mural Oct. 28 at the annual Open Studios event. Here is how the 2015 painting turned out.
On Friday, Oct. 28, the Department of Studio Art will present a night of crafts, exhibitions, interactive art-making, pumpkins and prizes.
The free Open Studios event is designed to be an entertaining way for current students — and potential ones — to learn about classes and programs offered in the School of Art and Design, a part of the College of Arts and Sciences at IU Bloomington.
“Cheese!” Photo booths are part of the Open Studios fun at the School of Art and Design.
It’s also a night when members of the public can observe artistry in action and everyone can partake in fall fun at four buildings on the Indiana University campus.
Guests should begin their tour at the Friends of Art Bookshop on the first floor of the Fine Arts Building, where maps and punch cards are available. If visitors get their cards punched at all of the activity areas, they can win prizes in a random drawing.
Here’s a look at the participating art haunts on campus, and a sample of the Halloween treats they have in store:
The Fine Arts Building, 1201 E. Seventh St.
From 6 to 8 p.m., activities are planned throughout the building, including a photo booth where people can pose with props or show off their costumes.
Visitors can carve pumpkins, make buttons, create letterpress prints, try natural dyes, stamp metal keychains or participate in a stop-motion video. In addition, people can add to a Post-It Note mural or find sweet inspiration with abstract candy painting.
Jiangmei Wu, Susanne Ressl and Kyle Overton created “Light Harvest” for the “(Re)Imagining Science” exhibition.
Students from the Department of Apparel Merchandising and Interior Design, now in the School of Art and Design, will be on hand to share information about their student organizations.
At the Grunwald Gallery, guests can experience the “(Re)Imagining Science” exhibition, which runs through Nov. 16.
“(Re)Imagining Science” paired some of IU’s top researchers with professors and instructors from the School of Art and Design. Their projects illustrate aspects of science through sculptures, photographs, multimedia pieces and installations that resulted from those creative collaborations.
Central Stores Art Annex, 1026 E. 11th St.
The IU home of ceramics and printmaking will be open from 7 to 9 p.m. Along with potter’s wheel demonstrations, a “celebrity” photo booth is planned. Guests even will have the chance to print chocolate sauce onto crêpes.
Mugs, posters, prints and handmade books also will be available for sale.
IU Press Warehouse Painting Studios, 802 E. 13th St.
The painting studio building will be open from 7 to 9 p.m., offering live music and the opportunity to help paint an abstract mural.
The process of building up paint layer by layer, like in the collaborative mural, is something familiar to MFA painter Mitchell Raney. In a video from the Office of the Provost, posted below, Raney is captured at work on a painting he titled “I’ve Fallen Through.”
Studio visitors will have the chance to see individual work by Raney and the other MFA painters.
McCalla, 525 E. Ninth St.
The evening will culminate at McCalla, a former school building that’s just a little spooky.
From 8 to 10 p.m., the studios of sculpture students will be open to the public. At 9:15 p.m., guests who visited all of the activity areas can enter their completed punch cards in a drawing for prizes.
One of the art activities at the Fine Arts Building involves dyeing textiles with natural dyes.
One of the other highlights at McCalla will be an opening reception for the Fuller Projects show “Reimagining the Family Album,” curated by graduate students Kelly Webeck, Sara Fahling and Jenny Stopher.
For one night only, viewers can experience the concept of the family album as it is presented through photography, ceramics, painting, metals, sculpture and digital art.
“All of the work references old family photographs,” Webeck said.
Once the show closes, and the annual Open Studio event draws to an end, the creators and the costumed will disperse into the night.
In the end, it’s about something more than pumpkins and prizes.
Students, staff and faculty in the School of Art and Design will have pulled together to celebrate art with the public. And on this grand night, all the guests have a chance to take home a few goodies — and a lot of inspiration.
Tags: Department of Apparel Merchandising and Interior Design, Department of Studio Art, Fine Arts Building, Friends of Art Bookshop, Fuller Projects, McCalla, Mitchell Raney, open studios, School of Art and Design
