Last Friday Artists Display Creative Endeavors

The time nears 6:00 p.m. and three artists assemble their artwork in anticipation for those who will come. They will come to see, to contemplate and ponder what they each have poured their time into.It is Friday October 30th, upstairs in Larson Student Union. The art department is hosting Last Friday from 6-8 p.m. Three artists were chosen to exhibit their art to students, family and faculty who wish to visit. The artists, Joshua Rayner, Crystal Weaver and Matthew Kiehl, organized where their art would be placed and how.

"We like to keep this small, which is why only three artists are showing per month," says Rayner, a sophomore Art History Major displaying his artwork in Last Friday. "We would run out of artists rather quickly if more than three were shown."

Last Friday happens once every month on the last Friday, as is suggested by the name of the venue.

Rayner's artwork, titled Familia, is encaustic on board. Encaustic is a style that uses hot wax as a medium. "Essentially it's painting with hot wax," the artists explains and nods his head. "I've used five squares of gold-leaf in this artwork and different colors that appeal to my senses."

According to Rayner, the title is reminiscent of this past summer when he took a workshop in Harrisburg discovering encaustic as an artistic venue. "I spent quite a lot of time with my family then," Rayner continues. "It's interesting though, I didn't plan to have five pieces of gold-leaf in the artwork, but there are, and it only occurred to me after that there were five people in my family."

Each artist displays a different venue of artistry than the next, each holds appreciation of their fellow artists' work and the chance they have received to display their own.

"It's nice because we do a lot of work in our classes and it stays cooped up," says Weaver, with a smile, "it's great to share our work with people."

Weaver is a senior studio art major with a two-dimensional concentration. Her exhibit features a succession of photographs titled, D&S Dairy Series.

"They're pictures of my home on a dairy farm," she says and turns towards them.
The photographs were taken with a 35mm camera using black and white film.
Shown here is a photograph Weaver included in her exhibition. "I wanted to convey what a farm was like, the dirty cluttered organization, the beauty in the every day, many people don't know." she says.

"I'd wake up and put on these rain coats and then go out to the calves and go about my day's work. These pictures have a connection to my life and there is a strong emotional attachment to them."

There is one more artist to meet with. Matthew Kiehl, a senior studio art major, has two of his pieces displayed. The first is titled Self-Portrait. Kiehl looks up his painting; "It's a self-portrait of myself as a traveler, I was trying to mimic John Glenn, the first American astronaut to orbit the Earth."

Kiehl explains how he used acrylic paints on canvas, then, "I scanned my face on a scanner bed and then changed the contrast on the computer until I got it to where I wanted to be."

The second piece is titled Adam. According to Kiehl, the pose of the subject's hand is modeled after the pose of Adam on the Sistine Chapel's ceiling, reaching out to God.

"For me it symbolizes mechanization and how mankind tries to be sustained from mechanics," he explains and poses his hand like Adam's from the Sistine Chapel, laughs, then and puts his hand down.

People mill around the art displays, talking with the artists, asking them questions, standing and pondering the artwork before them.

Time nears 8:00 p.m. and the crowd dwindles away slowly. Joshua Rayner, Crystal Weaver and Matthew Kiehl clean up and take last glances at their artwork before this month's Last Friday comes to a close.