1780 – The Official Blog of Transylvania University

1780 | The Official Blog of Transylvania University

Transylvania’s Morlan Gallery presents the senior thesis exhibition “3XD: Design, Displace, Daddy Issues” April 4-19

Work by Katelynn Ralston LEXINGTON, Ky.—Transylvania University’s six graduating art majors will showcase their work in a senior thesis exhibition titled “3XD: Design, Displace, Daddy Issues,” April 4-19 in the Morlan Gallery in the Mitchell Fine Arts Center. Artists Paul Michael Brown, Rachel Kimbrough, Meredith Mullican, Katelynn Ralston, Emily Shirley and Amanda Skinner, working in a wide range of media, decided to pair their work according to theme, thus the three exhibition subtitles: design, displace, and daddy issues. Mullican and Skinner created work concerned with design, specifically the process involved in interior design and environmentally and socially sustainable architecture. Kimbrough and Shirley address the social issues of introverted personality and consumption of idealized feminine youth through notions of displacement. Brown and Ralston elaborate on the complexities of queerness, in both the private and the political, while playing with emotional distance or ‘daddy issues.’ The public is invited to celebrate the accomplishments of the six seniors at the opening reception for the artists on Thursday, April 4, from 5-8 p.m. The art majors will give presentations in the Morlan Gallery on Tuesday, April 9, from 12:30-1:20 p.m. The exhibition concludes with the Lexington Gallery Hop on Friday, April 19, from 5-8 p.m. The Morlan Gallery’s regular hours are noon-5 p.m. weekdays. For more information, contact Andrea Fisher, gallery director, at (859) 233-8142, or afisher@transy.edu.

Eric Stoller, higher education thought leader, to present at Transylvania Monday, April 8; free and open to the public

LEXINGTON, Ky.—Eric Stoller, higher education thought leader, consultant and writer will present Monday, April 8, at 7:30 p.m. in Haggin Auditorium in the Mitchell Fine Arts Center. The talk is free and open to the public. Titled “Our Shared Future: Digital Identity, Leadership, and Your Career,” his presentation will focus on social media and teaching students about digital identity development. Stoller is a former academic advisor and web coordinator for the College of Health and Human Sciences at Oregon State University. He served previously as a marketing specialist for student affairs at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has more than 10 years of experience in higher education and student affairs and has been blogging for more than eight years. For more information about Stoller, visit his blog.

Poet Maurice Manning will give reading at Transylvania April 1 at 7:30 p.m.

LEXINGTON, Ky.—Poet Maurice Manning will read from a collection of his work, including his upcoming book “The Gone and the Going Away,” Monday, April 1, at 7:30 p.m. in Carrick Theater in the Mitchell Fine Arts Center. The event is free and open to the public. Manning, who has published four books of poetry, was recently selected as one of the judges for the National Book Award poetry prize, which was awarded in November. On a panel with four other judges, he helped select a winner for the poetry prize from 181 submissions. Manning’s most recent book, “The Common Man,” was one of three finalists for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. His first collection, “Lawrence Booth’s Book of Visions,” was selected for the 2000 Yale Series of Younger Poets. He has had his works in publications including The New Yorker, Washington Square, The Southern Review, Poetry, Shenandoah, and The Virginia Quarterly Review. Manning’s fifth book, “The Gone and the Going Away,” will be published in April. Manning joined the Transylvania faculty in September 2012 as an English professor and writer in residence. He also teaches in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, the Appalachian Writers Workshop, and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. The lecture is sponsored by the Delcamp Visiting Writer series. For more information, contact the public relations office at (859) 233-8120.

Filmmaker discusses documentary, "The Negro Baseball League: An American Legacy," Tuesday, Feb. 26; free and open to the public

LEXINGTON, Ky.—Wear your favorite baseball jersey and join the Transylvania University community for a night of concession refreshments and baseball history as filmmaker Byron Motley discusses his documentary, “The Negro Baseball League: An American Legacy,” which is scheduled to air on PBS in February 2014. The presentation, Tuesday, Feb. 26, at 7 p.m., in the William T. Young Campus Center is free and open to the public. It offers an insightful, educational and entertaining look at the histories and memories of the Negro Leagues. Motley is a singer, songwriter, filmmaker, lecturer, author and photographer. In 2007, he co-authored his father’s memoir, “Ruling Over Monarchs, Giants, and Stars: Umpiring in the Negro Leagues and Beyond.” His father, Bob Motley, is the only living umpire from the Negro Leagues. The talk is sponsored by the Transylvania University Athletics Department, the Creative Intelligence Lecture Series, and the offices of diversity and inclusion and student life. For more information, contact the public relations office at (859) 233-8120.

Morlan Gallery’s “Divine” exhibition opens Monday, Feb. 25, welcomes guest curator

LEXINGTON, Ky.—Opening Monday, Feb. 25, and running through Friday, March 22, at Transylvania University’s Morlan Gallery is “Divine Hybrids: Syncretic Visions of Sexuality and the Sacred.” The four-week exhibition features contemporary mixed-media art that contemplates life within a sexualized realm of the sacred, where figuration emerges in mixed imagery, taking after syncretic religions and mythologies born from historically decisive multicultural encounters. From emblematic figures of mestizaje, the idea of mixing races in Latin American cultures, to deities that embody combinations of Haitian voodoo with Hindu, Mayan, Catholic and other traditions, “Divine Hybrids” features the works of Mexican artist Claudia Dominguez, now based in North Carolina; Columbian artist Gabriela Jiménez; Jamaican-born artist Ebony G. Patterson and Lexington artists Diane Kahlo and Robert Morgan. Fernanda Negrete is the guest curator. Born in Mexico City, Negrete works on aesthetics and contemporary literature and art. She curated a series of exhibitions with artists from Colombia, Haiti, Mexico and the United States as the 2010-11 Art Fellow at the Big Red Barn Graduate and Professional Student Center at Cornell University, where she received her Ph.D. in romance studies in January 2012. Currently, she is a visiting assistant professor of French at Miami University of Ohio. Special events, all free and open to the public: Opening reception Thursday, Feb. 28 5-8 p.m. Morlan Gallery Art Talk: The Curator’s Perspective Monday, March 4 4:30-5:30 p.m. Morlan Gallery Fernanda Negrete will discuss the themes of “Divine Hybirds” and