By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
"Body and Place," an interdisciplinary exhibition of drawing, painting and printmaking students and faculty, is on display now through March 15 at the Hays Arts Center.
FHSU faculty Amy Schmierbach, Jee Hwang and Juana Estrada-Hernandez developed lesson plans around the themes body and place.
Schmierbach's lecture focused on body as place. She encouraged students to seek self-awareness through meditation and drawing. She wanted them to focus on self-love and self-reflection.
Hwang's lecture focused on the exploration of cultural identity through the image of body of place in art. Hwang introduced the concept of diaspora, which means "the dispersion or spread of any people from their original homeland."
Estrada-Hernandez based her lecture on her experience in Lands Arts of the American West at the Univeristy of New Mexico. The course took students to sites in the southwest to create site-specific art.
Senior in art Katie Vaughn's mixed media piece "Flight of Art and Bee of Heart," is featured in the exhibit. She described "Flight of Art."
"The concept is that you can look super calm and serene on the outside, but you can have all of this running through your head 24/7," she said.
Vaughn of Hays developed the concept for "Bee of Heart" during meditation for the body and place lecture. "Bee of Heart" represents the body.
"The concept of it was to be more centered," she said, "and to take the time to refocus on self when I'm starting to feel more anxious and have those random chaotic thoughts."
The canvases consists of cardboard, layered paper and fabric to which pastels and ink have been applied.
Amiyah Gonzalez, FHSU senior in drawing and art history of Hays, said she interpreted place and body as her own female body.
"I immediately went to how I feel in my body," she said. "Sometimes women's bodies are viewed as their only place that has value and how they have to build up their body for other people."
"I thought of what happens when that place deteriorates after years of trying to fit into the societal norm of having your body sexualized and exploited," Gonzalez said.
Emily Schoeppner, junior in art from Wichita, painted an image of her and a friend having a mud fight in a pond in a piece she calls "Pond Girl Soul."
"When I thought about body and place, I thought about the place I felt most connected," she said. "I was thinking of a time I felt most connected and grounded in my body."
She said she thinks of her body as a shell with a dark interior, but as she was at a camp as a counselor she said she felt very connected to her body in part through just feeling tired and sore.
"It was the most joyful and dismal time in my life," she said.
The other camp counselors didn't like being in that pond because it was basically a glorified toilet because of the fish, frogs and algae, she said.
"I wanted it to look like a secret, magical window that you were peeking into," she said.
Megan Roy, junior in art of Palco, explored body out of place. Her set of three drawings depicted her in an elevator and a disembodied figure in a room that is filling with water.
"It's about disassociation and feeling uncomfortable with anxiety," she said.
Participating artists include Lexis Beesley, Jenny Cox, Taygan Daisy, Mariah Dechant, Isabel Dixon, Juana Estrada-Hernandez, Brooklyn Vasquez, Kaylee Eubanks, Madison Gleason, Amiyah Gonzalez, Courtney Hancock, Jee Hwang, Emily Schoeppner, Katie Vaughn, James Jay, Kiernan McCarty, Maddy Otter, Katie Petersen, Megan Roy, PJ Stauffer and Russell Wells.