Catch up with the news about the UNT College of Visual Arts and Design newsmakers.

Click on a link below to find a news brief about the program of your choice. To share your news, please email CVAD.Marketing@unt.edu.

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Academic and Student Affairs

Office of the Associate Dean for Academic & Student Affairs

July 17, 2024: The new UNT Centralized Application System, GradCAS, was launched on the Toulouse Graduate School website and is available for prospective graduate students applying for Summer 2025 or Fall 2025. Graduate school applicants for Fall 2024 and Spring 2025 will still use ApplyTexas.

Advising, Undergraduate — Milnes Advising Center

Erin Donahoe-Rankin received the 2024 UNT UCAN Advising Administrator Award from the Office of the Provost! Peers submitted nominations, and the award was presented at the UNT advising retreat on May 7. 

Art Education

July 2024, Alumna News: Christina Donaldson, 2024, Ph.D., 2024 and visiting assistant professor in IADS, won the Toulouse Dissertation Award in the Social Science Field. The title of her dissertation is “Disorientation, Resistance, and Resilience: An Exploration of the Lived, Embodied Experiences of Resilience of Female-Identifying Graduate Students in a Design-Related Program.”

July 1, 2024: Nadine Kalin, professor, and co-editor Rebekah Modrak, professor, University of Michigan, published their book "Trouble in Censorville: The Far Right's Assault on Public Education – and the Teachers Who Are Fighting Back" with support from the Onstead Institute. Read more. 

Art History

August 2024: Jennifer Way, professor of Art History, participated in t the CAA conference in Chicago; she presented a paper titled “Extractive Craft in America's Ecology of the Free World ca 1960” during the U.S. Imperialism, Extraction, and Ecocritical Art Histories session. Her presentation analyzed how the American State Department used visual tropes of autochthony to symbolically connect refugee artisans in South Vietnam with their craft materials, thereby justifying the U.S. extraction of these crafts and materials for consumption in the Free World. She also discussed the contradictions in how refugee belonging was managed in South Vietnam.

August 2024: Nada Shabout, professor of Art History, is featured in a recent book chapter titled "Nada Shabout—The Challenge of Visual Literacy in Modern and Contemporary Arab Art."

August 2024: Assistant Professor Carey Gibbons was awarded a UNT Special Collections Coursework Development Grant for the capstone class, Art History Senior Seminar, ARTH 4848.

Aug. 1, 2024, Alumna News: Tania Kolarik, M.A., 2015, Art History, has co-curated the upcoming exhibition "Material Muses: Medieval Devotional Culture and its Afterlives" at the Haggerty Museum of Art on the campus of Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI. The exhibition will be open August 23–December 21, 2024, and you can find more information on the Haggerty Museum web page. Kolarik co-curated the exhibition with fellow University of Wisconsin–Madison Art History Ph.D. Candidates Abby Armstrong Check and Claire Kilgore. 

June 15, 2024: Jennifer Way, professor of Art History, presented a paper titled “Weaving to Heal: Questions of Masculinity and Craft Therapy for U.S. WWI Troops and Veterans” at the Design History Society's online symposium, "Textiles and Masculinities," which originated from Glasgow, Scotland. This presentation examined how textile and fiber craft projects used in the rehabilitation of veterans resonated with contemporary American and European ideas about masculinity, ableism, and disability. It also addressed related concerns about gender in vanguard textile manufacturing in the U.S. and Europe.

May 6, 2024: Nada Shabout, professor of Art History, lectured about Jewad Selim and the Baghdad Group for Modern Art as part of the Comini Lecture Series at Southern Methodist University, Dallas.

April 2024: Nada Shabout, professor of Art History, co-organized and moderated two sessions of The Generative Archive: Research, Methods, And Practices, al Mawrid Arab Center for the Study of Art, NYUAD, April 19 - 20. The symposium's aims emerge from a combination of practical and conceptual challenges involved in archival work – particularly around Arab art histories in a global context – in the twenty-first century. Specifically, participants in the symposium explore a set of interrelated queries about archive uses for pedagogy and communal memory as well as research. What needs might archives be able to fulfill for families, communities, and other users of archives outside the narrow confines of academia? What does a collaborative archive look like? What do digital environments enable, and what do they foreclose?

Katherine Santos, 2021, B.A., Art History; 2023, M.A., Art History, has accepted a two-year fellowship at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Starting in July, as the Fine Arts Library Diversity Fellow for Indigenous Art, Santos will assist with collection development, research, and programming.  

Design Department  

Communication Design

August: Whitney Holden, lecturer in Communication Design, won a Silver Award in the prestigious competition Graphis Design 2025 and a Bronze Bulb at The Fifty-Fifth Dallas Show and was accepted into Creative Quarterly Issue No. 76 with her collage illustration series "Autism: The Invisible Spectrum" and will be published in the 2024 annual. Whitney’s illustrations will also be featured in "Autos," a book highlighting autism and creativity.

June: Seven graphic design students win PRINT 2024 awards. Read more on Instagram.

May: Graphic Design USA recognized the UNT College of Visual Arts and Design as a "2024 Top Design School" in the nation for the third consecutive year.

Interior Design  

Assistant Professor Jeannine Vail and Associate Professor Johnnie Stark received the We Mean Green Grant for the AWARE-A Lighting Installation on Sustainability. The grant will fund the installation of the AWARE project at CVAD on the second floor outside of the ART 265 classroom, which will include an unveiling ceremony.

Jeannine Vail, assistant professor of Interior Design, prepared her students in a lighting design course to submit design outcomes for completion. Jessica Truong, majoring in Interdisciplinary Arts and Design Studies, won a Citation Award for Innovative Concept and $500 from the national Robert Bruce Thompson Annual Student Light Fixture Design Competition. Over 100 entries were submitted by various institutions, presenting seven awards. The students had to design a light fixture for a pediatric waiting room.  

May 2024, Alumnus News: The Lamar Johnson Collaborative, based in Chicago, has promoted CVAD alum Lance Yeary, IIDA, LEED AP, to Principal. Yeary, 1996, B.F.A., Interior Design, designs compelling interior environments for corporate, hospitality, and multi-family settings. He collaborates with clients to infuse innovative solutions with their distinct visions, resulting in functional and user-centric spaces. 

January 2024: Jeannine Vail, assistant professor in the Interior Design program, was recently interviewed by Corgan, reflecting on the five-year project from 2014 to 2019, following the completion of the UNT Art Building's renovation and new construction in an article titled "A Retrospective: The Evolution of an Arts Center." The four-story building has emerged as a transformative asset for the UNT campus. It serves as the art, design, and scholarship center, consistently serving as a venue for showcasing student work and launching creative careers. Additionally, it has become a catalyst for inspiring creativity and excitement, fostering community involvement, and promoting collaborative efforts between students and faculty.  

Fashion Design  

Assistant Professor Barbara Trippeer led the initiative and event participation for the Sustainable Design for Healthy Communities at the Greater Denton Arts Council. The event welcomed the Fashion Design Program for an interactive workshop. The Noir 6 group of Fashion Design students who grew out of the UNMT Black Student Union participated in the event. Two hundred attendees from all walks of life and all ages were invited to participate in co-creating a garment with a range of colorful appliques, embroidery, and fabric markers to embellish and add personal touches. The finished piece will become a part of the GDAC permanent collection as part of its history of connection with the local community. The event was sponsored by Singer Sewing’s branch in Flower Mound, Texas, and the Denton Greater Arts Council. The Noir 6 fashion collective garments were exhibited with work from CVAD students in the drawing and painting, photography and printmaking concentrations.

Jeremy Bernardoni, assistant professor of Fashion Design, had a productive spring semester publishing, presenting and exhibiting. His manuscript Virtual Design Pedagogy: Understanding the Metaverse and Improving Creative Design Skills Using ZEPETO studio platform™ was published in the International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and Education. He also recently presented at the American Psychological Association: Society for the Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts on Maternal Influences on the Prime Aesthetic. In addition, he had two juried designs accepted into an exhibit of the Costume Society of America this summer in Washington D.C.: Zero Waste Design Method: Modern Edwardian Abstract and Zero Waste Design Method: Hollywood Golden Age Abstract.  

Foundations

July 2024: Valles Caldera National Preserve, Jemez Springs, New Mexico, has selected Rachel Black, principal lecturer and CVAD alum, as one of five artists for its inaugural artist-in-residence program during the 2024 summer season. During her residency, Black will apply design thinking to learn more about how art can function as a stewardship method. Read more.

An exhibition, “Between the Lines: A Dive into Sketchbook Realms,” by Foundations adjunct instructors Genevieve Armstrong, Francisco Alvarado Araujo, and Yuni Lee, has been selected for exhibition in the Paul Voertman Gallery for Fall 2024.

June 12–16, 2024: Yuni Lee, CVAD Foundations Adjunct, Solo Exhibit in CICA Museum, 3-A Gallery - Museum in Gimpo, South Korea. Lee's exhibition "Echoes of Color" explores the delicate balance between the familiar and the surreal; Lee turns to nature's paradigms—flowers, trees, leaves, fruit, and animals—and juxtaposes them with symbols of human achievements, such as architecture, circuitry, and modern technology. 

Meredith Cawley, lecturer in Foundations, has completed the Spring 2024 Certificate of Excellence for Teaching Online program, which resulted in a $1,500 professional development stipend and a CETO micro-credential. The CETO program, a hybrid professional development course offered by the UNT CLEAR faculty development team, part of the UNT Division of Digital Strategy and Innovation, is designed for UNT instructors who aim to incorporate inclusive, evidence-based teaching strategies into their online courses. 

Additionally, Cawley has been named one of UNT Special Collections 2024 Research Fellowships! This project seeks to leverage the UNT Special Collections’ Jim Marrs Archives to construct a speculative fiction narrative around bear conservation. With a 1,000 stipend, the proposed research will examine Marrs’ materials on UFOs and conspiracy theories to draw parallels with environmental stewardship and interspecies ethics. This interdisciplinary endeavor will culminate in a public presentation aiming to engage dialogue on biodiversity conservation through the prism of creative speculation.

Terry Davis, lead instructor and visual arts technician, and Binod Shrestha, director of the Foundations program, will showcase their research on AI as creative tools in the Foundations at the Cora Stafford Gallery this fall. The exhibition “Integrating AI in First-Year Visual Art and Design Education” will run in the Cora Stafford Gallery from Oct. 9 to Nov. 1, 2024. The exhibition will attempt to highlight the relevance and challenge of AI as a tool in art and design, and it aligns with the mission and vision of the CVAD Galleries. 

"Techstalgia: Echos From A Small Screen," an exhibition by Yuni Lee, an adjunct instructor in the Foundations Program, was hosted at the Women And Their Work in Austin, Texas. An exhibition catalog with text by Rachel Black, principal lecturer of the Foundations Program, is attached.  

Galleries

The UNT CVAD Galleries will host a robust iteration of the Texas Fashion Collection's "Labor of Luxury" exhibition from Oct.1, 2024, through Feb. 1, 2025. This project will feature over 30 ensembles from the TFC, including recent donations from private collectors and from the archive of ASHISH, a British-Indian designer who shows in Paris Fashion Week. 

Studio Art

Sept. 5: The Studio Art Department announces the start of a new Studio Art Faculty Lecture Series!  The intent is to facilitate the sharing of faculty and graduate research through traditional artist lectures and to build community among faculty, staff and grads. Typically, lectures will happen on the second Thursday of the month, with the first iteration scheduled for Sept. 12 at 5 p.m. in the New Media Art CAVE; the lecturer is Pecha Kuchas, a first-year grad student.

August 2024: Matthew Bourbon, professor of Studio Art: Drawing and Painting, was featured in an interview with "Patron Magazine" earlier this month: Matthew Bourbon’s Exploration of Sameness and Difference - Interview on Patron Magazine

Aug. 24–Sept. 28: Exhibition at Galleri Urbane: A pop-up exhibition in Gallery 2 featuring new work from Paho Mann, associate professor of photography, and his ongoing series, "Latent Constructions;"
Aug. 24: 5:30–7:30 p.m., artist in attendance

July 12–Aug. 11: "Complementary" exhibition, works by Professor Lari Gibbons and Emeritus CVAD Professor Jane Stidham, Georgetown Art Center Gallery, Georgetown, Texas; Artist Talk: July 13, 4–6 p.m.; Reception: July 14, 2 p.m. RSVP for the Opening Reception and Artist Talk on Facebook!

July 10: Congratulations to Veronica Ibargüengoitia Tena, graduate student, for being selected by "Sculpture Magazine" to receive the 2024 Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award! 

SRISA Gallery of Contemporary Art, Florence, Italy, will present an exhibition from May 24 to June 15, 2024, featuring drawings by Christian Fagerlund, CVAD lecturer in Drawing and Painting, and prints by Andrew DeCaen, associate professor of Printmaking. The gallery is located on the main studio art campus of the Santa Reparata International School of Art.

Sarah Zapata, B.F.A., 2011, Studio Art: Fibers, participated in a major group exhibition at the Barbican Centre in London. Alexa Pouzar, a fourth-year undergraduate Studio Art: Photography student, is a featured artist in the spring edition of “Modern Renaissance,” a premier international art magazine created by the Culturally Arts Collective. Jake Phillips, 2021, M.F.A. in Studio Art: Sculpture and visual arts technician for the Sculpture Lab, exhibited his artwork titled "The Show Must Go On; Giving Up is Not an Option," made of foam, epoxy, glitter, black glass enamel paint cast iron, resin, drag accessories and liquid gold, 36 x 15 x 12 inches. Chris Meerdo, assistant professor of Photography and New Media Art, has been published in the 2024 UNT Research Magazine.

The following students received the Surface Design Association Outstanding Student Awards nominated by various members of the CVAD faculty. The award's purpose is to carry out the Surface Design Association’s mission of supporting the field of textiles and fiber art by rewarding students' innovative work and providing exposure across SDA’s social media platforms.

Ricardo Estrada, B.F.A., 2023, Studio Art: New Media Art, was awarded a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant Award in Germany. The Fulbright U.S. Student Program recipients are selected based on their academic and professional achievement, service record, and leadership potential. 

Selected works from The Queer Birth Project, a collaborative initiative by Liss LaFleur, associate professor of Studio Art: New Media Art, and Katherine Sobering, associate professor of Sociology, are included in "Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood," at the Hayward Gallery in London curated by Hettie Judah, writer, author and art critic. This exhibition, featuring pieces by esteemed feminist artists such as Janine Antoni, Tracey Emin, Cath Opie, and Carrie Mae Weems, is set to tour the United Kingdom in 2024, with a book published worldwide by Thames & Hudson in 2025.

April 2024: Marley McMillan, a Studio Art: Photography student, received an Artist Grant from the Dallas Museum of Art. He received funding from the Arch and Anne Giles Kimbrough Fund for his project called "Yesterday Never Existed." Marley explains, “This project is about time and change and how once something is gone, it can't come back. The title is a bit ironic because photography captures moments and preserves them for as long as people want to look at them. But those pictures aren't the moments themselves; they are just copies of things that have disappeared. No one can go back, relive a moment, or make a different choice, but I still think about what could have been, tormenting myself with memories. I want this project to explore the pain that comes from the past, a pain that might have been as brief as the moment that caused it.” The Dallas Museum of Art financially supports new and established artists each year in Texas and the U.S. Southwest. 

Texas Fashion Collection

Sept. 6: The TFC welcomes two Onstead Graduate Fellows for the 2024-2025 school year! Isabel Saldivar and Jesi Worthey are Art History program students working toward their Graduate Certificates in Art Museum Education. Library Sciences graduate student Lukas Najera is joining us as a graduate intern for the fall semester. 

April 8: "Labor of Luxury: The Art of Embroidery from India to the World" is on view at NorthPark Center, near the Nordstrom Court, through May 19. The project features 15 ensembles from the TFC's permanent collection, all with beading, embroidery, and surface design executed by artisans in India. A more robust iteration of "Labor of Luxury: Embroidery from India to the World" will be hosted by the UNT CVAD Galleries from Oct.1, 2024, through Feb. 1, 2025. This project will feature over 30 ensembles from the TFC, including recent donations from private collectors and from the archive of ASHISH, a British-Indian designer who shows in Paris Fashion Week. 
 
June 1–Aug. 24: the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden will display eight floral ensembles from the TFC and the "Endless Summer" exhibition.
 
June 1–Sept. 15: "Tongue in Chic: The Humor and High Fashion of Todd Oldham" will be on view at the Tyler Museum of Art. Hosted by the Tyler Museum, the project will feature 17 ensembles and dozens of accessories by the Texan designer, with materials from the Texas Fashion Collection and the Todd Oldham Studio archives.
 
The TFC hosted three interns this spring semester: Isabel Saldivar, an Art History graduate student; Bella DuBose, a Studio Art: Painting/Drawing and Fashion Design undergraduate student, who currently has a pop-up exhibition on view in the TFC Westheimer Research Gallery in Art Building, Room 259; and Gabby Goldstein, Central Saint Martins Fashion Theory and History undergraduate student. Goldstein will install a pop-up exhibition next week, which will be on view through May in the TFC Westheimer Research Gallery. 
 
This summer, the TFC will host four interns: Heather Breslin, a UNT History graduate student; Naya Oswalt, a UNT History undergraduate student; Corrina Wright, a UNT Library science graduate student; and Ainsley Imparato, a Smith College undergraduate student. The TFC will also host a student from UNT Upward Bound.
 
The TFC will host one intern in the fall: Lukas Najera, a UNT library science graduate student. Next year, with support from the Onstead Institute, the TFC will host two Art History graduate fellows: Isabel Saldivar and Jessica Worthey.
 
Since the start of the calendar year, the TFC has served over 1,700 researchers through research appointments and tours. Over 1,100 images of TFC activities have been made publicly available through the UNT Library Archives and the Keeper App.
 
Under the leadership of TFC Collection Manager Ailie Pankonien and with grant support from the Heart of Neiman Marcus Foundation, collection digitization is nearing the halfway point, with over 60,000 images representing almost 9,500 artifacts.
 
Annette Becker, TFC director, has been accepted to present at the following three professional conferences.

• Society of Southwest Archivists, May 2024, panelist, “Birds of a Feather Flock Together in GLAMs (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums),”
• Costume Society of America, May 2024, research presenter, “Creativity or Industry: Framing American Fashion through the Coty Award,” and
• Colonial Williamsburg Symposium on Historical Dress, November 2024, research co-presenter, “Accessioning the Eighteenth Century: Situated Knowledges and Evaluating the Gentling Collection.” 

Onstead Institute

June 11, 2024: Sharon Ellen Youngblood (Oct. 16, 1959 – June 11, 2024) was an American playwright, author of short stories and novels, artist, and educator. Her works explored themes of identity, community, and resilience, giving voice to generations of young Black women. She worked as a senior administrative specialist at the Onstead Institute from January 2017 to March 2018.

June 2024: Peter B. Hyland, director of the Onstead Institute, accepted an appointment to the Greater Denton Arts Council's Board of Directors.  

Administrative Affairs 

Departmental Administrative Support Office

May: Congratulations to Angela Vanecek on receiving a 2024 UNT Star Performer Award! The UNT Star Performer Award program provides recognition and incentives, including paid leave, for benefits-eligible staff and faculty administrator members who have made outstanding contributions to the university's values. 

Marketing Office

Aug. 16, 2024: The new website under the Modern Campus® content management system was launched today, replacing the Drupal CMS version used by UNT since 2005.

May 2024: It’s official: the ADA Title II web and mobile accessibility regulations were published today in the Federal Register. Details are in the links below. They will be effective in June.

• Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability; Accessibility of Web Information and Services of State and Local Government Entities (Federal Register)
• Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability; Accessibility of Web Information and Services of State and Local Government Entities- Final rule- Civil Rights Division, DOJ (PDF)

Dean's Office

August 2024: The executive assistants at UNT honored Jenn Aglio's memory by gifting a magnolia tree, which was planted in the green space between the Physics and Art buildings on campus. A nearby plaque commemorates Jenn and references one of her favorite Tori Amos songs, “Sorta Fairytale.”

Visitors are invited to visit this serene spot and reflect.

Jenn's partner, Megan Morrissey, expressed her gratitude, saying, "Thank you so much for your (and CVAD’s) generosity, kindness, and compassion. Jenn’s loss still feels profound, especially as Quinn and I begin a new school year without her. But it brings us immense comfort to know we are surrounded by so much love and support."

June 2024: Dean Karen Hutzel accepted an appointment to the Greater Denton Arts Council's Board of Directors.