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Christopher Gannon, acquisitions technician at Gleeson Library, with his painting titled “Christus” at the 16th annual faculty and staff art show.
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USF’s Art Set
Clay, oil, and pastels were the materials used by some exhibitors at the 16th annual faculty and staff art show. Others, however, found house keys, magazine pastiche, or computer mother boards freeze-dried inside a fiberglass surfboard to be their media of choice.
However they expressed it, faculty and staff were unanimous in their use of ingenuity and nearly limitless sources of inspiration to create art work as diverse as their materials.
Else Tamayo, human resources manager of professional development and affirmative action, created “Imelda Slipper #7,331”—a spiky clay sculpture in the shape of a shoe. A hole at one end for the wearer’s toes is shaped like a fish’s mouth. Elahe Shahideh, who will be teaching a course this fall, used Mayan art as inspiration for her two-piece painting of complex geometric patterns and figures titled “Mayan Ball Players.” Patty Yancey, director of the arts and education collaborative at the School of Education, used glass, feathers, and baubles off old dance costumes to create a vivd “Carnaval” mosaic.
“I can look at this and chart my path, trace my past performances,” said Yancey, a dancer of Brazilian samba.
A total of 26 works, including photography, painting, sculpture, and pastiche are on display in the show, titled “Cultures and Community,” now through Feb. 24 in the Thacher Gallery.
Photographs of Mlabri schoolkids in Thailand by J.J. Thorp, director of residence life, hang opposite a photograph titled “Four Garages” by Scott Moules, program assistant for the Fromm Institute.
“All this talent,” marveled USF President Stephen A. Privett, S.J. as he studied each piece. “This is really something. This is amazing.”
Christopher Gannon, an acquisitions technician at the Gleeson Library/Geschke Center, unveiled one of his other talents—as a sketch artist specializing in likenesses of Jesus Christ.
One of his works, “Christus,” is on display. The pastel drawing on oatmeal paper was a surprise inspiration, Gannon said.
“I would sit down, in the mood for sketching,” Gannon said, who also sculpts and paints. “And soon after it struck me that these were the features of Jesus.”
Iconography of a different sort motivated Dale Johnston, creative director in university publications, to meld computer mother boards inside the body of a fiberglass surfboard for his “Californ-Icon.” The tiny channels and metal bits of a computer’s hard drive look like a tiny city frozen inside the surf board’s clear resin, which also sports painted flames, a Mickey Mouse insignia, and a surf leash made from a pair of Levi’s jeans.
“The iconography speaks of the plastic pop culture that has become so much of California,” said Johnston, who grew up in Southern California. “It’s a melding of six features of California pop culture including Disney, Levi’s, Silicon Valley, hot-rod décor, surfing, and music.”
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