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Art, Libraries, News & Events, O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library

Now at the OSF Library: A Peace of My Mind

An exhibit asking “What Does Peace Mean to You?”

By St. Paul artist John Noltner

Monday, February 9 until Monday, February 23 in the O’Shaughnessy-Frey Library Lobby, and satellite locations across campus.

A Peace of My Mind is a multimedia art project that fosters public dialogue about issues related to conflict resolution, civic responsibility, and peace. With engaging portraits and compelling personal stories, more than fifty subjects describe what peace means to them, how they work toward it in their lives, and some of the obstacles they encounter along the way.

Those profiled include Holocaust survivors and a homeless man, a Somali refugee and a military chaplain, a pottery instructor and an oil company executive. Artists, volunteers, politicians, and business leaders all share their thoughts and inspiring stories in a series that celebrates our common experience and sense of community.

Banners with individual portraits and stories will be on view in the OSF Library Lobby and in satellite locations across the St. Paul campus. Several programs will gather the St. Thomas community to engage in conversations about the meaning of peace. QR codes on the banners will allow smartphone users to access podcasts, video interviews, and other online resources.

For more information about the exhibit: http://apeaceofmymind.net/ For questions about the exhibit, please contact Mike Klein, Clinical Faculty in the Department of Justice and Peace Studies: mcklein@stthomas.edu

Sponsored by the Department of Justice and Peace Studies
Co-sponsored by: American Culture and Difference, Student Diversity and Inclusion Services, The Office for Mission, O’Shaughnessy-Frey Library, and Students for Justice and Peace.

February 9, 2015 by

Art, Database Highlights & Trials, Services

Featured Librarian: Kate Burke

It’s time for the third in our Featured Librarian series!

This week I spoke to Kate Burke, a reference and student experience librarian at the St Paul campus. You’ll see her in a wide variety of classes as well as heading up many of the fun activities that happen around the libraries. Here is what she had to say:

What departments are you a liaison for?
I am responsible for Art History, Philosophy, Air Force ROTC, Mathematics, Physics, Geography, and Geographic Information Systems and Computer and Information Sciences.
What resource – in your topic area – do you think is the coolest?
I love ARTstor
What’s one cool thing that resource can do?
ARTstor can be used by all students to help them create awesome presentation using fabulous artwork

Getting to know Kate…

What’s your favorite flavor of ice cream?
Haagen-Dazs Vanilla Chocolate Chip.
Who is your favorite author?
I love Jane Austen and Sue Grafton.
Do you prefer the Minnesota Twins or the St Paul Saints?
As a native St. Paulite, I am going with the Saints.
Is there something random about you that you’d like us to know?
I make a wicked Angel Food cake. There is no box involved. It is completely homemade. All my children ask me to make it for their birthdays.

Kate may be contacted by email, or by phone at (651) 962-5027. See more information about her on the library website.

May 22, 2013 by

News & Events

May Day Images from ARTstor

May Day has many different meanings for people all over the world. It started as a spring festival to celebrate the warmer weather. Now May Day is identified with labor rights. Here are a few images from Artstor that reflect the festival nature of the day.

May 1, 2013 by kmburke

Database Highlights & Trials

Looking for paintings by Pieter Claesz?

Whenever you are looking for art, it’s easiest and fastest to search Summon for the artist’s name. Then you simply limit to painting or image (or art or drawing or photograph… you get my point). Here’s how it works. From the library homepage, use the Summon tab to search your artist:

I chose Picasso cuz he’s one of my favorites. Once you get the results, click MORE under CONTENT TYPE to limit to images.

Depending on the artist, you’ll have a lot of image types to choose from. Click as many as you like.

You might have to play with your pop-ups. If asked, permanently allow pop-ups from this provider.

You can even search by the title of a painting or photograph (or any type of work of art) if you’d like to get more specific. These images are coming mostly from ArtSTOR, which you can search separately. If you search ArtSTOR directly you can create albums (after you sign in) and save images to albums. You can also take ArtSTOR on the road with its mobile app. You have to first create an account in ArtSTOR in order to use the mobile app.

We have a lot of really cool art resources. For your one-stop shop on background information, you cannot go wrong with Oxford Art. It’s very thorough and includes the once-famous Grove Dictionary of Art & Artists. But Oxford Art is bigger than even Grove. If it’s articles you have a hankerin’ for, a quick search in Art Full Text will get you what you need. I already told you about ArtSTOR.

If you’re not keen on using multiple tools, just stay in Summon for all of your information needs. For example, if you want background info on an artist, choose REFERENCE as a content type. Reference is the same as dictionaries and encyclopedias. In the case of art, you’ll find articles from Oxford Art by searching Summon and limiting CONTENT TYPE to REFERENCE. If it’s articles, stay in Summon and limit to SCHOLARLY JOURNALS INCLUDING PEER REVIEWED. And if you want images, well… I already covered that.

This all actually came about because a student was recently looking for works by Pieter Claesz. There were 31 found in Summon. All paintings. Here’s one of ’em. When I limited to REFERENCE information, I found him mentioned in the “Encyclopedia of Death and the Human Experience” in an article called “Symbols of Death and Memento Mori.”

May 1, 2013 by

Database Highlights & Trials

Core Curriculum – Fine Arts

Art history! Music! Theater! Now we’re talking my language, people! This is where I shine </jazz hands>. As a former art librarian, I am happy to tell you we have wonderful art resources here in the library, the greatest of which has to be ARTstor. Simply the greatest collection of digital art images for museums and universities. You can rotate the works, zoom in, crop, save, and/or download images Admittedly, I’m a bit biased towards this project cuz I was involved in AMICO – the forerunner to ARTstor. It has since merged with ARTstor. Hence the love. Also, it’s wicked awesome! Oxford Art provides all of the text to accompany the images in ARTstor. It’s a HUGE encyclopedia (think of Wikipedia just for art) on all things art – from artists, works, movements, periods, techniques, and more. More art resources. Art guides.

We have terrific music resources, my favorites being the streaming audio databases. Literally hundreds of thousands of songs played directly to your computer. So much fun. Look up genres, instruments, song titles, composers, etc. My particular favorite is the Smithsonian Global Sound because I’m more interested in traditional and world music than classical. But hey, that’s not to say the classical and jazz resources are shabby. These are cool, too – just not my bag. But if it’s information about music you need, and not the actual music, then Oxford Music has got it covered. From world to jazz and classical to folk, this is a one-stop shop for background information on all things music. Also, it’s fun to flip through. More music resources. Music guides.

Theater. Ahhh… all the world SHOULD be a stage. In my previous humanities-based core curriculum entries I’ve given Blackwell Reference a big shoutout. Gonna do it again here people! It’s huge for theater. If you’re the type who likes to watch their theater instead of read it (first, bless you. There’s little that compares to the experience of live theater. Secondly, I hope you support local theater), be sure to check out VAST and Films on Demand for wonderful adaptations of your favorite (or required) plays. Maybe you’re a Dr. Who or Harry Potter fan. Well I’m happy to report that we’ve got David Tennant’s turn as Hamlet from the Royal Shakespeare Theater’s production. This is quality stuff! If you need theater criticism or background, Literature Criticism Online and Literature Resource Center have got you covered. More theater resources.

September 24, 2012 by

News & Events

Rembrandt at the MIA

Now through September 16th the Minneapolis Institute of Art is hosting Rembrandt in America and it is fabulous. Advertised as the largest exhibit of Rembrandt in America, EVER, you will be blown away by both the quality of the Rembrandts gathered from all over the country – from a variety of respected museums and private collectors – and also by the way it is curated. They have put the true Rembrandts next to those that have been de-attributed: those done by others and intentionally sold as Rembrandts, staff artists in his workshop, and those which had appeared to be Rembrandts and have now been changed to reflect the known painters.

By the end of the exhibit you feel like you can tell the difference. In addition to the show itself, which can be enjoyed by reading the captions, the museum allows you to enter their wireless network on your smartphone (calling all artists the killer app for owning a smartphone), give you earphones, and which gives you access to the narration (no charge!) and to additional bits you would not have known about. All for the price of admission. The portrait to the left is a sketch of the painting that is in the exhibit – oh, there is also a whole room at the end with nothing but sketches – is of his wife, Saskia and taken from ARTstore, to which the library subscribes and is just one of the thousands of Rembrandt images in ARTstore. With this image the museum curators tell you that Rembrandt and Saskia were very much in love, despite the fact that she is in the painting as an apparent afterthought.

They go on to tell you about the terms of her will which will matter by the time you get to the end of the exhibit and see this painting which is absolutely tragic. He has painted his second ‘wife’ whom he also adored but could not marry because of the terms of Saski’s will.

I could go on and on and put more and more paintings in but I’ll stop now and tell you to go see it. Before you do, you may want to learn more about Rembrandt from the many resources the library owns. Oxford Art Online is a great place to start, yes even better than Wikipedia. And if you don’t want to read, you might want to watch one of our films about Rembrandt in Films on Demand from the privacy of your own home.

And if you want to see some recent articles on Rembrandt from the collections of the University of St. Thomas click here. This is a Summon search which provides a single search over much of the libraries’ contents.

No matter what you read or watch, make the trip to the MIA to see this exhibit. I want to go over and over again. Oh, make a reservation, they do sell out.

August 2, 2012 by

News & Events, O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library

Winning Study Abroad Contest Photos add beauty to the library coffee shop

On your next visit to the library, you will see displayed on the coffee shop walls several winning photographs from the Study Abroad Photo Contest taken by St. Thomas students.

These are beautifully compelling photographs that document the varied and unforgettable experiences of our students while studying and visiting abroad with the International Studies Department.

We are excited to display this series of photos through the winter months and we plan to update them with new photos in the spring.

The current display features the work of Tony Bombardo, Ashley Ciborowski, Amanda Devins, Brin Hanson, Erin Lyle, Ben Michel, Rachel Nichols and Chelsea Seys. The photo contest gave awards in two categories: Sense of Place and Intercultural Experience.

Study Abroad Photo Contest selections

We are grateful to the Art History Department for covering the costs of preparing these photos for display and encourage all to stop by and enjoy the show. For more information about the display call Julie Kimlinger in the library, (651) 962-5014, or Shelly Nordtorp-Madson, university curator, (651) 962-5877.

November 18, 2010 by

News & Events

Zora Neale Hurston event Friday, February 19

Friday, February 19, 2010
O’Shaughnessy Room, O’Shaughnessy-Frey Library (Room 108)

Reception: 3-3:30pm

Performance: Jump at the Sun – The Life and Times of Zora Neale Hurston: 3:30-4:30pm

Question and Answer Session: 4:30-5pm

Zora Window Sigma Tau Delta, the English Honor Society, invites the UST community for an informal reception celebrating the dedication of a new stained glass medallion in honor of Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960), author of Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937). Hurston was a ground-breaking essayist and fiction writer closely associated with the Harlem Renaissance. Her work was instrumental in breaking down barriers of race and gender during a turbulent period of American history.

This will be the first stained glass in the library that honors a woman author and the first to recognize a writer of color. A home for this work of art has not yet been officially determined but it will most likely be suspended in one of the west-facing windows on the first floor of the library.

The library staff is thrilled and grateful for the work of the English Honor Society and department on suggesting and raising the funds for this new work of art.

In addition to the reception, there will also be a 55-minute performance of Buffy Sedlachek’s Jump at the Sun: The Life and Times of Zora Neale Hurston that begins at 3:30pm. This Jungle Theater production features Twin Cities actress and singer Regina Williams as Zora, Stories of Hurston’s idyllic hometown of Eatonville, tall tales she collected during her travels in the rural South, and her struggle to maintain her unique voice as a writer despite criticism from the male literati of the Harlem Renaissance all emerge over the course of this performance. The show also includes original music by local composer Roberta Carlson. A short question and answer period will follow.

Jump

February 15, 2010 by

News & Events

Minnesota Made: Through the Eyes of the Children’s Book Illustrators Guild of Minnesota

An exhibit of the work of local children’s book illustrators will run from Jan. 22-Feb. 28 at the O’Shaughnessy Education Center lobby gallery. An artist’s reception will be held Sunday Jan. 24 from 2-4 PM. For more information, including links to each artists’ website, can be found in the announcement on the Art History dept. website.

Minnesota Made: Children's Book Illustrators

January 14, 2010 by

Archbishop Ireland Library, News & Events

Icon gift to the Library

Friday’s UST Bulletin announced the generous gift and installation of a large icon in Ireland Library, carved and painted by the well-known Romanian artist, Marian Zidaru.

We invite you to come over to Ireland Library on the South Campus to view this impressive work! Installed in the stairway to the upper tiers, this 6-foot icon dominates the space with its beauty and grandeur. Those familiar with the highly evolved but extremely conservative Orthodox icon tradition will note the “innovations” that Zidaru has added to this common type of Christ icon. These are not easy to see in the small Bulletin photo, so a larger image appears below.

This icon, while painted in the Neo-Byzantine style, immediately strikes the viewer with its surprisingly non-traditional aspects: the bare wood background surrounding the central image; the Romanian word cer (heaven) carved over and over again into this wood; the paint for the image itself applied on bas-relief, a radical departure from the fully painted plane of regular icons. Also note Christ’s brilliant white robe, a depiction usually reserved in the tradition for the Transfiguration and Resurrection. This Google page of images provides a sampling of theses popular types.

Icon01 011cropped This icon type in its thousand-year tradition, always shows the Gospel (open to a passage or closed in finality) resting on Christ’s lap, but Zidaru transforms this all-important element into a book, yes, but open to one word aggresively repeated twenty times, cuvant, that is, word or speech.

While consciously set off against Orthodox iconography, Zidaru’s work resonates with an immediate, intense religiosity. This spiritual artistry seems, on the one hand, sensitive to iconographic tradition and, on the other hand, asserting the artist’s individuality (a trait at odds with the spirit of icon painting). Thus this work is impressively modern and in its eccentric treatment of ancient themes very appealing.

December 18, 2009 by

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