School of Art, Art History, and Design Newsletter | SAAHD students, faculty, and alumni create extraordinary art and scholarship. Our monthly newsletter will keep you up to date.
Please submit your news and images for consideration for a future newsletter. We'd love to share your accomplishments! | | | Ceramics hosted the Talavera Pottery Symposium in November. Attendees learned about the Mexican tradition of Talavera, its roots in Italian and Spanish Maiolica, and saw expert practitioners working side by side.
Javier Espinosa Mómox (MFA Ceramics student) presented the closing lecture, "Herencia means Heritage."
The symposium was funded by the Arts and Humanities Initiative Major Conference Grant and the Stanley Museum of Art.
@uiowaceramics | @vientorebelde | | Heather Steckler (MFA Printmaking student) and Harper Folsom (MFA UICB student) created the community art project and exhibition HOLD ON/LET GO at Public Space One. The project explored the intersection of memory, purpose, and the act of releasing the things we carry with us.
The installation focused on unusable or precious personal objects received from Iowa City community members, and the stories embedded within them. Learn more in the Daily Iowan.
heathersteckler.com | @heathersteckler | | | Suzanne Wright (Assistant Professor, Painting and Drawing) has a solo exhibition, The Alchemy of Equals, at Tappeto Volante Gallery in Brooklyn, NY until December 8.
Through this new body of work, Wright explores feminism reimagining historical, architectural, and spiritual symbols, calling for transformative perspectives on gender, power, and the alchemical potential within art.
suzannewrightstudio.com | @suzannewrightstudio | | T.J. Dedeaux-Norris (Area Head, Painting and Drawing) has a solo exhibition, Breach of Confidentiality, at Walter Maciel Gallery in Los Angeles until January 11.
Exploring institutional exploitation, Dedeaux-Norris grapples with the guilt and resentment that arise from feeling both victimized by and indebted to these systems.
mekajean.com | @tj_dedeaux_norris | | | Steve McGuire (Professor, Metal Arts) and Elizabeth McTernan (Visiting Assistant Professor, Painting and Drawing) received the International Programs Global Research Partnership Award for $10,000 to advance the SAAHD's emerging partnership with Bauhaus-Universität Weimar.
The partnership will involve annual faculty and student research exchanges, starting with McTernan's collaborative project Meandering River, which illuminates intricate ecological networks in Iowa City. This project will correspond with the "Wetland Ecosystem Services Workshop" at the Bauhaus, an artistic field laboratory that acts as a shared outdoor studio.
elizabethmcternan.com | @liz_mcternan | | Rachel Cox (Area Head, Photography) was selected by the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery for The Outwin 2025: American Portraiture Today, a major exhibition featuring juried selections from the museum’s Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition.
Cox's photograph from her series Portrait of a Woman was one of 35 portraits chosen from over 3,300 entries. The exhibition opens in Washington, DC in May 2025 and will travel to other national museums.
rachelcoxphotography.com | @rayraycox | | | Kuldeep Singh (MFA Painting and Intermedia 2015) is currently in The Brooklyn Artists Exhibition, which celebrates the Brooklyn Museum's 200th anniversary and highlights the borough’s remarkable creativity and diversity.
Singh is also in the international group show Light of Winter at Perrotin Gallery, NYC through December 21. Learn more about his varied inspirations and experiences in a recent interview with IMPULSE Magazine.
singhkuldeep.com | @kuldeepsingh19 | | Bruce Dorfman’s (BFA 1958) award-winning painting Hachimantaro (1963) is on view at the Norton Museum of Art. Designated for the museum while Dorfman was Resident Artist there, the painting went missing after the New York World's Fair and was found 57 years later. Read the full story here.
Dorfman is in the Smithsonian Archives of American Art and has taught at the Art Students League of New York since 1964.
brucedorfman.com | @brucedorfman | | | Ryan Braverman's (Art and Mechanical Engineering, 2024) handmade bicycle was selected for the Bespoked Catalog from the 2024 exhibition in Dresden, Germany.
Bespoked is Europe's largest juried handmade bike show, featuring makers and visionaries behind the best bicycles, components, and accessories in the world.
Braverman's travel to Germany was made possible by a generous gift from Peggy Paulsen dedicated to national and international exhibition of students in Art and Engineering.
ryanbraverman.com | | Samuel Johnson (MFA Ceramics 2005) is on the December 2024 cover of Ceramics Monthly, the largest-circulated publication dedicated to sharing ideas, discoveries, and information within the ceramic arts field.
Johnson is currently an Associate Professor of Art at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University in Central Minnesota. He serves on the Board of Directors of Artaxis.org.
samuel-johnson.com | @samueljohnsonpottery | |             | | | |