Events
The Carpenter lecture fund was established by Jacqueline K. Davidson, alumna of Colby College, to honor Professor James Carpenter (1914-1992). It is Mrs. Davidson’s goal to recognize Professor Carpenter’s deep and lasting impact on her and on the College, as the founder and first Director of the Colby College Museum of Art and the first Chair of the Art Department. Professor Carpenter was also the first to hold the Ellerton and Edith Jetté Professorship in Art.
Lectures in this series:
2024-2025: Steven Weinberg, “Playing with Color”
2022-2023: Angela Lorenz, “Serving Up History with Faux Food and Artists’ Games: Works by Angela Lorenz”
2021-2022: Aruna D’Souza, “Against Empathy: The Value of Mistranslation in Art and in Life”
2019-2020: Aruna D’Souza, (Postponed due to Covid-19)
2017-2018: María Magdalena Campos-Pons, “Llego FeFa. Remedios II”
2012: Janet Marquardt, “Making Medieval Modern”
2011: Larry Nees, “Reading and Seeing: The Beginnings of Book Illumination and the Modern Discourse on Ethnicity”
2009: (March) Kathryn Rudy Kathryn Rudy, “How Medieval Nuns Invented the Postcard.”
2009: (October) Kevin Salatino, “Fuseli’s Phallus: Drawing Sex in 18th-Century Rome”; Kathryn Rudy
2008: Tom Gunning, “Visible, Invisible, Still and Moving: Thresholds of Film and Photography”
2006: Linda Docherty, “The Art of Isabella Stewart Gardner”
2005: Larry Silver, “The Sincerest Form of Flattery: Imitating Artworks, East and West”
2003: Richard Shiff, “Unfinished and Abstracted: Paul Cezanne, Twentieth-Century Painter in Spite of Himself”
The Clara M. Southworth lecture series, endowed in 1969 by the interior designer from Portland, Maine, is meant to “bring annually to the campus a distinguished lecturer or lecturers to speak on a subject in the broad field of environmental design with emphasis on understanding some of the underlying philosophies of design which relate to the way in which men live.”
Previous lectures in this series:
2023-24: Virginia Chieffo Raguin, Distinguished Professor of Humanities, Emeritus, at the College of the Holy Cross,
“The Illuminated Window: Stories over Time”
2021-22: Renée Ater, Brown University, “From Slave Cabin to Monument to the Slave Past”
2020-21: COVID-19 all programs were canceled.
2019-20: Patricia Miller, Preservation Society of Newport County, “Preserving the Gilded Age: The Care and Conservation of Newport’s Architectural Heritage”
2018-19: Paul Discoe, O2 Artisans Aggregate, “Form and Emptiness in the Design Process”
2018: Timothy Lock and Riley Pratt, GO-Logic, “Lock-in: Design Parameters for a Carbon Neutral Future”
2015: “The Culture of Nature: Garden Design, East and West” symposium, with speakers James L. Westcoat, Jr., Alison Hardie, Eric Haskell, and Anna Marley.
2015: Daniel Harkett, Rhode Island School of Design, “François Gérard and the Art of the Interior”
2014: Lee Glazer, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, “Heirloom of the Artist: Rethinking Whistler’s Peacock Room”
2012: Nicolai Ourossoff, Former Chief Architecture Critic, New York Times, “What Can Architecture Do?”
2012: Charles Renfro, Partner at Diller Scofidio & Renfro, “Super-Natural”
2010: Yoshihiro Takishita, “Minka, Traditional Japanese Farmhouse”
2010: Deborah Berke, Architect, “Here and Now”
2007: Adam Kalkin, Architect, “Architecture, Fiction, Storytelling and Memory”
2006: Peter Bohlin, Founding Partner of Bohlin-Cywinski-Jackson, “The Nature of Circumstance”
2003: Terence Riley, Chief Curator of Architecture and Design, MoMA, “Architecture and the Media: Changing Relationships”
2003: Will Bruder, Architect, “Reflections on the Journey”
2002: Edward Maeder, Curator of Textiles and Chair of the Curatorial Department at Historic Deerfield, “A Personal Environment: Men’s Fashion 1760-1860”
2001: Michael Sorkin, Urban Designer, “The City After Now”
Art Lectures
Each year the Art faculty invite art historians, critics, and artists to speak at Colby College, often in conjunction with courses and major initiatives on campus. All lectures are free and open to the public. They are organized by the Department of Art, with support from the Arts Lecture Fund at Colby.
NELSON CHAN, Monday, October 24, 2022, 5 p.m./ Greene Block + Studios
Nelson Chan was born in New Jersey to immigrant parents from Hong Kong and Taiwan and has spent most of his life between the States and Hong Kong. Having grown up on two continents with unique cultures, this immigrant experience has influenced the majority of his work.
LOGAN GRIDER, April 7, 2022 in Bixler 154 at 4:30 p.m.
Logan Grider received a MFA from Yale University in 2007; studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2006; received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2003; and studied at the International School of Art in Umbria, Italy, in 2001. His work has been exhibited nationally and reviewed in Artforum, ArtNews, The Brooklyn Rail, The Houston Chronicle, The Boston Globe and The Philadelphia Inquirer. Logan has been teaching at Swarthmore College since 2009.
BARBARA BOSWORTH, Monday, March 14, 2022, 4:30pm, Bixler 154
Barbara Bosworth is a photographer whose large-format images explore both overt and subtle relationships between humans and the rest of the natural world. Whether chronicling the efforts of hunters or bird banders or evoking the seasonal changes that transform mountains and meadows, Bosworth’s caring attention to the world around her results in images that similarly inspire viewers to look closely.
ROGER WHITE, Tuesday, April 17, 2018, 5pm, Olin 1
Artist and art critic Roger White leads an inquiry into art criticism, its twentieth-century history, and its possibilities in the twenty-first century.
CHAKAIA BOOKER, Tuesday, November 28, 2017, 5pm, Given Auditorium
Sculptor Chakaia Booker reflects on her work, which uses discarded tires and other construction materials to explore ecological concerns, racial and economic difference, gender, and globalization.
http://colbyechonews.com/deconstruction-reconstruction-chakaia-booker-lecture/
JENNIFER LIESE, “Social Medium: Artists Writing,” Tuesday, February 21, 2017, 6pm, Diamond 141
Jennifer Liese (Director of the Writing Center, Rhode Island School of Design) describes how contemporary artists’ essays, manifestos, fiction, diaries, scripts, blog posts, and tweets chart a complex era in art, the art world, and the world at large in inventive and influential ways.
MARIA MAGDELENA CAMPOS-PONS, February 10, 2017, 12pm, Colby Museum
Cuban-born artist Campos-Pons discusses her artwork, which reflects on the histories of migration central to the formation of Cuban identity.
MARTA AMERI, “The Destruction of Ancient Culture in the Modern Middle East,” November 10, 2016, 7pm, Pugh Center
Marta Ameri (Assistant Professor of Art, Colby) presents her research and teaching on the history of iconoclasm from antiquity to the present, with a focus on the role the destruction of images plays in times of political and social upheaval and in the context of religious debates. She considers the forms iconoclasm has taken in the modern Middle East and examines religious and political contexts linked to the production, protection, and destruction of images.
ALISON STIGORA, “Material, Environment, Architecture: The Artistic Process and Creating Space,” November 3, 2016, 4pm, Colby Museum
Alison Stigora (Faculty Fellow of Art, Colby) is a site-specific artist specializing in large-scale sculpture and installation. Her projects explore ideas of transparency, the relationship between humans and their environment, and the intersection of sculpture and architecture.
JACKIE BROWN, “Mutated Growth,” November 11, 2015, 6pm, Olin 1
Sculptor Jackie Brown (Assistant Professor of Art, Bowdoin College) creates immersive environments that invite viewers into imagined biological systems, where it’s often ambiguous whether the forms are benign or toxic.
AARON T. STEPHEN, November 10, 2014, 5pm, Olin 1
The sculptural work of Aaron T. Stephan strikes a relationship between behavior and objecthood. His work often questions the contents of the public realm, where a mastery in material craft emboldens the underlying, conceptual program.
EMMET GOWIN September 30, 2015, 7pm, Olin 1
Emmet Gowin studied under photographer Harry Callahan, who became one of his mentors and greatest influences. landscape. Most recently he has been photographing living moths in Ecuador, Panama, and Bolivia. In these photographs he is again including his lifelong muse and partner, Edith.
AIDA MULUNEH, “Past/Forward: Photography in Ethiopia,” April 23, 2015, 6:30pm, Olin 1
Aida Muluneh is an Ethiopian photographer and artist. Having studied both film and photography at Howard University, she founded two vital photographic institutions in Ethiopia: the Addis Foto Fest, a biannual photography festival focused on contemporary African and global photography, and DESTA (Developing and Educating Societies Through the Arts). A book of her work, Ethiopia: Past/Forward (2009), was published in Belgium.
BETSEY GARAND April 16, 2015, 4:30pm, Bixler 154
Betsey A. Garand is Senior Resident Artist in the Department of Art and the History of Art at Amherst College. Her prints and drawings engage with the themes of continuum, balance, and growth in physical and psychological life. Seemingly familiar objects are layered beneath and above biomorphic and geometric shapes.
DAVID CAMPBELL April 7, 2015, 4:30pm, Bixler 154
David Campbell (Art Department, College of WIlliam and Mary) cofounded the Perceptual Painters collective. He has had solo exhibitions at Eastern University in Wayne, PA, Foro Galeria in San Juan, Rosenfeld Gallery in Philadelphia, and Artists’ House Gallery in Philadelphia.
GREGG JAMISON, March 29, 2016, 6pm, Diamond 141
Gregg Jamison (Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Madison) presents the results of ethnoarchaeological research conducted with modern steatite carvers in Udaipur. His approach has provided new insights into the organizational dynamics of one of the most important craft industries of the Indus Civilization.
SUSAN JANE WALP, March 3, 2016, 5:30pm, Olin 1
Susan Jane Walp (Visiting Assistant Professor and Lecturer, Studio Art, Dartmouth College) has had solo exhibitions at Hackett Freedman Gallery, San Francisco; Fischbach Gallery, New York; ISA Gallery, Montecastello di Vibio, Italy; Victoria Munroe Fine Art, New York and Boston; and Tibor De Nagy Gallery, New York, where she is currently represented. Her awards include an NEA grant, Skowhegan School Purchase Prize, a CAPS Fellowship, Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Academy Award in Art from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She resides and paints in Vermont.
JOHN OTT, March 1, 2016, 5:30pm, Olin 1
Professor Ott (Professor of Art History, James Madison University) is author of Manufacturing the Modern Patron in Victorian California: Cultural Philanthropy, Industrial Capital, and Social Authority (2014). He presents new research in a talk titled, “The Pigeon and the Grid: Animal Locomotion, Comparative Biology, and the Genesis of Ecological Consciousness.”