By Becky Wright

Carey Ann Francis spent most of her life in the ghettos of Texas cities like Dallas and Houston.

"They're horrible," she said, remembering the poverty, drug addiction and violence that surrounded her.

She left that life behind in 2009, when she moved to Ogden.

"We loaded up my Honda like the Beverly Hillbillies," she said. "I didn't take anything but my art with me."

Now enrolled at Weber State University, Francis is one of 28 students participating in the Spring 2012 BFA Thesis Exhibition.

The art exhibit opens with a reception from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. today, April 13, in the Kimball Visual Arts Center on campus. The exhibit, running through April 29, is the culmination of the students' undergraduate art studies.

Included in the display are samples of painting, drawing, sculpture, video, installation and more. The diversity of the art runs from lace tents by Venessa Gromek to David Powell's animated video, made using hundreds of chalk drawings. Gromek's art was inspired by her work in the outdoor industry; Powell's was inspired by loss and longing,

The art Francis is showing was inspired by her life in Texas.

"I was born in Austin," she said. "I moved to Houston, then Dallas, and a lot of little bitty subcities. ... They're covered in ghetto areas."

Lost and found

Francis, a grandmother on a waiting list for a kidney transplant, works mostly in oil and acrylic -- but rarely paints on canvas. Her art is created on objects that other people have thrown away, such as old doors, a cast-iron sink and metal pipes. It's something she's done since she started taking art classes in Texas.

"I wasn't spending money properly, so when the teacher would give an assignment, I didn't have a nice, clean canvas," she said. "I've adapted it now, and applied it into my paintings and it's working well."

Francis has stories to go with all of her artwork.

"I try to reflect all the way back to childhood," she said, adding that she was born in 1960. "Some of it's during the civil rights movement, and Jim Crow laws."

One of the paintings is about how things had changed by the time Francis was 6 years old.

"They didn't want us to pick cotton," she said. "They wanted us to get an eduction. They said, 'You've gotta learn to read and write.' ... I didn't really understand at the time, but now I do."

Lost

Francis painted a story of abuse and violence on a cast-off door from the late 1800s.

"It's about a girl in the ghetto getting shot over $15, by a drug dealer," she said. "She comes and buys more drugs from him, and he accepts money from her."

But she still owed him $15.

"He goes and gets a gun," Francis said. "The dealer pays drug addicts to drag her to a Dumpster. ... Nobody knew she was behind the Dumpster, because it smells bad anyway."

The door has an image of the shooting on one side, and a woman's dead, swollen body painted on the other.

"She was covered with ants, and the ants were taking her flesh away, back to their little house," said Francis.

Found

The painting "Negro Spiritual: Oh My Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord" focuses on the songs of slaves.

"We brought these spirituals with us, through our culture, because that was the way of prayer," Francis said. "It played a part in our upbringing, and our coming forth."

A mixed-media piece combining painting and newspaper collage, "And This Is My Friend," is about letting go of prejudice and hate.

"I had a best friend," Francis said. "Her name was Ginger, but she was a white girl."

Growing up with racism, Francis said, she was taught to feel hatred and hostility.

"I met her when I was 32 years old," she said of her friend. "Until I met her, I didn't know better from what I was taught. ... I found it's not about the color of your skin, but who you are as a person."

Francis says she learned that lesson late, but well.

"From that point on, I didn't have any hatred or hostility in my heart anymore," she said.

PREVIEW

• WHAT: Spring 2012 BFA Thesis Exhibition
• WHEN: Opens with a reception 7-9 p.m. today, April 13; continues 11 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays, noon-5 p.m. Saturdays, through April 29
• WHERE: Kimball Visual Arts Center, Weber State University, 3848 Harrison Blvd., Ogden
• ADMISSION: Free; 801-626-7689

The original story can be found here.

By Nancy Van Valkenburg

Gallery to host NCUR project show

OGDEN — Weber State University’s Mary Elizabeth Shaw Gallery will host the project exhibit of the National Conference on Undergraduate Research, which comes to WSU this week.

The exhibit of student projects will be open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday and Friday, and noon to 5 p.m. Saturday, at the gallery. For information, call 801-626-7689 or visit www.weber.edu/dova.

Weber State is at 3848 Harrison Blvd.

The original article can be found here.

Weber State University journalism instructor Shane Farver hit the trail earlier this month in Canyonlands National Park.

Farver and friends hiked in Chesler Park in the Needles District. As you can see from the photographs, wide open vistas gave way to slot canyons on a day of sightseeing.

Farver also mapped his hike. Find it by clicking here.

What are your favorite trails in Canyonlands National Park?

— Nate Carlisle

Photos can be viewed here. 

OGDEN — Usually, kids stay home on a snow day. But Weber State University is inviting families to school for a Snow Day.

Familiarte/Snow Days at the Shaw starts at 10 a.m. Saturday in the university’s Shaw Gallery. During the two-hour program, families are invited to tour the current art exhibit and then create their own arts and crafts.

Familiarte/Snow Days at the Shaw is free, and hosted in both English and Spanish. The Shaw Gallery is in the Kimball Visual Arts Center on campus, 3848 Harrison Blvd.

For more information, call 801-626-7689.

Kimball Visual Arts Center, WSU
3848 Harrison Blvd.
Ogden

When: 10 a.m.-noon the first Saturday of the month, through March.

Admission: Free. 

The original article can be found here.

OGDEN — Weber State University will host its 16th annual Storytelling Festival next week.

Yarns will be woven by national and local storytellers between 9:30 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. Monday through Wednesday at Weber State, 3848 Harrison Blvd., and various community locations.

For a full schedule, visit www.weber.edu/storytelling, or call 801-626-6278 for other information.

All story sessions are free, but there’s a charge for storyteller dinner events.

For dinner information, call Lynda Goucher, 801-626-6278.

The poster series designed by Professor Larry Clarkson (Visual Arts) for theatre performances last year on campus has been included in Print magazine's 31st Regional Design Annual.

The competition showcases what is considered some of the best graphic design created across the US over the last year. With several thousand of entries submitted, only a few hundred or so are selected. The work of only three practicing designers from Utah made it into the annual this year, Larry Clarkson and DOVA alumnus Dan Christofferson included.  Larry and Dan’s work, as well as the entire show, is available online at http://regionaldesignannual.printmag.com/far-west-2011/. 

The Shaw Gallery will be hosting the Weber State Student Exhibition beginning Feb. 3. The exhibition allows Weber State University students to submit their art for a chance at being displayed in the gallery.

Danielle Wilcox, a photography major, has submitted work into the student exhibition.

“I think its a good confidence booster for actually getting work and submitting into other institutions as well,” Wilcox said.

Lydia Gravis, the outreach coordinator for the Shaw Gallery, said the exhibition has been running for about 45 years. The exhibition accepts works in any medium, but there are a few requirements. All work must have been completed while a studying at WSU within the past two years.

In addition to meeting those conditions, the pieces must be juried into the show. A panel of jurors made up of three faculty members plus one guest juror select the pieces to be displayed. The judging is done blindly. Since the process is done by a randomly numbered system, the only person who knows the name of the artists is a record keeper who accompanies the jurors.

“Every year there’s a different set of jurors, so that one year, one student might get in, and another year they may not get in,” Gravis said.

This year, pieces in many mediums were selected for display in the gallery in addition to paintings. Mixed media, video pieces and interactive pieces will be on display. About 129 pieces were submitted with 54 entries selected for display in the gallery.

Beau Burgess, the Shaw Gallery curator, says that the criteria for getting into the show is “strictly up to the jurors.”

“In my experience as a working artist,” Burgess said, “and having submitted into several shows over the past couple years, you could have one piece that gets into one show, and some into another.”

When submitting their pieces for consideration, the artists have the option to have their work shown in a different gallery, known as the Salon des Refusés.

“If someone entered into the show, and it’s refused, they can be eligible for the Salon,” Burgess said. “The only requirement is that it is refused from the show.”

The Salon des Refusés has a rich history behind it. Burgess said that it started out as a way for artists to still have their work displayed if it was rejected.

“If they weren’t accepted into a show, they kind of did it to prove a point or, in a sense, a revolt,” Burgess said about the Salon, which runs simultaneously to the Shaw Gallery Exhibition. “It’s an intriguing dialogue between the two exhibitions because to put them side by side like that, it’s kind of a fun process.”

Carey Ann Francis, a student at WSU, has also submitted work to the exhibition. Francis works with unusual materials. She says her favorites are “strange and unusual surfaces, mixing copper and wood and creating pictures like that.”

“When I first got here to Utah, I submitted and got into the Salon des Refusés,” Francis said. “I feel that it’s positive. You submit your work, you do the whole little shebang and have your work displayed.”

Burgess encourages students and the community to visit the gallery.

“Sometimes with some of the more stricter classrooms or labs that are on lockdown, it’s hard to get the rest of the student populous or especially the community into your department or onto the campus,” Burgess said. “But with visual arts, it’s a very open and public department where we have a space to do that. If it’s something that they haven’t come over and seen, they should come over and check our gallery space. It is a professional gallery space, (and) it isn’t just for things on campus. We’ve had national and international artists shown in this gallery.”

The exhibition will run from Feb. 3 through Mar. 9. A reception and awards ceremony will be held from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 3. The public is invited to attend.

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