This past summer, Heather Gabel, a sustainable food systems and art double major, worked to bring her fields of study together through the Hickory Scholars program, an eight-week experience where students work with professors to conduct research related to Merry Lea Environmental Center’s mission of sustainability. Gabel worked with John Mishler, art gallery director and sculptor, and John Mischler, assistant professor of sustainability and environmental education to create two vibrant sculptures. After researching many topics including the role of art in sustainability efforts as well as welding techniques, she started brainstorming and designing for her own pieces, one of which...

By Erica Gunden • August 27, 2020 • Arts

There’s a lot college students won’t tell you, but their stickers will. Coined the “latest eco-friendly status symbol” by The Washington Post, water bottles are in the hands of roughly one-third of Americans, and GC is no exception. Students are using their reusable water bottles as a blank canvas for self expression, blanketing the underlying colors in a variety of stickers.  And it’s not just water bottles, but computers, tablets and journals, too. “People put stickers everywhere, all over their water bottles, all over their laptops, wherever you want to stick a sticker, you do,” said sophomore Anna McVay. McVay...

By Mackenzie Miller • February 7, 2020 • Features

As the days until graduation march ever closer for the Class of 2020, the last of the senior recitals draw near. These events showcase the talents and final projects of members of the senior class and are all free and open to the public. You won’t want to miss these exciting final showcases!    Bodies of Eden: An Original Devised Movement Piece Featuring Abigail Greaser, theater major Sunday, Feb. 2 at 8:00 pm in the Umble Center   Senior Art Major Exhibit: Mar 22 – Apr 26 Featuring Dillon Hershey, graphic design and sociology major, and Javier Prieto, graphic design...

By Olivia Smucker • January 24, 2020 • Arts

While the current artists showcasing work in the Hershberger Art Gallery differ on many things, they have one fundamental commonality: their first name. David Kendall, a visual artist, filmmaker and educator at Goshen College, and Dave Nofsinger, an assistant professor in Western Michigan University’s Department of Theatre, both have visual art from throughout their careers featured in the Music Center’s gallery throughout the next couple of months. Although the bulk of their pieces differ in medium — Nofsinger’s representing his work as a set designer and Kendall’s focusing on 2-D drawings — both carry a playful and whimsical quality about...

By Olivia Smucker • January 24, 2020 • Arts

A new art exhibit, featuring work by Emma Gerigscott and Nick Loewen, was unveiled in the Music Center’s Hershberger Art Gallery this past Sunday. Gerigscott, who grew up in Goshen, graduated from Goshen College with an interdisciplinary major in art, environmental science and social policy in 2014. After graduation, she spent some time working as a farmer in various capacities, both in New Zealand and in Goshen in the hopes of putting her degree to practical use. When burnout with farming hit, she got a job at Goshen Brewing Company as a line cook and a dishwasher. Eventually, Gerigscott realized...

By Kristin Jantzen • November 29, 2019 • Arts

On a tear down day, the Music Center’s art gallery transforms into a vast constellation of shards of blue painters tape. Only by catching the room in natural light from the adjacent window can one glimpse the nail pocks of paintings — spackled-over stories of the past. But spackling the holes that the tape marks is only one of the many jobs fulfilled by John Mishler and his art gallery assistants. Mishler, sculpture professor and one of the directors of the Hershberger Art Gallery, takes charge of a number of aspects about the gallery’s exhibits, from arranging for artists to...

By Olivia Smucker • November 13, 2019 • Arts

For many Midwesterners, the cornfields and plains that dot the central United States are just that: plain. But for Abner Hershberger, there is opportunity for beauty to emerge from the simplicity. Since graduating from Goshen College with an art degree in 1960, Hershberger has become both an active artist and a teacher. In fact, after teaching art in the Indiana public school system for four years post-grad, he returned to his alma mater as one of the arts professors from 1965-1999. He was the one who began Goshen College’s gallery program in 1968, which was renamed in his honor when...

By Olivia Smucker • October 9, 2019 • Arts

Many people recognize the sculptures “Sky Rhythms” and “Broken Shield” but don’t know the man behind them: John Mischler, associate professor of art and full-time sculptor. Mischler got his start at Goshen College in 1985 due to a vacancy in the art department. According to Mischler, one of the professors was gone on either sabbatical or SST, so he filled in to teach beginning sculpture. When the same thing happened the next year with another professor, Mischler filled in there as well. “[The vacancies] continued for several years, and then, eventually, the class kind of became mine,” Mischler said. Mischler...

By Nathan Pauls • October 2, 2019 • Features

This past Tuesday, I observed Merrill Krabill construct a teapot during my Ceramics 2 class. He was showing an example of how to properly trim the body and lid of the pot. In the previous class period, he had thrown the body, two spouts and a lid. Here, Merrill trims the bottom of the body of the teapot. A finished lid and two spouts sit waiting to be added to the body. The teapot has to be at just the right moisture point to trim. Too wet, and the clay is too soft. Too dry, and the pot will become...

By Nathan Pauls • September 25, 2019 • Arts

Art collections don’t often involve costumes, especially prints of them from 15th century Anabaptists. For Paul and Jean Kraybill, donors of The Kraybill Collection, there’s no art they’d rather keep. The collection, a gathered set of colored engravings and prints depicting Anabaptists in Switzerland, Alsace and the Palatinate, a historical territory under the rule of the German Empire between 1700 and 1900, was donated to the Mennonite Historical Library in 2018. Along with the collection, the current Library Gallery exhibit features photos of Dutch and Russian Mennonite costumes, contemporary Plain apparel and contextual artifacts. The Kraybill Collection found its beginning...

By Record • September 21, 2019 • Arts

On The Leaf Raker Cafe’s opening day Arlin Hunsberger was the first person to order breakfast. He ate a breakfast sandwich.  Hunsberger ate with his two grandchildren on Sept. 2, next to the newly opened gallery built to house the art collection that he and his wife, Naomi, donated to Goshen College.  The collection includes 100 works of Haitian art, spanning 55 years of Haitian culture. The pieces will rotate through the gallery in the Hunsberger Commons.  The Hunsbergers took interest Haitain art during their first visit to the island for development work with the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) in...

By Kristin Jantzen • September 21, 2019 • Features

Walking through Schrock Plaza this week, one won't be able to ignore the T-shirts and bandanas strung across the square. The Clothesline Project, which began at Goshen College in 2004, is a part of Sexual Assault Awareness Week and is hosted by the Goshen Student Women’s Association (GSWA).   Past members of the Goshen community wrote on and/or decorated T-shirts which are then hung on clotheslines surrounding Schrock Plaza each year. The T-shirts are filled with the stories, emotions and responses of those who have been affected by sexual assault.   This year, for the first time, GSWA collaborated with...

By Mary O’Connell • March 29, 2019 • News

The annual art show showcasing the work of seniors in the visual arts department opens on March 31, with a reception from 2-4 p.m.. The exhibit will include artwork from Norah Glass, a potter, Rachel Yoder, a sculptor, Brianna Herndon, a painter and multimedia artist, and Yadira Figueroa, a graphic designer. The exhibit is located in the Hershberger Art Gallery inside the Music Center and will run until Apr. 28. Each artist curated their own section of the show. Herndon’s portion of the exhibit is based on a theater inspired piece from a forest. The paintings she chose to display...

By Emily Cummings • March 28, 2019 • Arts

Holding a book often sparks feelings of whimsy and inspires nostalgia. Not only does a book’s contents hold stories, but its binding, cover and scent also can stir up specific emotions. Artist Teresa Pankratz captures all of this and breathes it into her work through artistic and perhaps unconventional means. Pankratz is the 2019 Eric Yake Kenagy Visiting Artist. Her exhibit opened at Goshen College on Feb. 17. She presented a public lecture on Sunday, March 10 as well as a public reading on Tuesday, March 12. Pankratz is a book and paper artist who lives in Chicago. Her artistic...

By Brianna Herndon • March 21, 2019 • Features

If you are feeling creative and want to showcase your work to the entire Goshen College community, “Red Cents” is offering the opportunity. Submissions are open through March 8.   Going into its 14th year of publication, “Red Cents” is the campus literary arts journal that “showcases student writing, visual art and graphic design,” according to its webpage.   The journal was proposed by Rosanna Nafziger Henderson ’06 in 2004 and first published in 2005 through Pinchpenny Press, a publishing imprint of Goshen College.   Each year, Ann Hostetler, professor of English, guides an editorial board in the selection and...

By Cristina Jantz • February 21, 2019 • Features