University of Wyoming Arts Hosts Show, Gains $30 Million in Funding

Helen Shirk’s Nothing Remains as It Was, is one of the juried works of art in University of Wyoming’s new Visual Arts Building gallery inaugural exhibition, “Metal Inkorporated.”  The exhibition, currently on display, remains up through March 31. A reception will be held on Friday, March 23, 6-8:00 pm, at the gallery. The show is curated by metalsmithing professor Leah Hardy, who paired 30 artists from around the country. Each artist, says UW’s Art Department website, was given ” a few months to produce [their] half of the work before mailing it to [their] partner.”

“The process creates an informal dialogue between the two artists, initiating a fresh new approach to materials,” Hardy says.

For more information, email Diana Baumbach at [email protected]

There’s more news for the University of Wyoming’s Arts. Last month the Casper Star Tribune posted a story about Wyoming’s Senate voting to use $30 million originally slated for highway improvement products to, instead, upgrade and expand UW’s Performing Arts and Engineering buildings. The article, written by Jeremy Pelzer, notes that the vote is a contentious one. Here are excerpts from Pelzer’s report:

“The change would give $14.2 million to UW to renovate and expand its 43-year-old performing arts building, which university spokesman Chad Baldwin said is inadequate to handle the school’s 140 music majors. The project is first on UW’s construction priority list, he said….The National Association of Schools of Music, which accredits college music programs, has said unless UW starts on a plan to improve the facility by 2014, it may revoke the program’s accreditation, Baldwin said. That would be a severe blow to the music program’s prestige, he said, and it would hurt recruitment of students and faculty….The remainder of the money, $15.8 million, would be held in an account until UW can start renovating and expanding the engineering building, much of which dates to 1927…..But state Sen. Stan Cooper, R-Kemmerer, said the $30 million is “desperately needed” now to maintain Wyoming’s crumbling highways. “I’d hate to go back home and have to tell my constituents, ‘By the way, I gave up $30 million worth of safety improvements for our highways so that we could build another building at the University of Wyoming,’” Cooper said.”

Read Pelzer’s full article here.