After 39 years, EC’s Art Gallery is still hosting exhibitions for the public to appreciate.
Located on the southeast side of campus in the Art and Behavioral Sciences Building, it has hosted over 200 shows. The museum was built in 1971 as a visual arts laboratory for the art department, Art Gallery curator, Susanna Meiers, said.
The Gallery hosts a variety of exhibitions including sculptures, paintings, jewelry, photography and digital media. One of the most memorable pieces on exhibition was one that resembled a rainforest.
“[It] was a piece that was a forest built of wood on a platform,” Meiers said. “And the forest had an apparatus over it that had rain falling down from it, so it made a pool from the rain water. It was like coming into a rainforest whenever you stepped foot into the Gallery.”
The main structure still has the same architecture design as it had when it was first built. The Gallery was designed like a masterpiece, Meiers, said.
“It was built with a well-designed ceiling grid that is very flexible,” Meiers said. “It’s a steel grid that is bolted into the ceiling wall panels. They were built in a way that can be moved around for different exhibits.”
By adjusting the wall panels, the exhibition area’s size and shape can change into a formation suitable for the given exhibit.
The Gallery often hosts exhibitions of artwork from their faculty to honor them. The next exhibit will present pieces of pottery from the former head of the ceramics department, Neil Moss.
The Gallery also teaches students how to manage an art museum with the course “Art 34: Gallery Management and Artist Career Issues.” Students learn how to create a gallery and how to professionally present works of art, taught by art professor, Michael Miller.
Wesley Pacleb, art major, says that he was fortunate to have taken Miller’s class. The class, he said, helped him learn the proper etiquette for artists when they are speaking about their work.
Pacleb said he appreciates the Art Gallery.
“It’s quiet and you can be alone with your thoughts,” Pacleb said. “It’s a good inspiration for me, because there’s always good artists to see. I can come here and relax.”
