About
The MFA
For a select group of graduate students, we offer an advanced program which builds upon the mission of our undergraduate program. Each year we typicallly receive more than 40 applications for 3-5 openings in the program. Graduate application materials are due on Friday January 15, 2010 for review for the Fall of 2010.
Graduate students are required to place a greater emphasis on applying theory to the development of a mature body of work. Our program is also intended to provide preparatory experiences for college level teaching for students on a Graduate Teaching Assistantship.
For more information visit the on-line graduate catalogue:
http://web.utk.edu/~gsinfo/toc.htm
We strongly encourage applicants to come to Knoxville to meet us and the current students and to see our facilities. If you are planning a visit, CLICK HERE for maps of Knoxville and the UT campus. CLICK HERE and then click on "zone 7" to see the map showing the location of the Art and Architecture Building. The UT Printshop is located in room 241 on the second floor, north-west corner. Visitors should also plan to visit Yee Haw Industries, our local letterpress shop located at 413 S. Gay Street and to visit local galleries and museums, including the Ewing Gallery, the Knoxville Museum of Art, and the student-run Gallery 1010.
To see what our former MFA students are doing today, CLICK HERE. Current MFA students are listed below. Prospective students are welcome to contact these individuals to inquire about the program.
Daniel Maw - III Year
Email: mawdaniel@gmail.com
URL: www.danielmaw.com
Recent Review: www.orangealert.net/maw
Education: University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, BFA
“I am the result of two and one half decades of ignorance, uncertainty, expectations, and failures. Physically and spiritually numb to the sex and violence distributed by mass media, my senses have been honed to the common. Everyday happenings and banal struggles are comforting, reliable companions and represent the focus of my work. Our collective cultural ephemera document our common struggle while simultaneously framing our perception of it. These ephemera include advertisements, comics, cartoons, toys, games, rides, shows, and attractions. They represent the makeshift communal distraction from fear and uncertainty, and inform the mode in which I work. These distractions are both accessible and familiar, enabling me to tinker with them to subvert expectations held for them in the form of individual works, environments, and situations that reflect my insights into the human predicament. These insights have most recently been communicated through comics, product lines, and extravaganzas. Issues of display and distribution are more literally relevant, as the work is not always intended to be housed in neat and tidy frames and galleries. It is to be pedaled with, bargained for, played with, used up, and thrown away.”
Daniel Maw was born the middle of five children in a small Iowa town located along the Mississippi River. He entertained himself by imitating the drawings of cartoonists and comic artists he witnessed each day in print and on the television. Electing to pursue a lifestyle that allowed this sort of behavior, he earned his BFA in Printmaking at the University of Iowa in the fall of 2006. Presently he is a second year MFA candidate in Printmaking at the University of Tennessee where he is also working as a Graduate Teaching Associate. In May 2008 he was an Artist-in-Residence at the Academy of Fine Art in Poznan, Poland. He is the current President of the UT Print Club. CLICK HERE to read a review of Daniel's work.
Erin Mullenex - III Year
Email: erin.mullenex@gmail.com
Education: University of Virginia, BA
URL: erinmullenex.com
“My recent work is an exercise in collection. I am collecting ephemera, but I am also collecting memories. The collages and prints I have created serve as memorials to the real (collected) objects, as well as to the memories they evoke. Using these memories as a starting point, I have organized my collection, cataloging the object and the memories. The goal of this cataloging process is to create new spaces where that which is fleeting can become permanent, worlds where the fantastical collides with the real, and monuments to the ever-present past, as well as, to that which has never existed. My work is also an effort to preserve objects and memories. The collection is the physical evidence of the intangible. Yet, it is also evidence of a set of actions and choices, of the process of collection. In this way, it becomes evidence of the collector.”
Born and raised in Newport News, Virginia, Erin Mullenex received her B.A. in Studio Art and Art History from the University of Virginia. After graduation in 2005, she remained in Charlottesville for a few years, working in a custom frame shop. Currently, she is a second year graduate student in printmaking at the University of Tennessee.
Katie Ries - III Year
Email: kt.ries@gmail.com
flickr url: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kt_ries
birdhouse url: http://www.flickr.com/photos/knoxvillebirdhouse
Education: The Colorado College - BA
“I am interested in art work that demands something of the viewer, whether it is physical labor or a suspension of disbelief, as in play. I see play and labor as vital elements of the creative process as well as actions that create for us a space in which we allow ourselves to behave and believe differently. With my series of “Costumes to Save Your Life”, I designed and crafted costumes and props to address specific aspects of human culture and life. Specifically I wanted people to reexamine these four actions: Mourning, Eating/Feeding, Despair, and Collecting/Saving. In the gallery I invited visitors to model and use the costumes. Some of the costumes formed the basis for long-distance collaboration with dancers and other artists. With the “Economy of the Amateur”, a series of drawings, products, and social gatherings, I question the conventional ideas of land, labor, and value. Here visitors were invited to felt a sweetgum ball, a seedcasing native to this region. In return for their focused time and absurd labor, they were able to spend the resulting felt ball on any number of handmade products, ranging from Black Walnut ink, to seeds, to compost. Each product comes from the natural resources of East Tennessee as well as carrying with it the promise of future labor, like drawing or planting.”
Upon graduating from high school in Nashville, TN, Katie Ries worked briefly as a retail underling and then farm laborer before hiking the Appalachian Trail. Following her long walk she attended and graduated from The Colorado College in Colorado Springs, CO. She is now a third year student in the graduate printmaking program at the University of Tennessee and helps run the Birdhouse, a local artist collective and studio space dedicated to supporting the work of emerging artists, musicians, and activists.
Veronica Siehl - III Year
Email: siehlv@gmail.com
Education: Beloit College, BA
URL: http://veronicasiehl.com
“Stories occupy my thoughts while I work. I recall books that were read to me as a child, tall tales, folklore and fairy tales. I think about events that have involved people I know, and about incidents that have not happened to anyone I know. I am interested in what certain stories mean to individuals and to the collective, and in how personal narratives and iconographies fit into a cultural context. My work holds a story that unfolds upon being viewed. Sometimes it is a tale that has morphed through its telling and retelling. Other times it is one that had prior been untold. I depict figures and objects that are situated in-between the reality we know and the realm we don’t know, but sometimes wish we occupied.”
Veronica Siehl was born and raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She received her B.A. degree from Beloit College in Wisconsin. In the hot and balmy summer of 2007 she packed up all her earthly possessions and moved to Knoxville to pursue graduate studies in Studio Art (Printmaking) at the University of Tennessee where she is currently a Graduate teaching Associate. In May of 2009, Veronica was a guest artist at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznañ, Poland.
Ericka Walker - III Year
Email: ericka0061@yahoo.com
url: www.erickawalker.com
Education: University of Wisconsin-Madison, BS
“In my practice, printmaking is a balancing act. The rhythm and the sequence, the maintenance mentality and the spontaneity, the ritual and the risk, the problem solving, the wholeness of the labor, the dedication to a craft that – when done well - sublimates itself in service of the visual experience. The resistance of the crank-arm . . . not so self-conscious to stop at making a one-off, yet not as disinterested as pressing a button. Regarding my machines, this balance is somewhat elusive. I honestly can’t decide what it is I am most compelled to do – criticize and condemn, or venerate and celebrate."
Ericka Walker was born and raised in rural southeastern Wisconsin. She received a BS in Art from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and is currently a third year MFA candidate at UT Knoxville where she also works as a Graduate Teaching Associate in the Foundations Department. In 2008 Ericka was the recipient of the first Frogman's Print & Paper Workshop Graduate Scholarship, where she participated in a two-week workshop at the University of South Dakota and displayed a solo exhibition of her work. Ericka spent this past summer as an Artist-in-Residence in the Printmaking Department at the University of Alberta, Edmonton.
Sara Miller - II Year
Email: marie_mille@yahoo.com
url: http://web.utk.edu/~smille48
Education: Portland State University, BFA
"My work addresses the chilly comfort of consumption. Sometimes I think about the absurdity of our human desire and drive for more, from which I cannot exempt myself. The nature of repetitive work (aka printmaking) allows for thoughts to come, go, linger and evolve. While working, my mind returns to ideas of loss, beauty, play, eating and women's roles in the world and in relationships. Additionally, the strangeness of our culture is exciting fodder for constructing alternative narratives."
Sara Marie Miller was born in Fargo, North Dakota and grew up on a wheat farm in North Dakota and the suburbs of Colorado Springs. She later made Portland, Oregon her home, where she received her undergraduate degree from Portland State University with a focus in Printmaking and a minor in Art History. She is a Graduate Teaching Associate in the Foundations department. In May 2009 she was an Artist-in-Residence at the Academy of Fine Art in Poznan, Poland.
Jason Shoemaker - II Year
Email: jshoe@33studios.com
url: www.33studios.com
Education: University of Texas, Austin, BFA
"What lurks behind that vail of fire-flies dancing in the trees? Just what was that bump in the night? It is these visions and those often over-looked elements of the world that interest me. I find myself paying closer attention to such seemingly odd accuranses, often letting my imagination run wild with potential encounters. There is a yearning for a truth, a belief in something uncanny... a faith in that there is something that human's are no longer sensitive to. The monotype allows me to capture a spontaneous moment that I can then investigate using drawing media. Through drawing I can freely explore the subtle nuances of the printed surface injecting imagery from my own dreams as well as those from folklore. These elements are compiled into a larger form, a dreamer's world, in an attempt to make the unseen visible. I am interested in creating a world that is familiar but a little off, providing a landscape for which the viewer can wonder and wander."
Jason Shoemaker was raised deep in the heart of the Republic of Texas. When he wasn't chasing snakes and lizards (getting bit by most of them) he was drawing with his grandmother. The love of the line was seeded there, but it was many years later that Jason stumbled into an intaglio printmaking course at the University of Texas at Austin. It was a world of grease, kerosene and gears. For a man who cut his teeth building VWs, it was love at first impression. Upon graduation from UT Austin in 2006 with a BFA, Jason continued his print work as a "slugtern" at Slugfest Printmaking Workshop and Gallery in Austin. There he collaborated with many visiting and local artists in the creation and printing of lithographic and intaglio prints. This past summer he was a studio assistant to Professor Koichi Yamamoto through a Graduate research Assistantship and he is currently working as a Graduate Assistant at the Innovative Technology Center on campus.
Leslie Grossman - I Year
Email: eilselleslie@yahoo.com
Education: Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI, BFA
"My work is concerned with the ways that the environment shapes identity. Surroundings make up who we are, envelop the individual we were born as, and mold the identity we claim for the remainder of our lives. Identity is a system, and each different element in our surroundings joins together to work towards a common purpose: to craft our individuality. That striped couch from 1976 still in my parent’s home, theatrical productions I was taken to as a child, the psychedelic patterns on my mother’s old scarves, books I’ve read, nature, music, smells, food, weather, art… all of these elements come together to inform my identity. Printmaking as a multiple plays an important role for me conceptually, as it is a symbol of stratums of history, documentation, repetition, and layering. By using transparent ink and repeatedly printing the same stencil on top of the last, new shapes are formed with the memory of the former layer; the relationship between the elements creates the entirety of my work’s identity and, vicariously, of my own."
Leslie Grossman has survived her most recent relocation (number 23) to Knoxville, TN to attend the University of Tennessee for an MFA in Studio Art (Printmaking). She received a BFA in Printmaking at Western Michigan University focusing in screenprinting and monoprinting. Along with exhibiting in one-person exhibitions and many group shows around southwest Michigan, she acted as curator and organizer for an artist collective and gallery space for over 3 years and has also contributed in the conceptualization, organization, and production of various collaborative projects including screenprinted calendars, pop-up books, and craft bazaars, and DIY screenprint workshops. Outside of the life in the studio, Leslie snuggles daily with 2 cats and a dog, eats too much bread, and has a thing for vinyl records, night swimming, bicycle rides, superballs, and circles.
Emmy Lingscheit - I Year
Email: emmylingscheit@gmail.com
Education: St. Cloud State University, St. Cloud, MN, BFA
“My recent work addresses the complex relationship between materialistic consumer-culture, which fuels economies and shapes modern ideologies, and the now-threatened biological systems in which this machine originated. For millennia we have shaped ecosystems in our struggle to survive amidst the organisms with whom we share the planet. Today many populations enjoy a standard of living that enables them to embrace a new struggle–for comfort, status, and excess. Now biology is itself a commodity, complete with patented genes and “designer” babies. Classes widen and tensions escalate as nations and individuals compete for dwindling resources and the right to choose their destinies on an increasingly crowded planet. My prints are narratives into which I send my figures, baffled emissaries who confront difficult questions and negotiate what it means to live in this time of frustration, hope, and sometimes paralysis, where every move and decision seems to have great consequence for world ecosystems, for social justice, and perhaps even for survival.”
Emmy Lingscheit was born and raised in South Dakota, where her formative years were largely spent studying captured insects, building forts, and drawing creatures real and imagined. She earned her BFA in painting at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota, and also spent a notable semester studying art in Eastern Europe. After graduating she settled in Minneapolis, where receipt of a Jerome Emerging Printmakers Residency in 2006 cemented her devotion to printmaking. Since then she was a studio assistant for three consecutive summers at Frogman’s Print & Paper Workshops in South Dakota and has had the opportunity to work with and learn from artists from around the country and world. Emmy is currently a Graduate Teaching Assistant.
Guen Montgomery - I Year
Email: guenmail@gmail.com
Url: http://guenmontgomery.com/
Education: University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI, BFA
“Artistically, my goal is to approach art making in a way which honors the Appalachian minds and hearts of my extended family members, while simultaneously providing an honest, sometimes humorous, study of their environment and lives.”
Guen Montgomery graduated with a BFA in printmaking from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Born in Denver, Colorado, her family has roots in Scott County, Tennessee north of Knoxville.
Taryn Williams - I Year
Email: tannewilliams@gmail.com
Education: Washington University, St. Louis, MO, BFA
“Like so many of my whose imaginations have grown fat on and rendered insatiable by visually saturated media, I am inherently drawn to a graphic style. My influences include American and Japanese animation, American television and cinema, a myriad of comic books and graphic novels, as well as the overwhelming web of western and eastern art history. These styles and media call to mind the blithe playfulness of youth often corrupted by crass, or risqué subject matter. I choose to create tension between the somewhat disturbing content and subject matter and the guise of a more charming style to show how adult realities can corrupt even child-like images.
Regarding process, I want to create work in which each component acts as a screen for the others; by allowing murky glimpses of neuroses and nostalgia the work becomes subtle, wary and complex. As a whole I want my body of work to read as the visual representation of a complex and imaginative personality that is ostensibly placid but fraught with obsessions and insecurities.”
Taryn Williams received her BFA degree from Washington University in St. Louis. Prior to this she graduated from University Highschool in Nashville, Tennessee. She is a Graduate Teaching Assistant working in the Foundations Program.