A photograph by Betsy Hartley is one of the pieces of staff and faculty art now on display at the LaSells Stewart Center. (photo: Theresa Hogue)

While only a small percentage of Oregon State University faculty and staff can call themselves professional artists, there are myriad hidden talents among the OSU community, and a few of those are now being revealed at the OSU Invitational Staff Art Exhibit, on display through Feb. 17 at the LaSells Stewart Center Galleria.

Photography, painting and drawings reveal a well of artistic skill from faculty and staff, and represent a variety of media, styles and subject matter as varied as the jobs they perform on campus.

Betsy Hartley, director of external relations for the College of Agricultural Sciences, first bought a camera when she was working in South Dakota. She began taking photos of the thousands of geese who were flying by her on a migratory flight path, in order to share the experience with her parents back home.

“I simply picked up a camera to take pictures to show my mom,” Hartley explained.  “She was disabled and not able to travel and get out – but was fascinated with my travels for work.   So I started taking pictures as a way to share my travels/work with her.  It grew from there.”

Hartley was impressed with how a photo could be so much more than a snapshot, and could tell a very distinct and detailed story if done right. She became enamored with photographing tiny details that are often overlooked by most observers.

Faculty and staff artwork is now on display at the LaSells Stewart Center. (photo: Theresa Hogue)

Her portrait of a ladybug perched on a bright pink flower is one of the larger pieces in the exhibit.

“I love to put my pictures on large canvases,” she said.  “Especially pictures that lean toward being macro or single-subject.  I like making the little things jump to life and take center stage — ladybugs, spider webs, petals on a flower, drops of water.”

Hartley’s mother passed away almost two years ago, but Hartley still goes out to capture those stories on film.

“I still feel like I’m taking pictures for her sometimes,” she said.

The art show is made possible with the assistance of the Association of Office Professionals and the Professional Faculty Leadership Association.

The regular gallery hours are Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

~Theresa Hogue

This exhibit demonstrates a broad diversity of styles and approaches to the making of art. Harrison Branch exhibits a beautiful platinum-palladium photographic print with beautiful soft tonal qualities that only this alternative process can produce. His work is counter-point to the digitally manipulated figurative work of Felicia Phillips, rich in tone and mezzotint like texture, with reconstructed fragments and spatial layers.

Paintings by Sandy Brooke, Kathleen Caprario, and Stephen Hayes, show work in a variety of styles and in various media of oil, acrylic, and mixed media. Kay Campbell continues in a series of work dealing with thorny issues and which has moved from mixed media to serigraphy. Jim Folts presents a pair of ink-jet photographs, crystalline in his signature mastery of digital photography.

Graphic designers Christine Gallagher and Andrea Marks contribute four pieces that speak of lettering, design, and conceptual concepts.
Mark’s work, “Basel Book” is a book design built with collage of schedules, tickets, and print memorabilia, which she collected while in Basel, Switzerland.

Julie Green brings four prints that were published by the famed Lawrence Litho Workshop, and which show case her quirkiness, humor, and unique drawing abilities.

Yuji Hiratsuka is one of the northwest’s prized printmakers, and his “TriumpFigure”, an intaglio, relief, and Chine collé print reveals his colorist talent in a rare reduction intaglio process. Stephen Hayes oil, “River to Lake” provides insight to this Portland artist’s love of nature, his innate feeling for the power of stillness, and the emotional resonance of color.

Shelley Jordon’s three short videos include “Family History” which won the “Silver Coyote, Critic’s Choice Award” at the Gold Coyote Super Short Film Festival in Marylhurst in May of 2009. Family History is an animated painting that explores the quixotic nature of memory and how each new experience is filtered through our perceptions of previous ones.

John Maul’s rapturous “Wings” is an eight-foot wood and encaustic sculpture that typifies his broad-range experimental use of material, based in his esthetic of clean design, glowing color, and the smell of sweet beeswax. It is rivaled in scale by Andrew Myers’ larger than life charcoal figure, drawn on cut and sewn paper and pinned directly to the wall. Myers’ work was previously featured in “Art in America”, and he continue to impress viewers with his bold compositions and confident drawing ability.

Douglas Russell has included a small plein-air painting, “The Edge”, a golden grass meadow interlaced with oranges and blues, and boarded by a dark line of trees diminishing into the distant mountain range.

“The edge,” says Russell, is in reference to the landscape, and also to the blending where colors come together, a detail that painters often relish.

Fairbanks Gallery is located in Fairbanks Hall, at the corner of Jefferson Way and College Drive on the OSU campus. Gallery hours are 8 a.m.-5 p.m., Monday through Friday. Due to reduced staffing in the summer months, unexpected closures may sometimes occur. The exhibit closes after the closing reception on Oct. 7.

~ Douglas Russell

Luanne Lawrence, vice president of University Advancement. (photo: Jim Folts)

When I announced to family and friends four years ago that I would be leaving our home in Maine to come to Oregon State University, I received electronic, telephone and in-person high-fives. My academic friends on the east coast could cite the accomplishments of many OSU faculty. My athletics friends gave me the thumbs up for coming to a PAC-10 university. My family envied my new life in beautiful Oregon.

And when I arrived in Corvallis and got to know the top ranked faculty in areas like agriculture and forestry and conservation biology (yes, No. 1 ranked and no specific academic program in this area), I was both humbled and eager to figure out how to tell these stories far and wide. When I discovered the staff, who go so far out of their way to help students achieve their dreams, I was struck by their modesty in seeing that what they were doing was so far above and beyond. And, meeting the faculty and staff in our extension offices and experiment stations has made me a more mindful leader – understanding the diverse and pressing needs of Oregon through their work and their contributions to their communities.

I have never lost that sense of wonder and excitement. Every year as I travel through the state and see its changing landscapes, varied cultures and honest people, I am proud that I have become an Oregonian. When I am working at regional and national levels, I feel the respect that OSU has in the larger world. Working at OSU in a position where our Division of University Advancement tells the stories of the incredible people who work, teach, study and research here, has been an honor.

To further honor all of you who make meager resources and too many office hours work to the benefit of OSU, we have created LIFE@OSU, a new biweekly publication that will help us all know each other a little better and to connect in new and different ways. This publication will replace OSU This Week and will bring more stories that help us appreciate those around us. Sometimes we will introduce you to people in personal ways – talking about their unique lifestyles. Sometimes we will tell the story of careful research and end-results from the labor of addressing some of the state’s and nation’s most pressing questions. And sometimes we will introduce you to people with jobs that are fun, interesting and sometimes invisible to us, but that play incredible roles in our infrastructure. Produced through the Department of News and Communication Services, this new internal newsletter can also be found on the Web at: oregonstate.edu/lifeatosu.

We have reached so many milestones as a university – two national baseball championships; a record-breaking year for research funding; national rankings for academic programs and sustainability initiatives; faculty and staff receiving international awards. Now we hope that LIFE@OSU will celebrate the talent behind those achievements and that you will feel a stronger sense of Beaver pride by coming to know these individuals a little better.

Please take the time to send us comments on the new publication. Letters to the editor are welcomed at lifeatosu@oregonstate.edu, and we are eager to also create online dialogues about our stories at our Web site. But most of all, we hope that you will take time with each issue and that when you see the people we write about in person and on campus, tell them that you appreciate them and all that they do and join us in celebrating the amazing faculty and staff at OSU.

Luanne Lawrence is vice president of University Advancement for OSU.