Visual Arts Club Returns

BY VERONICA STRICKLER
OCT. 9, 2007

Amor vincit omnia.

It means “love conquers all” -- and it’s not just the title of the classic Vermeer painting, it is a personal maxim for the few devoted students and faculty members who are spearheading a resurgence of the Miami University Visual Arts Club.

After about 10 years of inactivity, the Visual Arts Club is back from the dead. It has been an uphill battle since resuming regular meetings last year, but the group is finally gaining steam. With plans for several major on campus events, upcoming out-of-state trips, and plans to reach out to students of all disciplines in place the Visual Arts Club seems poised for a comeback.

Faculty advisor and Miami graduate Matthew Litteken has been instrumental in breathing new life into the organization he loved as a student. Despite the difficulties of reinvigorating and reinventing the group, his enthusiasm for the cause remains unwavering.

“I think one of the things that is important with the Visual Arts Club is that there was a period where it was really strong here years back,” Litteken said. “And then 10 years prior to last year it just kind of fizzled out. So, last year students were asking about it. Last year was the inaugural re-vamping or re-surfacing of the Visual Arts Club. It was a rocky year. So, once we figured that out it became too late for us to really dive in to things. So, we are hitting it pretty hard at the beginning of this semester.”

The club’s many plans for the semester include a contest to design a t-shirt logo for the VAC, with the prize is a $50 gift certificate to Bill’s Art Store for the winning design, the launching of a monthly art “zine” which would be open to submissions of visual work from students of all disciplines; trips to an array of Cincinnati art galleries; and the creation of a club web site linked to the Art Department home page, Litteken and the club officers are taking promotion and growth of the club to heart.

“Right now, we don’t have too much attendance at meetings,” said Visual Arts Club President Andrea Lohse, “but there are a lot of people interested in events that we’re planning - so that’s really important for us. Just advertising and getting people involved.”

One on-campus event for which Lohse anticipates great student interest is this month’s VAC-sponsored visit of the Drive-By Press. Formed by artists Gregory Nanney and Joseph Velasquez, Drive-By Press tours the country giving lectures and demonstrations on print making, etching and lithography – all out of the back of a van. The spontaneous nature of the group seems perfectly suited to college students looking for new outlets for their creativity.

“They’ll probably park in one of the parking lots in the Shriver [Center] area and just do prints out of the back of their van,” Lohse said. “It’ll be a great learning experience for people who haven’t done printing things, and it’ll be great to see because I think it might attract other students from outside art majors. It’ll be good to get our name out there.”

VAC also anticipates a strong response to its Nov. 2 trip to Chicago. Though there is only a tentative itinerary in place, main purpose of the trip is to visit the 14th annual international exposition of Sculpture Objects & Functional Art ( “SOFA”) at Chicago’s Navy Pier Festival Hall, as well the 2007 Graduate Student Portfolio Days seminar at the Art Institute of Chicago.

While the trip is geared toward art majors, it is open to all, Lohse said.

“We’ve got some people from the music department, the architecture department, 2-D students, 3-D students, some graduate students and some undergrads all going,” Lohse said. “So it’s really interdisciplinary within the school. It’ll be really nice to have that diversity.”

The emphasis on getting students from different disciplines involved in activities is an integral part of the Visual Arts Club’s mission statement.

“I really like seeing people getting involved in the arts,” Lohse said. “It’s really cool that we stared this project up. It’s bringing so many opportunities to students in the Art Department and School of Fine Arts.”
For many students the appeal of the Visual Arts Club might not be lofty aesthetic dreams or high-brow exhibitions. Lohse believes it can be explained in two simple words: cabin fever.

“ It’s nice that we can get funding from Miami to go on these trips to Chicago and to the SOFA exhibition, and go to Cincinnati and do the galleries and Art Museum,” she said. “Oxford is so small, there really isn’t much here. It’s nice to be able to have opportunities outside of campus and make people aware of what’s going on. You need that outside influence sometimes.”