Stamelos Gallery Center

Best Kept Secret: ��-Dearborn Student, Faculty, and Alumni Art Show

aumuir — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 20:12:52 +0000

Best Kept Secret: ��-Dearborn Student, Faculty, and Alumni Art Show aumuir Mon, 01/06/2025 - 15:12

Want to know a secret?

Here it is: Applied Art-animation, design, digital photography, drawing, graphic design, illustration, mixed media, painting, printmaking, sculpture, watercolor-has always been a hub of authentic, human-driven creativity on the ��-Dearborn campus. The Stamelos Gallery Center is proud to present Best Kept Secret: ��-Dearborn Student, Faculty, and Alumni Art Show, showcasing the incredible talents of our university's arts community and the marriage of talent, vision, skill, and persistence that lies at the foundation of artmaking. The works in this show encompass a variety of media from traditional to digital and embody the unique and diverse perspectives of the campus community.

For more information, please visit https://library.umd.umich.edu/stamelos/

daily, starting from Friday, January 24, 2025 - 12:00 am, forever

2025-01-24T00:00:00-0500 to 2025-04-16T23:59:59-0400
2025-01-25T00:00:00-0500 to 2025-04-17T23:59:59-0400
2025-01-26T00:00:00-0500 to 2025-04-18T23:59:59-0400
2025-01-27T00:00:00-0500 to 2025-04-19T23:59:59-0400
2025-01-28T00:00:00-0500 to 2025-04-20T23:59:59-0400

Mardigian Library

4901 Evergreen Rd
Dearborn, MI 48128
United States

https://goo.gl/maps/KpjstvfjSq1ZSNdt9

Stamelos Gallery Center

United States

On Campus

Stamelos Gallery Center

Laura Cotton

313-593-5087

Everyone

Stamelos Gallery Center

Arts

Exhibition

Opening Reception for Best Kept Secret: ��-Dearborn Student, Faculty, and Alumni Art Show

aumuir — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 20:00:57 +0000

Opening Reception for Best Kept Secret: ��-Dearborn Student, Faculty, and Alumni Art Show aumuir Mon, 01/06/2025 - 15:00

Want to know a secret?

Join us for the opening reception on Thursday, January 23th from 5:00 - 7:00pm, with an artist talk at 6:00pm.

The reception is free to the public and complimentary drinks and hors d'oeuvres are provided.

2025-01-23T17:00:00-0500 to 2025-01-23T19:00:00-0500

Mardigian Library

4901 Evergreen Rd
Dearborn, MI 48128
United States

https://goo.gl/maps/KpjstvfjSq1ZSNdt9

Stamelos Gallery Center

United States

On Campus

Stamelos Gallery Center

Laura Cotton

313-593-5087

Everyone

Free Food

Stamelos Gallery Center

Arts

Exhibition

Reception

��-Dearborn hosted its first public ‘Zero Waste’ event

lblouin — Wed, 25 Jan 2023 19:05:07 +0000

��-Dearborn hosted its first public ‘Zero Waste’ event lblouin Wed, 01/25/2023 - 14:05

The opening of the new exhibition at the Mardigian Library’s Stamelos Gallery Center looked much like past opening nights. But if you looked closely, you’d have noticed a few noteworthy differences. The hors d'oeuvres menu was carefully planned to exclude packaging, like cupcake wrappers and dessert cups. Public trash bins were nowhere in sight, though recycling and compost receptacles were abundant and clearly marked. Hovering near each of those bins, six volunteer “waste goalies” stood guard to help folks direct their food scraps and recyclables to the right spots.

These subtle upgrades were part of an effort to make the exhibition opening the very first public Zero Waste event on campus. ��-Dearborn’s new Sustainability Programs Coordinator Grace Maves notes that Zero Waste events typically aren’t as absolutist as the name suggests. Understanding that a small amount of waste may not be recyclable or compostable, the target is often to divert more than 90 percent from the landfill. Even hitting that mark requires some careful planning. For the exhibition opening, for example, Maves, Art Curator and Gallery Manager Laura Cotton and Library Director Jean Song, who’s been looking for creative ways to make the library more sustainable, started by auditing all the consumables they’d have at the event. They picked menu items that emphasized fresh rather than prepackaged foods. They worked with the university’s longtime catering partner, Picasso Restaurant Group, to make sure they were covered on compostable cutlery, dinnerware and wine glasses. They double checked that the cream for coffee would be served in reusable pitchers rather than individual, unrecyclable creamer cups, and that the wine they chose had recyclable metal caps instead of corks. They even verified that the specific brand of dinnerware at the event could be handled by the compost facility they had contracted with. Song says the fact that Picasso already emphasizes reusable and compostable items made planning a breeze.

Maves says the other big part of pulling off a Zero Waste event is making sure that the waste that people are producing throughout the night ends up in the right spot. “Publicly accessible compost bins are not very common, so a lot of times, people may just not know what items are compostable and which are recyclable,” Maves says. “So, for example, compostable forks, those feel like plastic, so most people want to automatically put that in the recycling.” To help folks out, they made announcements at the event and included lots of educational signage. The waste goalies were the last line of defense. “I would say our volunteers were absolutely necessary,” Maves says, noting that folks needed direction “pretty much every time” they headed toward the composting and recycling bins.

Maves gives the first Zero Waste event high marks. The team succeeded in diverting 96 percent of the waste away from the landfill, and they didn’t run into any unexpected snags. Coming off that success, she hopes to support several more public Zero Waste events on campus this year, and produce a “how-to kit” for campus units that, say, want to make their next office party Zero Waste. Maves notes that food-based events present an especially good opportunity, as food scraps that end up in landfills break down to form methane, a greenhouse gas that’s 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

###

Want to learn more about making your next campus event Zero Waste? Sustainability Programs Coordinator Grace Maves would love to hear from you. If you’re interested in other things you can do to make campus — and your life — more sustainable, you’ll also want to check out the Planet Blue Ambassador program, which recently launched on the ��-Dearborn campus. Story by Lou Blouin.

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Wed, 01/25/2023 - 19:04

The recent exhibition opening at the Stamelos Gallery Center diverted 96% of total waste from the landfill.

��-Dearborn’s new Sustainability Programs Coordinator Grace Maves (center) was part of the team that organized the first public Zero Waste event on campus. Photo by Rudra Mehta

Why the new Stamelos Gallery Center is more than just a bigger, better venue for art

rudmehta — Thu, 22 Sep 2022 22:40:37 +0000

Why the new Stamelos Gallery Center is more than just a bigger, better venue for art rudmehta Thu, 09/22/2022 - 18:40

April 22, 2019.

Associate Professor of Art History Diana Ng said viewers might be a little surprised by some items in the Stamelos Gallery Center’s debut exhibit, “The Art of the Everyday: Objects from Ancient Daily Life.” Typically, the kinds of ceramics, dinnerware, symbolic votives and other common items that make up the heart of the show are considered more archaeological artifact than art. And some of the objects, she said, are borderline “ugly.” Really. The 2,000-year-old ceramic jug in the form of the head of Dionysus, on loan from U-M’s Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, was featured as the museum's “ugly object of the month” back in 2018.

For sure, Dionysus has had more flattering renderings than this first-century BCE Roman “juglet” (right). (Credit: Juglet, Kelsey Museum of Archaeology 6542, University of Michigan; statue, 2nd-century Roman, Louvre)

So what are audiences to make of their encounters with these humble, imperfect everyday objects? Ng said there are plenty of interpretive leaping off points for the student-curated show. The Dionysus ceramic, for example, is an interesting example of a Greek god showing up in early Hellenistic Egyptian culture; while other objects might inspire modern reflections about the mass-produced items that fill our own homes.

“For the students, one of the big questions revolved around technology,” Ng said. “When you strike a coin individually on an anvil, there are going to be irregularities. Today, with our modern quality control standards, an object like that would probably be rejected. But perhaps that’s just a modern expectation, and ancient users of the objects had a different mentality. So this exhibit gives us a window into changing perceptions of what an acceptable mass-produced item can be.”

It’s the first show at the new gallery, but it’s indicative of the broad new frontiers the space promises to open up at ��-Dearborn. In fact, Art Curator and Gallery Manager Laura Cotton said hosting this show would have been impossible before the Stamelos. To borrow things like antiquities, museum lenders have very strict climate control requirements in order to prevent the degradation of sensitive pieces. And because ��-Dearborn never had a space that could accommodate those needs, Cotton said the university has typically been limited to exhibiting artwork from the past 75 years.

The Stamelos, however, has all the amenities modern lenders are looking for — including full climate controls, improved security and adjustable LED lighting to protect especially sensitive materials. “We can borrow from the Detroit Institute of Arts or the Art Institute of Chicago now,” Cotton said. “I don’t think it’s overstating things to say that this opens up a whole world of possibilities.”

Ng said it also opens up big new opportunities for her students. Curating and staging “The Art of the Everyday” is the capstone project for students in the Museum Practice Seminar course that’s only offered every few years. This year, with the perks of the new gallery, the students were able to experience an end-to-end process that Ng said closely mimics the way things work in the wider art world.

“I think one of my favorite moments was watching the students during the handling sessions at the Kelsey,” Ng said. “They got to put on gloves and literally hold these centuries-old objects. You see them making the direct connections with these items when the experience is so tactile and personal. Then, to be able to bring these objects to our campus and stage the exhibition makes this a really unparalleled opportunity for experiential learning. And it’s something that’s only possible because we have a gallery which is absolutely state-of-the-art.”

The Stamelos Gallery Center was made possible with a gift from longtime supporters of ��-Dearborn’s arts community Electra and William Stamelos. Electra was a longtime faculty member in the art department. “The Art of the Everyday: Objects from Ancient Daily Life” features items from the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, as well as glasswork from the Toledo Museum of Art and ��-Dearborn’s own collection. The exhibit opens Friday, April 26, with a reception from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. A fall grand opening party for the gallery is scheduled for September 12. More info at library.umd.umich.edu/stamelos.

Arts

Experiential Learning

University-wide

Stamelos Gallery Center

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Mon, 04/22/2019 - 05:00

��-Dearborn’s new Stamelos Gallery Center, which opens Friday, boasts the look and feel of a modern art venue. But it’s the backend amenities that make this a turning point for the university’s arts scene.

Biology sophomore Kari Perkins carefully handles the ancient artifacts that are the heart of a student-curated exhibition opening Friday at ��-Dearborn’s new Stamelos Gallery Center.

Halal Metropolis exhibition series opens Friday

rudmehta — Wed, 10 Aug 2022 17:36:01 +0000

Halal Metropolis exhibition series opens Friday rudmehta Wed, 08/10/2022 - 13:36

This article was originally published on January 14, 2020.

Culture is the way people find a sense of community and belonging. The Halal Metropolis Exhibition explores the many ways in which the Muslim communities of Metro Detroit contribute to the culture of the region and vice versa.

In Dearborn, this can be seen in the way a Christmas tree is repurposed into a crescent moon to celebrate Ramadan. Or in the line of customers waiting at Al Joom’s BBQ for that special cut of halal brisket. Or in the brightly embellished Sanaani dresses Yemeni women wear for local weddings with the latest scarves from Haute Hijab.

Most people know that Dearborn has the largest concentration of Muslims in the U.S. — the city’s Muslims were recently featured on The Simpsons and in many a Twitter feed — but there are many things not known about the ways in which Muslim culture is shaping and being shaped by the larger culture of the region. That’s where Halal Metropolis comes in.

The exhibition series, created by ��-Dearborn’s Center for Arab American Studies Director Sally Howell, U-M Associate Professor or Art Osman Khan and local documentarian Razi Jafri, explores the ways Muslim American culture and metro Detroit culture are now being created dialogically - especially in Dearborn where Muslims practice their faith and live their everyday lives in a community that comfortably accommodates them. Focusing on the visibility of local Muslim cultural practices, the exhibit has traveled to Detroit, Hamtramck, and Howell already, and now the ever-evolving installation has come to Dearborn.

Opening Friday, Halal Metropolis can be experienced on the Mardigian Library’s first floor’s Stamelos Gallery Center through April 3. An Opening Reception will take place from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday. The event is free and open to the public, complimentary hors d’oeuvres and refreshments will be served.

The exhibition includes home videos from the late 1950s and early ‘60s of a Dearborn family visiting the Ford Rotunda’s Christmas Fantasy, celebrating Thanksgiving and Eid, and relaxing at Camp Dearborn. Works from local Muslim artists are featured. And there is a historical display of news clippings, photos and memorabilia, including a 1919 poster announcing plans to build Michigan’s first mosque in Highland Park.

“My last book focused on the history of mosques,” says Howell, “but my recent work looks instead at things outside the mosques - at the contributions Muslims are making in socioeconomic, cultural, and political spheres.“This exhibit shows the deep roots that Muslims have here. I feel it is important for us to recognize the neighborhoods and communities where Muslims can practice their faith freely, but to also look beyond the Muslimness of these spaces, to see the many other qualities they represent. Our project looks at the food, politics, cultural celebrations, art — whatever allows someone to express their full selves in these halal spaces.”

U.S. Representative Rashida Tlaib at her 2018 watch party celebration. Photo by Razi Jafri

Jafri (‘05 B.S.), who grew up Downriver, spent the past week meticulously arranging portraits from floor to ceiling on the wall. They are images he took of local residents (some in CASL’s JASS Studio) stepping out for the holidays in eye-catching clothing.

“It’s the intersection of fashion, modesty and consumerism: Three things that you normally don’t associate together. Look at this man. He has Burbery trim on his keffiyeh. He embodies hip hop, Arab culture, high fashion and modesty — all in one. Muslims are influenced by the world around them, just like Muslims are influencers,” Jafri says, mentioning how actor Rami Malek won a Golden Globe a few days prior. “Through art, I want to create an awareness about our community that is frequently misunderstood, misrepresented and underrepresented in the media and in American culture, yet has a huge impact on American culture. Sharing culture is a way to reach hearts and minds.”

Jafri says reaching out to others is something he began to do after 9/11 when he was a ��-Dearborn sophomore. He recalls feeling shocked and scared, but that was the first trauma. The second trauma was the Islamophobia that followed. He looked for ways to educate and keep lines of communication open for dialogue here on campus. He served as the education chair for the Muslim Student Association, took part in the campus’ Pluralism Project, and founded a campus chapter of Americans for Informed Democracy.

“I was barely 20, but I saw that it wasn’t about religion, the prejudice was appearance based — about being perceived as Muslim. Someone could be a Sikh and get shot and killed because of how you looked. People fear what and who they do not know. My goal was, and still is, to share that we are people who want the best for our families, neighborhoods and communities just like everyone else. And look what wonderful culture — art, fashion, food, music — we are creating in the process.”

Howell, who has worked in the Dearborn community for more than 30 years, says there are so many aspects to this exhibit that non-Muslims and Muslims both will learn something new. It might be that Orville Hubbard liked raw kibbe. About the work of a new favorite artist. Or a newfound appreciation of how the Dearborn of today came to be. Or, possibly, a stronger connection to our community and the people within it.

“It’s foundational to American culture to say we are made up of people who have come from different places and that our nation is built on the idea of liberty and justice for everyone. But there is a tension inherent in these words when we recognize that they have never been applied they universally. Muslims have been here since the country’s founding. They have deep roots in this community especially where they have created thriving neighborhoods, schools and economies, despite facing many challenges. They’ve given and continue to give a tremendous amount and they have a great story to tell.”

For more information, go to the Halal Metropolis website.

Upcoming educational Gallery talks are:

6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 23: Making the Halal Metropolis Project
6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 6: Culinary Pioneers
6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 20: Fashion Influencers
6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, March 12: Dearborn Foodies
6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, March 26: Innovating the Halal Holiday

2019 Ramadan lights in Dearborn. Photo by Razi Jafri

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College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters

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Tue, 01/14/2020 - 06:00

The exhibition series looks at food, politics, cultural celebrations, art and more — whatever allows someone to celebrate their full selves in their halal spaces.

The Halal Metropolis exhibition series was created by U-M Associate Professor or Art Osman Khan, local documentarian Razi Jafri and ��-Dearborn’s Center for Arab American Studies Director Sally Howell.

Reflecting on life through art

tinahu — Mon, 31 Jan 2022 19:47:55 +0000

Reflecting on life through art tinahu Mon, 01/31/2022 - 14:47

Artist Alfred Sisley captured light reflecting on the Loing River in his lithograph from 1896. Hiroshige, a Japanese ukiyo-e master, uses the color woodblock printing technique to feature a serene mountain snow scene. Giovanni Battista Piranesi etched images of antiquities that he studied in Rome.

These are works on display in the new Stamelos Gallery Center exhibition “Picturing Places and Spaces.” The 41 pieces on display — a variety of media that are international to local in scope — are all brought together in the 21st century to reflect on the respite the outdoors has offered during the pandemic.

The new exhibit at the Stamelos Gallery Center, located on the first floor of the Mardigian Library, is open to U-M community members now through April 1.

Art History major Brittanie Sharp said COVID’s onset made people intensely aware of the spaces of their homes and if there are nearby walking paths or public parks.“Something COVID did was help us notice the world around us more. That’s what stayed open and available. I went on a lot more hikes and walks and started to notice more things like the shape of treetops.”

The displayed works come from the Stamelos Gallery Center’s permanent collection and from the University of Michigan Museum of Art. Although the artists were from a variety of places — there’s art from Europe. Asia and North America — and pieces were created from different inspiration points, the works are brought together under themes of place that include Famous Places, City Spaces and Sites of Solitude.

As a part of Professor Susan Erickson’s Art History Capstone Seminar, Sharp and her classmates curated content and assisted with installation for “Picturing Places and Spaces.”

Art history students have helped create exhibits for decades — but this time students learned about museums, curation, and installation in a one semester practice-based learning capstone experience. The new capstone was created to help ensure students got a more complete picture of what it’s like to work in a museum.

Professor Susan Erickson, right, takes a photo of student Diana Guzman at the opening of the "Picturing Places and Spaces" exhibit.

“We’ve brainstormed aspects of the exhibit, researched the works, created a design for the museum space, learned how to install exhibit pieces safely and more,” she said. “Anytime there was a challenge, the students were charged to help find a solution.”

To help them see how professionals handle challenges, Erickson arranged Zoom presentations by U-M’s Kelsey Museum of Archaeology Director of Education Cathy Persons and the University of Michigan Museum of Art Curator of Asian Art Natsu Oyobe. They also went to the Henry Ford Estate to see the preservation work in progress and traveled to the Toledo Museum of Art to go behind the scenes of a new exhibit installation, visit the archives and view the art library.

Stamelos Gallery Center Director/ Art Curator Laura Cotton and Registrar/ Gallery Assistant Autumn Muir expanded upon the field trips and what the students learned in the classroom by providing interactive opportunities for the students to come into the Stamelos Galley and work alongside them as museum professionals.

Cotton said the Stamelos Galley Center, which opened in 2019, has all the amenities needed to borrow and display fragile art pieces — including museum quality climate controls, security features and adjustable LED lighting to protect especially sensitive materials. And the gallery staff showed students how those space attributes work and talked about their importance.

Cotton said showing ��-Dearborn students the ropes of museum work energizes her. She also enjoys hearing what information the students undercover about the pieces during their research.

“It’s fun to converse and interact in the gallery with the students, and read through their research on the pieces — some of which we’ve had in our collection for decades — and see the art in a whole new way, from the perspectives of the students,” she said. “The students did a wonderful job of putting together text labels for the works that are interesting, relatable and informative.”

Along with interesting bits of information, Erickson said the exhibit also offers a bit of escapism.

“We have started to return to the familiar places and routines of daily life, but many of us are still dreaming of traveling again. This exhibit gives a way to ‘visit’ a new place or see our own worlds with fresh eyes. This exhibition explores both real and imagined places and spaces as depicted by a selection of international, national, and local artists.” There are remarkable works on loan from the University of Michigan Museum of Art, but the majority of the pieces are part of the ��- Dearborn collection.

The capstone experience isn’t just for art-focused students, Erickson said. The course also includes people on a variety of career paths.

Professor Susan Erickson, far right, and the students in her Art History Capstone course helped create the newest Stamelos Gallery Center exhibit, "Picturing Places and Spaces."

Senior Frank Carter is an electrical engineering major. Carter said a by-chance elective course in art history showed him how lessons learned in art history could complement his electrical engineering knowledge. He is now working toward having Art History become a second major.

“My art courses have taught me the importance of paying attention to the details, while also keeping my mind open to possibilities. It’s a mix of using both your left and right brain, and I like that,” he said. “When our class worked on the art installation part of the class, it reminded me of building a power grid for a city. It needs to be designed well with the right amount of power — and you better not get any wires crossed.”

And then there are students who were always considering an art history career. For junior Diana Guzman, it affirmed what she returned to school for after working in the finance industry for 30-plus years. “I’ve always been drawn to art. But I changed my career course once I started my family. Now that my children are older, I’ve decided to pursue my passion.”

For senior Nicole Gonzales, it helped her see what career possibilities are out there. She said museum work may be the right path for her.

Student Nicole Gonzales is interested in pursuing a career as a museum curator after her Art History capstone course experience.

“You use logical thinking and creative expression in one space. In doing that, you make something beautiful that has meaning and a message,” she said. “I think our class is really proud of what we created. I know I am. And I want to continue doing work like this.”

Professor Erickson and her students would like to give a special thanks to Laura Cotton and Autumn Muir, as well as Associate Provost and Mardigian Library Director Maureen Linker, Talent Gateway Director Laurie Sutch, Talent Gateway Marketing and Events Coordinator Meghan Lavelle and Mardigian Library Systems Administrator Patrick Armatis.

Article by Sarah Tuxbury.

Experiential Learning

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Mon, 01/31/2022 - 19:47

The new campus exhibition “Picturing Places and Spaces” features artworks spanning several centuries that are brought together to reflect on the respite the outdoors has offered during the pandemic.

��-Dearborn faculty, staff and students can visit the Stamelos Gallery Center to see the new "Picturing Places and Spaces" exhibit. Photos by Sarah Tuxbury.

Stamelos Gallery Center

Best Kept Secret: ������-Dearborn Student, Faculty, and Alumni Art Show

Mardigian Library

Opening Reception for Best Kept Secret: ������-Dearborn Student, Faculty, and Alumni Art Show

Mardigian Library

������-Dearborn hosted its first public ‘Zero Waste’ event

Why the new Stamelos Gallery Center is more than just a bigger, better venue for art

Halal Metropolis exhibition series opens Friday

Reflecting on life through art

Best Kept Secret: ��-Dearborn Student, Faculty, and Alumni Art Show

Opening Reception for Best Kept Secret: ��-Dearborn Student, Faculty, and Alumni Art Show

��-Dearborn hosted its first public ‘Zero Waste’ event