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The Cast Gallery in Ellis Library is open! The North portion of Room 202 on the second floor of Ellis Library is now home to this collection brought to you by the School of Visual Studies.
The gallery is open during library hours but will be closed occasionally for instruction.
See more Art and Exhibits in the Libraries.
This exhibit is on display in Ellis Library Colonnade from March 3 to April 28, 2023.
Just in time for Women’s History Month, view a collection of literary and arts integration projects led by Dr. Kathryn Fishman-Weaver. This bright display draws the viewer right into stories about youth participatory action research (YPAR), global education studies, and experiences teaching women’s and gender studies in schools. From murals created with kindergarten scholars to a bubblegum pink model of the human brain (3D printed at 300% size), this exhibit is a must-see for anyone interested in teaching and learning. Fishman-Weaver also includes copies of her six recent books, a peek inside a new poetry project, and bold posters celebrating co-authors, educational collaborators, advisory editors and student researchers.
Dr. Kathryn Fishman-Weaver began her teaching career in a public K-8 school in Oakland, CA. Since then, she has taught and led programs in special education, gifted education, English language arts, and teacher preparation. Fishman-Weaver currently serves as the executive director of Mizzou Academy and as an associate teaching professor in Learning, Teaching and Curriculum. She holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology, a master’s degree in special education, and a Ph.D. in educational leadership and policy analysis. Dr. Fishman-Weaver is the author or coauthor of six books in education: Wholehearted Teaching of Gifted Young Women (2018), When Your Child Learns Differently (2019), Brain-Based Learning with Gifted Students (2020), Connected Classrooms (2022) coauthored with Stephanie Walter, Teaching Women’s and Gender Studies Grades 6-8 (2023) co-authored with Jill Clingan, and Teaching Women’s and Gender Studies Grades 9-12 (2023) also co-authored with Jill Clingan. Her work has appeared in numerous publications and has been referenced by the U.S. Department of Education. She has lectured and led professional development sessions around the world.
Please join us for a lecture on the The Missouri Sharecroppers Strike: Black Resistance in Depression Era Curators Exhibit in Ellis Library.
On February 22, from 2:30-3:30pm in 114A Ellis Library, SHSMO Art Curator Joan Stack will present on the photos photojournalist Arthur Witman documented the Missouri Sharecropper’s Strike along Highways 60 and 61 in Southeast Missouri in 1939. The exhibition of photographs includes images of the strike as well as Witman’s later photos of nearby Cropperville, a village created after the protest where many of the displaced sharecroppers came to live and work communally.
Exhibition and lecture sponsored by The University of Missouri’s Black History Month Committee, The State Historical Society of Missouri, and MU Libraries
On display in Ellis Library colonnade.
In January of 1939 St. Louis Post-Dispatch photojournalist Arthur Witman documented the Missouri Sharecropper’s Strike along Highways 60 and 61 in Southeast Missouri. The local landowners had been given federal funds by the Depression era Agriculture Adjustment Administration (A.A.A) to leave their farmland fallow, and many of these property holders chose to keep the money for themselves and evict the workers who had farmed their land. African American labor leader, Rev. Owen Whitfield, organized a strike to protest these evictions, bringing roughly 1500 of the farm workers together in roadside shantytowns that called public attention to their plight. The exhibition of photographs includes images of the strike as well as Witman’s later photos of nearby Cropperville, a village created after the protest where many of the displaced sharecroppers came to live and work communally.
SHSMO Art Curator Joan Stack will present a lecture on the exhibition Feb. 22, 2:30 to 3:30, in Ellis Library.
Exhibition and lecture sponsored by The University of Missouri’s Black History Month Committee, The State Historical Society of Missouri, and MU Libraries
Now on display, “Provenance: Everywhere in Everything” showcases research and creative works completed by students enrolled in the Honors Seminar during Fall 2022, GN_HON 1050H, “Get Real, Go Places! Let Objects Take You There.” The eight-week course takes as its focus the study of material culture, specifically the opportunities for research that objects and artifacts make possible. Students are introduced to the concept of provenance and the practices of interpreting, inspecting, and writing about objects through regular use of a sketchbook journal and weekly syntheses shared with classmates. The course is taught by Dr. Sarah Buchanan of the iSchool at the University of Missouri (in the College of Education and Human Development) and by gallery, library, archive, and museum professionals based on the Mizzou campus who belong to the Material Culture Studies Group, established in 2014.
The expansive idea of provenance was introduced to Honors students as information about an object – its origins, ownership history, and creation contexts. Students’ fact-finding research projects crossed cultures and made innovative use of MU Libraries’ resources to tell, visually and creatively, new stories about cultural public heritage. Our student showcase features 18 art objects created by 12 undergraduate students, each based on the class visit to a particular collection on the Columbia campus. Students created weekly syntheses reflecting on their visit and a culminating analysis of specific objects conducive to continued study.
On display here are tributes to the Francis Quadrangle’s late great pin oak trees in the form of an original piano composition and a full-color garden redesign proposal, collages both of haunted Columbia buildings and a nun’s Book of Hours from ca. 1530, a biography of Armenian-American artist Stephen Sacklarian’s “Reality of Unreality XXIV” painting, digital art about “finding home away from home,” an etymological / theological study of “providence as the fulfillment and completion of provenance,” clay letters and a handmade Processional inspired by an illuminated manuscript, an impression of fiber art shown in “The Things of This World: Works by Sarah Nguyen” in the George Caleb Bingham Gallery, a 3D visualization of chaos depicted in a painting by Bingham, drawings of Greek and Egyptian gods, and visual aids for oil lamps and making papyrus, among other provenance storytellings. For their contributions to the success of the course we gratefully thank: Catherine Armbrust, Jessica Boldt, Chris Daniggelis, Connor Frew for the RISO room, Kelli Hansen, Rachel Harper, Nicole Johnston, Benton Kidd, Andrew Long for Ceramics, Maggie Mayhan, Pete Millier, artist Sarah Nguyen, Candace Sall, Karlan Seville, Joan Stack, and Kenzie Wells and dedicate the exhibit in memory of Chancellor (1978-1987) Barbara Uehling, originator of the Mizzou Botanic Garden.
The course will next be offered in Fall 2023 – join us!
Special Collections has a new digital exhibit: Masks, Hells, and Books: The Nuremberg Schembartlauf (1449-1539), curated by John Henry Adams. The Schembartlauf (literally, “the running of the masked men”) was a traditional Carnival parade held in Nuremberg, Germany. It started as a small honor guard for a troop of dancers but rapidly grew to include giant mechanical parade floats, political commentary, and dozens or hundreds of masked participants. Unfortunately, sometimes the exuberance would also spill over into riots. The most memorable of these riots was probably the one in 1539, when the Schembartlauf was banned, a ban that has yet to be officially revoked.
Masks, Hells, and Books takes the reader through the different aspects of the Schembartlauf: the origins of the parade, the costumes of the runners, the parade floats, the 1539 disaster that resulted in the Schembart’s ban, and the manuscripts that have preserved the memory of this strange festivity. We hope that it inspires you to think about some of our own traditions and how strange they might seem after several centuries of inactivity, though we would like to ask that you not follow the example set by the Schembart in 1507 and 1539. No riots, please!
The exhibit is made possible by the generosity of a private collector who has loaned three medieval manuscripts to Special Collections.
Visit Ellis Library immediately after the Homecoming Parade on Saturday, October 22, for refreshments and family activities. The first 100 kids will receive a free mini pumpkin. This event is free and open to the public.
“The Books of 1922” celebrates the centennial of some notable works, including James Joyce’s Ulysses, T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, Virginia Woolf’s Jacob’s Room, Claude McKay’s Harlem Shadows and other books that became 20th-century standouts. The exhibit displays first edition covers and rare illustrations of Ulysses by Matisse, exploring the evolution of texts from manuscripts to beloved library copies bearing annotations by generations of students. This exhibit was created by the team of Associate Professor Frances Dickey and English major Claire Dooley.
Artwork from local artist Lisa Bartlett is currently on display in Ellis Library in the Bookmark Cafe. You can see Bartlett’s work throughout the fall semester. See Bartlett’s artist statement below.
“Being of a restless, creative nature, I generally have multiple projects going on at once. I bounce between media, and I love to experiment.
I am interested in those who have suffered and yet persevered. I like to honor cultures that have been marginalized. I do this by showing the joy and vibrancy of peoples through color and vibrant brush strokes.
Sometimes I like to paint on very large canvases and include collage and gold leaf in the composition. I also enjoy working in three dimensions using such found objects as old clock cases, broken ceramics, and Victorian hardware. My work often tells a story, since I’m fascinated by human nature and by what history has to teach us. Old photographs, old letters, and other memorabilia are major sources of inspiration.
I’m always looking for new ideas, new construction techniques, and new projects to get excited about. Anything that involves experimentation, anything complicated, and finally just the act of creation itself—that’s what I love.”
Want to see the results of MU faculty research? Visit the Ellis Library colonnade to see some of the latest books published by our faculty. The exhibit will be on display all summer.