Below are the guidelines for completing the Senior Capstone in studio art.
Your exhibition will come from a focused body of work completed during your senior year. You are required to 1) display the work in a professional manner with proper framing, mounting, or other presentation; 2) show your advanced studio professor a design/plan of how you will install your work in your location in the gallery; 3) install an exhibition with a sufficient quantity of work to clearly show the direction of your concepts and development of your skills; and 4) work in coordination with the Gund Gallery staff and cooperate with your fellow students to professionally install and publicize your work.
The artist's statement will be read and commented on by the faculty. The preliminary draft is due to your seminar professor in a document attached to an email on Wednesday, February 12. They will distribute it to orals faculty who will comment before the final version is due. The final version along with a wall statement derived from your artist’s statement will be due Wednesday, March 18. You will be responsible to submit the wall statement to the gallery by Wednesday, April 1, after it is approved by your seminar professor.
The artist's statement is a two-page double-spaced document that describes your current body of work in terms of its content and form. Writing this tatement is a means for you to better understand what you are doing and why you are doing it. When prepared thoroughly, this document also serves as the foundation for the more thorough artist talk on your work, which is part of the senior exercise. You will receive a departmental handout to help guide you through this process.
The wall statement can be derived from your artist's statement. This short statement (about 200 words) will be on display in your exhibition and should inform viewers of your concepts, questions and process as a means to further understand the work in front of them.
For the artist talk, you will meet as a group in the gallery with your seminar section and the Department of Studio Art faculty. Each student will give a talk surrounded by their work where they address three general questions put to them by the department earlier in the semester. You will give a 12-15 minute presentation focused on the work exhibited. You will also show supplementary images of your work that are not part of the exhibition. These works may show how certain ideas or techniques were developed, or they may show directions that were explored but subsequently not followed. They should not be a general overview of your work at Kenyon. Five to eight minutes of questions from the faculty will follow.
After the completion of the artist talk , faculty members will score students in two categories: first, the quality of the work itself, on a scale of 1 to 6, with 6 being the highest; second, the strength of the talk and post-talk Q&A is scored 1 to 4, with 4 being the highest. (For example: quality of work = 6, artist talk = 2. Total = 4.0). The department averages the scores, in a confidential and anonymous manner, and faculty review the averages. To be awarded pass with distinction, a student must score a 4.5 or above. A student who scores above 2 passes the Senior Capstone; a student who scores 2 or below fails. Failure to attend the group presentation evening (during your seminar class period) will receive a zero for the four presentation points.
During the gallery installation, any student who is not prepared or fails at any time to act in a professional manner may be penalized by up to one point of their total score of their senior comprehensive exam.
As a record of this show, you are required to submit five jpeg files in the folder on the server "Petra" labeled "Senior Artists Documentation." Each jpeg file must be 3000 pixels in the longest dimension. Then, print one page (8.5x11) containing five small labeled images, with the complete titles of the artworks, the media, physical dimensions of the artwork, and date completed. These images should be a minimum of 2" in size. The files should be in a folder labeled with your name within the documentation folder. To help you produce images of the quality required, attendance at the Department of Studio Art workshop on documentation is required.
If your project is primarily time-based, you must submit video documentation in the most current high-quality compressed format (h.264). Documentation must be submitted by Friday, April 24 to Emily Zeller, who will determine if they are of sufficient quality. Failure to submit this documentation will be cause for failing the Senior Capstone. Documentation will be used to produce a catalog of the exhibition.
A letter telling you whether or not you passed the Senior Capstone will be available at the studio art office the Tuesday of exam week. Student scores are not given. After all seniors have completed the Senior Capstone, turned in their documentation, and filled out the department evaluation form, a notice will be posted announcing who passed with distinction.
The studio art faculty is well aware that art majors will have expenses associated with purchasing art supplies and that, at times, covering these costs can be difficult for our students. To help, all senior studio art majors are allocated $500 from the Mesaros Art Fund, to help with the costs of creating work for their senior exercise exhibition. In order to receive these funds, you need to bring receipts that support your senior exercise expenses to the department office. Save your receipts and then turn the receipts in all together, at one time, not a few at a time. Only one check per senior studio art major will be issued. You have until Friday, April 24, to turn in your receipts. It is helpful if you can turn them in prior to this deadline, so please turn in your receipts as soon as you can.
If a senior studio art major wishes to pursue projects that require expensive equipment they do not have (such as but not limited to technology), for their senior exercise, we would like to encourage students to work with their seminar professor to propose equipment purchases. Funding is limited, and a limited number of proposals will be granted. Unlike the $500 provided for each student to help with the costs of producing your exhibition of artwork, which is a reimbursement to the student, any purchases in this category would be made by the department, and the equipment would remain property of the department and Kenyon.
The deadline for proposals is Friday, February 28. However, turning in proposals earlier than the deadline is encouraged. If you have any questions, contact any Studio Art faculty member. Submit your proposal by giving it to Lisa Dilts, administrative assistant, and addressing it to: Read Baldwin, Chair, Studio Art.
(All due by 5 p.m. Wednesday, April 1)
You will be working with the Gund Gallery staff on your exhibition announcements, installation and opening reception. You are expected to submit requested elements on time. Details are available on the Gund Gallery contract.
The Gund Gallery will issue contracts that describe the logistics of your exhibition and the details of your “loan” of the work to the gallery. There will be portions for you to complete and sign before returning.
The gallery wall statement and "tombstone" labels will be posted near your work. You will create your wall statement and labels with your seminar professor and then submit them to the gallery.
If you have gallery questions regarding your exhibition, please schedule to meet and talk to Christopher Yates, Gund Gallery assistant director, at yatesc@kenyon.edu, or 740-427-5970.