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Friday, March 29
The Indiana Daily Student

arts

Program brings artists, community together

The School of Fine Arts is snacking on something new this semester. \nThe SoFA Gallery has initiated a new program called "ArtBites," which looks to introduce the Bloomington community to IU art students at Friday luncheons. \nSoFA Gallery Director Betsy Stirratt said she wanted to bring residents and students together to talk about their art.\n"It was obvious that we needed to educate the public a little more about the shows that we were doing and the work that our students come out with," Stirratt said. \nArtBites is a semester-long program that will showcase work by graduate and undergraduate students in the school. Students from different fields, including painting, ceramics and printmaking, will display their work and talk about it every other Friday at noon. These sessions are free. Lunch will be available at these sessions for $5. \nThe first "ArtBites" session took place Friday. Work displayed during the session included painting, ceramics, metalsmithing and printmaking. Three graduate students spoke about their work. \nMark McCay, a graduate printmaking student, said the open forum of the series makes the gathering special.\n"This is an incredible opportunity for people to hear first-hand about the experiences of different artists," McCay said, who lectured on his work Friday. \nEach display session will be about two weeks long, and each session will highlight a different group of artists. The sessions will be during each exhibition period in which the artists talk about their work. \nThe semester-long program is not restricted to art students. It highlights artists from across the United States. Contemporary fiber art by male artists and paintings of African-American writers by Gilbert Fletcher involve nationally renowned artists. \nGrafton Trout, a retired professor, said he regularly visits the SoFA Gallery and is looking forward to a different type of exhibit. "It's quite an excellent idea," Trout said. "It's great for the audience because they can get a true feel for what goes into a work of art. It's also good for the artist to be articulate about his or her work." \nFor more information, call 855-8490.

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