When Andrea Kraybill, a junior Art major, began working on the banner that was to be hung in chapel, she couldn’t quite grasp its theme of “making peace with God.” “One of the first images that came to mind,” says Kraybill, “was that of colors emerging from two hands. That transformed into birds—often a symbol of peace—in flight. I see the larger hand at the top as the hand of God, working in tandem with the hand of humans at the bottom of the banner.” Throughout the creative process, however, putting pattern and color to the vague and expansive concept...

By Sarah Rich • September 9, 2009 • Arts

The featured artist this week is Daniela Hernandez, a senior. Her self-portrait drawing is representative of more than just herself. “It represents the oppressed women of Mexico, and more specifically the indigenous women,” said Hernandez. The quotation that surrounds the portrait is from Subcomandante Marcos, a Chiapas guerrilla leader whose rebel fighters stand up against government discrimination and injustice towards indigenous people. “I use a dove to represent hope and ideas of peace,” Hernandez said. The quotation translates as: “Why is it necessary to kill and to die so that Ramona can come and you all can pay attention to...

By Ben Noll • April 15, 2009 • Arts

Although the college's campus art committee is only one year old, artistic changes to the offices and waiting areas in the Administration Building are already visible. The six-member committee is now looking to acquire artwork from various Study-Service Term locations. The purpose of the committee is to coordinate the display of art on campus in a manner consistent with the values and mission of the college, enhance the resources of art on campus and communicate the purposes and values of art. Although the idea of a campus art committee was thought of decades ago, it was not until John Blosser,...

By Alysha Landis • April 8, 2009 • News

This featured artist this week is Laura Harnish, a senior art major from Flanagan, Ill. Harnish’s oil paintings, as with “Agrey” pictured here, are on display along with the work of four other senior art majors in the Music Center’s Hershberger Art Gallery from now until April 15. Although drawing was her medium of choice until this year, Harnish became interested in the color possibilities of oil and canvas for her senior exhibit. “I love the depth that can be achieved through building layers of paint,” Harnish said. Harnish’s show draws on her time on the Tanzania Study-Service Term in...

By Ben Noll • April 8, 2009 • Arts

The featured artist this week is Whitney Philipps, a senior, and her oil painting “madonna not yet with child diptych.” The piece is part of the final senior art gallery of the year, which features the work of Philipps, Joanna Landis, Laura Harnish, Britta Albrecht, and Dirk Leichty, opening this weekend in the Music Center’s Hershberger Art Gallery. “There’s a lot of beautiful ‘madonna and child’ iconography,” said Philipps, an art major from Clinton, Ill. “I wanted to draw upon the conventions of that tradition to create something that complicated the story.” “For me, this piece is about Mary’s divinity...

By Ben Noll • April 1, 2009 • Arts

In 1976, Judy Wenig-Horswell was asked to temporarily fill in for Abner Hershberger who was taking a sabbatical leave from the art department. Wenig-Horswell has been teaching art at Goshen College ever since. Wenig-Horswell first heard about Goshen College when she began teaching high school art at Northridge High School in 1970. Three years later, Wenig-Horswell started teaching evening art classes at Goshen College, until 1976, when she began teaching full time at the college. Now, 33 years later, it is time for retirement. After co-leading May term in England for the Arts in London course, Wenig-Horswell will be finished...

By Daniel Martin • March 25, 2009 • Arts

Rebecca Haarer, an art education alumna of Goshen College, will present her collection of Amish and Mennonite quilts in an exhibit in the Good Library Gallery, beginning this Sunday. Haarer owns an antiques shop in Shipshewana and buys and sells quilts. She has one of the largest collections of Amish folk arts. Entitled “Full Circle: Old and New Quilts and Quilters,” the exhibit will feature three categories of quilts and quilters that Haarer found in the community: the Elders, the Insiders and the Outsiders. The Elders are old Amish and Mennonite quilts that Haarer collected from the community since the...

By Alysha Landis • March 25, 2009 • Arts

The featured artist this week is Carmen Myers, a senior, whose work, along with fellow senior art majors Daniel Merkt-Blatz, Janell Koch-Cripe, Emily Shantz and Alex Troyer, is currently on display in the Hershberger Art Gallery. Myers, an art major with a fine art oil painting concentration, spends her time away from school working as a pharmacy assistant, where she received the inspiration for her senior show pieces, including this painting of a bottle. “The purpose of my art is to help people slow down and realize the beauty of what is around them,” Myers said in her senior statement. “It should...

By Ben Noll • March 25, 2009 • Arts

The featured artist this week is Emily Shantz, a senior from Goshen. Her drawing, “Ollie Squibnose,” was created with a  pen on paper and will be featured alongside her other drawings in the second Senior Art Exhibition of the year, opening this weekend in the Hershberger Art Gallery in Rieth Recital Hall. Shantz drew the monsters from the fictional point of view of an observer named Charles H. Monroe. “There’s a whole story behind my show,” said Shantz, an art major with a writing minor. Shantz was assigned an abstract character piece for her figure drawing class. “I ended up...

By Ben Noll • March 18, 2009 • Arts

Abigail Groff, a senior art major from Lancaster, Pa., is this week’s featured artist. Her graphite and watercolor work is currently on display in the Hershberger Art Gallery in the Music Center. Groff’s piece is part of a series of four 8″ x 8″ figure drawings. Groff began each panel with a graphite line drawing before building the form by adding watercolor washes and additional lines. “Unlike some of my larger drawings,” Groff said, “the context of the space that the figure is in is less significant. The way the body fills the compressed space is more important.” The current...

By Ben Noll • March 11, 2009 • Arts

This week’s featured artist is Simon Birky-Hartmann, a senior art major with a graphics design focus from Strasbourg, France. “I ran across a set of broken bulbs a few weeks ago, and I ended up playing with them and creating compositions,” Birky-Hartmann said. “I ended up taking the camera out and started shooting, which gave interesting results.” After some early explorations, Birky-Hartmann took the bulbs to the Visual Arts building where he experimented with studio lighting to achieve the effect seen in this week’s photograph. Birky-Hartmann’s work will be featured along with four other seniors in the first Senior Art...

By Ben Noll • March 4, 2009 • Arts

This week’s featured artist is Dirk Leichty, a senior, with a sample of one of his five life-size zombie figures. As part of the requirements for his senior show in April, Leichty is creating an outdoor installation, applying a comic book format to a three-dimensional space. “The figures will be layered in deep space in a way that the visibility from any given angle only conveys a limited part of the whole,” Leichty said of the eventual completed project. Leichty added that it will be “an imperfect translation of a comic book into three dimensions that is analogous to the...

By Ben Noll • February 18, 2009 • Arts

A crowd of students, faculty and community members gathered in Rieth Recital Hall on Sunday to listen to Hung Liu lecture about topics and issues in art. Liu is known for her paintings drawn from Chinese historical photography. She focuses on what she calls “mythic poses” of photographs, including the human activities of “laboring, eating, journeying, leaping, fighting, dreaming and carrying one’s burden.” Liu grew up in Communist-controlled China, which didn’t allow women to attend universities. “We once truly believed in Communism, in a socialist Utopian dream and in heroism,” said Liu. “I have since replaced those beliefs with a...

By Alysha Landis • February 18, 2009 • Arts

Hung Liu, this year’s Eric Yake Kenagy Visiting Artist, will present a public lecture on Sunday at 7:30 p.m. in Rieth Recital Hall. Liu, a native of China, is an internationally-acclaimed artist whose work has been featured in the Smithsonian Institution, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography and the National Museum of American Art. Liu’s art combines traditional Chinese imagery and symbolism with her own unique, modern twist. She currently works as a professor of visual arts at Mills College in Oakland, California. The lecture is free and will be followed by a reception with the artist and her work in...

By Ben Noll • February 11, 2009 • Arts

Andrea Kraybill, a sophomore art major from Elkhart, is this week’s featured artist, with her painting of a train on Plexiglas. The assignment was part of John Blosser’s fall semester painting class where students were asked to paint a train theme with acrylics on a found object. With the help of the Physical Plant and a little dumpster diving, Kraybill decided to use a wooden window frame to support the Plexiglas frame. “Originally, I painted a train on the front in a more representational manner,” Kraybill said. However, when she saw the back of the object, “I happily discovered the...

By Ben Noll • February 11, 2009 • Arts