Posted
— by Daniel Tucker, Assistant Professor and Graduate Program Director in Socially Engaged Art

With the fall semester off to a start we welcome seven incoming MFA/MA students (Destiny GarnerDafna SteinbergRegan McGroryBetsy KellyKaty MolinaroClaire Eide, and Megan Galardi) and welcome back four continuing MFAs (Emily ElliottQiaira RileyAshley Gunter, and Ann Sirianni who will be showing work in the MFA in Progress exhibition this fall and in the thesis exhibition next spring). We also have some great new faculty teaching for the first time this semester, including Sera BoenoNehad Khader and Caitlin Butler, and we welcome back Asuka GotoWilmer Wilson IVHammam AldouriAnna DrozdowskiJacque Liu and Amanda Newman-Godfrey.

In other news:

Tim Goldsmith (MFA Alumni) completed a yearlong community arts residency with ELLA Library of Chattanooga. As a final project for the residency, he had the opportunity to illustrate a poetry book entitled "Reflections on Generosity and Thanks: a collection of poems" written by several poets and writers in Chattanooga, published and released this month. Goldsmith will also be starting his second year as an adjunct instructor of Foundations in the art department at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

Dawn Kramlich (MFA Alumni) was recently included in University City Arts League's online (because of Covid) exhibition Going Sane. Initially, it was curated to be an in-person experience, but was switched due to unpredictability/quarantine. Additionally, Kramlich will have a recent work published in the online version of Creative Quarterly 60 due out in November 2020. Finally, Kramlich continues to run Philly Stewards along with MFA alum Alex Connor.

Yaroub Al Obaidi (MA Alumni) has begun the PhD program in Media Communication at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Al Obaidi has also been awarded a Velocity Fund grant to collaborate with former Conversations@Moore guest speaker Sarah Kavage.

Suki Valentine’s (MFA Alumni) solo show was delayed last spring and the new date has been confirmed for later this year. The exhibition Under Wraps: Hidden Histories/Open Secrets deals with the intersections of unacknowledged or under-acknowledged pieces of U.S. history as they relate to the trans-Atlantic slave trade, wholesale genocide and erasure of indigenous peoples, modern repercussions of the past as they relate to police brutality and police murder of Black people and individuals' anonymous personal secrets. The show opens November 20 and closes December 18. Valentine will also be part of an upcoming group show that is a collaboration of past artists-in-residence from L'Air Arts Paris. The show, called Site Visit, is about Paris, community, art and nostalgia, told through the medium of postcards. The show will initially appear online but there are plans for a gallery exhibition in the future.

Kristin Osgood Lamelas (MFA Alumni) has some artwork, Outbreak 1&2, that was juried into Penn Radnor’s permanent collection in PA, participated in an Exquisite Corpse project through Esther Klein Gallery, and sold work from the Burren Residency to a private collector. Last year she started “The Online Crit Group” for alumni of Sharon Louden’s online workshops and is doing the Art MBA with Bridgette Mayer. She invites you to join her mailing list. Finally, she wanted to say, “My bone marrow transplant was successful. My donor is a 25-year-old doctor from Germany. Thanks to everyone for swabbing their cheek to be on the bone marrow donor list. My procedure went well and I am home recovering. I’m on the long, bumpy road to recovery. Please keep me in your prayers.”

Laura Petrovich-Cheney (MFA Alumni) did a studio tour for the Center for Art in Wood (Wood Shop series) in August 2020. Petrovich-Cheney has received some media attention, including work in issue 12 of curatedquilts.com and on WBUR for the Fuller Craft exhibition Shelter, Place, Social, Distance which features her piece Cornered. She has also been included in an exhibition at the Toledo Museum of Art