STORY PITCH: Arts build community among WVU Libraries, campus and Morgantown | WVU Today

Oil painting by BFA student Elizabeth Adase

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What’s the news?
West Virginia University Libraries has used extra space in the libraries for displays by students and professors who have turned research into art.

Quotes and comments
“Having art and exhibits in these publicly used spaces presents a unique opportunity for exhibitor and library guest,” Sally Deskins, exhibit coordinator for WVU Libraries.

A few exhibits coming to the WVU campus are:

· Feb. 15, 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., the first Art Crawl will take place across campus to showcase artwork from the community. Some of the 13 locations are: The Downtown Campus Library, Watts Museum, Arboretum and the Health Sciences Center. Food and drink will be provided.

· “When the Computer Wore a Skirt” is on display until the end of the month on the second floor of Evansdale Library. The exhibit will move to the Erickson Alumni Center Nutting Gallery where it will be displayed from March 1-April 28. This traveling exhibit on loan from the Hampton History Museum explores the history and personalities of the women featured in “Hidden Figures,” WVU’s current Campus Read. Two of the three pioneers featured in the book – Dorothy Vaughan and Katherine Johnson – had connections to Morgantown. Vaughan grew up in Morgantown and attended Wilberforce University in 1925, when WVU did not admit African-Americans. Johnson became the first African-American woman to attend graduate school at WVU in 1939.

· Glassblowing to Community Building: Sunnyside’s Changing Cultural Landscape, on display on the DCL’s sixth floor through May, is a collaborative exhibit inspired by a proposal from WVU Professor Jenny Boulware’s Local History Research Methodology class in the Department of History. This exhibit provides a brief overview of the Sunnyside neighborhood through photography and features five themes: the industrial era, culture and society, student life, WVU football and the neighborhood we see today. This exhibit is a collaboration among WVU Libraries, WVU’s Summer Undergraduate Research Experience, the Department of History and the West Virginia and Regional History Center.

· March 8 at 6:30 p.m., as part of Women’s History Month, the Downtown Campus Library will show Elaine McMillion Sheldon’s film “Heroin(e)” a Netflix Original Documentary short that follows three women fighting the opioid crisis in Huntington. A panel discussion will follow. Sheldon won a Peabody for her 2013 interactive documentary “Hollow,” which examines the future of rural America through the eyes and voices of West Virginians. Sheldon is also curating A Knowing Intimacy: A photography exhibit by West Virginia Women on display in DCL Room 1020 through April 13.

Resources

Link to original story: Arts build community among WVU Libraries, campus and Morgantown

Art Crawl

Sally Deskins, exhibit coordinator, WVU Libraries

Monte Maxwell, communications coordinator, WVU Libraries

(VIDEO): Sally Deskins, exhibit coordinator, discusses student artwork in the downtown library.

(VIDEO): Sally Deskins, exhibit coordinator, discusses the art in the libraries program.

Target audiences
Artists

Librarians

Art Students

Students

Professors