TIMELY TRIBUTE: Mindy Bertram '15 and Josh Begley '15 put the finishing touches on a temporary public art project honoring retiring VWC President Billy Greer.
From the Editor
Creating the Future By Leona Baker WHILE FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT GEORGE W. Bush recently made headlines with his newfound love of painting, during the summer of 2014 a group of Virginia Wesleyan students took “presidential art” in a different direction altogether. As part of art professor John Rudel’s three-week “Intro to Studio Art” course, Josh Begley ’15, Mindy Bertram ’15, Kadija Corinaldi ’16 and Shauncey Maver ’17, created a three-foot by five-foot poster likeness of Virginia Wesleyan College President Billy Greer. In choosing Greer as their subject matter, the students wanted to reflect a current topic on campus as well as pay tribute to the College’s leader, who recently announced he would retire in 2015 after more than 20 years as president. “He has been so good to this school,” student Mindy Bertram told me in June. “We wanted to show that we all really admire him and the work that he has done for Virginia Wesleyan. We wanted him to know that people stand behind him and just to say thank you for everything.” The image, which was temporarily adhered to the brick wall on the exterior of Bray Village on campus, was created by digitally manipulating a photograph of
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President Greer (originally taken by wellknown local photographer Glen McClure), printing enlarged sections of the photo and then gluing the sections together on the wall with wheat paste, a mixture of flour or starch and water. The aesthetic look of the piece, which uses planes of color to represent different values, is based on artist Shepard Fairey’s “Hope” poster featuring then presidential candidate Barack Obama in 2008. The class got the idea for the poster after studying public art and watching the documentary film Exit through the Gift Shop (2010) by street artist Bansky. “We began the class talking about the giant Rubber Duck that recently appeared in The Hague at the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk and this idea of art as spectacle and playing with the idea of celebrity as well,” says Rudel. “In this kind of art, the reaction to the work is part of it, to be part of the buzz— the feedback loop of popular culture.” The image includes the name “Billy” in large letters along the bottom, a nod to the president’s personable nature with students and preference for being called by the informal version of his first name. The poster is not the first of its type to adorn the walls outside of Village I, which
Rudel has unofficially dubbed VWC’s “Arts Plaza.” Students have created several other public art projects under Rudel’s direction in recent years, two as part of “First-Year Experience” courses and another during Winter Session, a special three-week academic term held each January at the College. Images used for wheat paste posters have ranged from great leaders and classic paintings to animated figures and film icons such as the Minions from Despicable Me and the characters from The Wizard of Oz. Also, in fall 2012, incoming students created paintings on the interior walls of their residence halls as part of a campus initiative called “Embrace Your Space.” These projects create experiential learning opportunities for students concerning not only the nature of public art but how they can interact in a meaningful way with the spaces and places in which they live and work. THE 2014-2015 ACADEMIC YEAR WILL be a time of transition, momentum, and tremendous new opportunities at Virginia Wesleyan. As I mentioned in the opening of this letter, the College will celebrate the legacy of its third president, Dr. William T. Greer Jr., who came to Virginia Wesleyan in 1992. During the president’s 22-year tenure, VWC has experienced significant transformation, including expanded enrollment; the most successful fundraising campaign in the College’s history and significant growth to its endowment; the implementation of a new curriculum; and new construction and renovation of College facilities. President Greer’s final year in office will undoubtedly be a dynamic one. In his words, it’s “Pedal to the Metal” (page 64). Fall 2014 marks the implementation of a new strategic plan for the College, called VWC 2020: Pathway to Prominence (page 26) and approved by the Board in May. The plan articulates strategies for the College’s primary goal of providing a transformational educational experience for its students. Fundraising for the construction of a new academic building devoted to the arts