Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art

January | February | March | April

Tuesday, February 5, 2008, 4–5:00 pm, Auditorium
New Perspectives Speaker: Julian Cox
"Bearing Witness: Photography and the Civil Rights Movement, 1956-1968"
Julian Cox, curator and head of the Photography Department at the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, will focus on the role of photography in media culture during the 1960s. His talk will be based on “Road to Freedom: Photography of the Civil Rights Movement, 1956-1968,” a forthcoming exhibit and accompanying catalogue at the High.

Friday, February 8, 2008, 6pm
Members Preview Opening
Opening Lecture: "Behind the Mask"
By Andrea E. Frohne, curator of the exhibition
Andrea E. Frohne curated Behind the Mask: African Art from the Ellen Hobbs Collection and the Kennedy Museum of Art, which began as an exhibition at the Kennedy Art Museum in Athens, Ohio, and will be on display at JCSM through May 10, 2008. Frohne teaches African Art History in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and in the School of Art at Ohio University. She has held visiting positions at Cornell University, Pennsylvania State University, and Dickinson College. Her manuscript being prepared for publication is entitled Space, Spirituality, and Memory: The African Burial Ground in New York City.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008, 4pm
New Perspectives Speaker: Joey Brackner
"Southern Folk Pottery"
Joey Brackner, Alabama Center for Traditional Culture Joey Brackner is the director of the Alabama Center for Traditional Culture, a department of the Alabama State Council on the Arts. Since 1985, Brackner has undertaken numerous special projects for the Alabama State Council on the Arts. These include: co-production of Unbroken Tradition, a film documentary on Alabama folk potter, Jerry Brown; and editorship of Tributaries, the Journal of the Alabama Folklife Association. He is also the Folklife section editor for the upcoming, online Encyclopedia of Alabama. Brackner is the author of Alabama Folk Pottery (2006) published by the University of Alabama Press. The book is a culmination of some twenty years of research on the subject. His other research interests are traditional graveyard decoration and southern horticultural traditions.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008 4pm
New Perspectives Speaker: Judith McWillie
“Doing Things Right”: Traditional Signs in African American Cemeteries, Homes, and Churches
Judith McWillie is professor of drawing and painting in the Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia and the coauthor of No Space Hidden: The Spirit of African American Yard Work. The book, winner of the 2007 James Mooney Prize for distinguished anthropological scholarship, explores the intersections of personal and cultural values in domestic landscapes. McWillie will discuss the transnational context of yard work found in the South as well as its moral and spiritual purposes. McWillie’s art has been exhibited widely and is represented in the collections of the Georgia Museum of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Yale University Art Gallery.

Thursday, February 21, 2008 5 - 8:00pm
Free Night
Lecture:Alice M Bowsher
”Community in Alabama: Architecture for Living Together”
Alice Meriwether Bowsher’s latest publication is Community in Alabama: Architecture for Living Together. The book, which focuses on Alabama buildings and places that express community identity and shape the way we live together, is a sequel to her earlier book, Alabama Architecture: Looking at Building and Place, a celebration of Alabama architecture. Both publications were sponsored by the Alabama Architectural Foundation. Bowsher has been active in historic preservation in the state for more than 25 years, including serving as architectural historian on the Alabama National Register Review Board, Alabama Advisor to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, past president of the Alabama Trust for Historic Preservation, executive director of Birmingham Historical Society, and member of the Vulcan Park Foundation Board. In 2002-2003 she served as Draughon Lecturer in State and Local History, sponsored by the Auburn University Center for the Arts & Humanities. Sponsored by the Alabama Architectural Foundation and the AU College of Architecture, Design and Construction.
A book signing and reception will follow.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008, 4pm
New Perspective Speaker: Georgine Clark
"Road Trip: Touring Public Art of Alabama"
Georgine Clarke, is the visual arts program manager and gallery director for the Alabama State Council on the Arts. She will speak on the creation and placement of public art throughout the state, as well as the role, purposes and value of community art pieces. An expert on community arts, Clarke is former director of the Alabama Craft Council and was founding director of the Kentuck Festival, Art Center and Museum in Northport, AL. She is the author of the Alabama State Council on the Arts publication on public art and has presented widely on Alabama and folk art, including serving as guest lecturer at the University of Haifa, Israel. Clarke is the recipient of the Alabama Governor’s Art Award and the Image Award from the Society of Fine Arts, University of Alabama.