APSU graphic design students create new logo for Coca-Cola Bottling Works of Tullahoma

Earlier this year, when executives with Coca-Cola Bottling Works of Tullahoma discussed creating a new company logo, they reached out to one of their newest clients – Austin Peay State University. On July 1, 2017, the company became the campus’ exclusive beverage provider, and a year later, Rachel Bush, associate professor of art, heard the company wanted to host a logo design contest. She contacted the Tullahoma office with a different idea.

“I teach a class that’s called Design Center, which revolves around me partnering these students with clients,” she said. “I said, ‘Here’s an alternative. I have a class, and they’re learning to work with clients. They can partner up and make a logo and you can pay them and they get the experience.’”

The company agreed to the idea, and on a warm morning in September, the five APSU Design Center students put on business attire and drove two hours south to meet their new design client. Throughout the day, Jordan Ennis, president and CEO of Coca-Cola Bottling Works of Tullahoma, educated the students on the company’s more than 100-year history, while also filling them in on the company’s values.

“We pride ourselves on being family oriented,” he said. “The most important thing for our family, for four generations, the most important thing is the 250 associates that make up the family. Our success as a family business is because of the success of the Coca-Cola family.”

During the ensuing months, the APSU Design Center students – Ebony Walton, Alyson Williamson, Al Best, Graham Byrd and Clarissa Gunn – worked collaboratively to meet their client’s needs. Earlier this month, they presented Ennis with an official logo that he approved. The company plans to use the student-designed logo on everything, from stationary to signage to apparel.

“I enjoyed working on the project because we had a real client and got to sit in on the meetings and go through the design process, with them selecting and choosing what they don’t want, and going through revisions,” Walton said. “It was good to have that experience, and I can add it to my resume, getting another foot in the door.”

The new logo features the iconic Coca-Cola bottle and script in a circle, along with the words “Locally owned and operated.” The students were told they couldn’t tamper with the corporate identity because Coca-Cola possesses one of the world’s most recognizable brands. Byrd, a military veteran, added that something as simple as the soft drink company’s logo can help soldiers not feel so home sick.

“When I was in Afghanistan, home felt so far away,” he said. “There were phone calls home to my wife – sometimes they worked, sometimes they didn’t. Anything that you can grab and say ‘that’s a piece of where I’m from’ is huge. It doesn’t matter what the language is, when you see glimpses of that ribbon type in red, you know it’s a Coke.”

APSU music professor, Dr. Amy Gillick, connects with a Brazilian great's family

The story starts simply enough, with a world record assembly of double reeds in Granada, Spain. About 550 oboists and bassoonists climbed the bleachers around 11 p.m. Aug. 31 at the International Double Reed Society’s annual conference.

The Guinness World Records soon will recognize the concert as the biggest ever performed with oboes and bassoons. It was one for the record books.

But the same night, before the concert, one of the bassoonists – an Austin Peay State University professor – made a connection that will affect her life for the next few years.

The daughter of one of Brazil’s great composers, Francisco Mignone, connected with Dr. Amy Gillick.

“It’s kind of an unusual, unexpected connection,” Gillick, assistant professor of music at Austin Peay, said. “I wasn’t really expecting to have a personal connection, but it ended up being really special for her.”

Who was Mignone?

Gillick, who has attended several IDRS conferences, this year gave a presentation about Mignone, and her doctoral dissertation at UCLA also focused on Mignone.

“Ever since (the dissertation) I’ve been interested in his music; he wrote a lot for my instrument, the bassoon,” Gillick said. “He was probably the second most popular composer in Brazil behind (Heitor) Villa-Lobos, who most musicians know. But most people outside Brazil don’t know Mignone at all. That’s been my academic goal is to get more people to know about what he did in his music.”

Mignone lived from 1897-1986, and his notable pieces span from 1921-1982. He was named Brazilian composer of the year in 1968.

“His music really follows all of the different things that happened during the 20th century, the romantic sounds during the end of the 19th century … the popular sounds from street bands, from street corner musicians,” Gillick said. “He included some of the music you’d hear in silent movies. And then midcentury, everything turned very modernist. At the end of his life, he mixed everything up, so you have the nationalistic, the indigenous, the jazz, the silent movies, the romantic. He was like a painter, and he’d take whatever color he wanted and use it.”

Making the connection

Gillick’s presentation this year was named “Cartas de Amor – The Love Story of Francisco Mignone,” and it explored the warmth and playfulness of his relationship with his second wife, Maria Josephina, as seen in love letters and the subsequent warmth and playfulness in his music. His first wife, Liddy Chiafarelli, died years earlier in a plane crash.

Gillick translated a few of Maria Josephina’s love letters from Portuguese to English after his daughter, Anete Rubin, published them.

“On a whim, I tried to find his daughter to see if she was online,” Gillick said. “I went on Facebook.”

The night before the love letters presentation, Rubin responded: “Oh, wow. How did you find me?” Rubin asked Gillick for photos and video from the presentation so she could show her mother, now 95 years old.

“From that I started talking to the daughter more,” Gillick said.

What's next

Toward the end of his life, Mignone wrote a collection of essays and musical critiques. Gillick asked Rubin if she could translate them to English. She granted the wish.

South American composers usually didn’t have international publishers, so “either they’d just publish them locally or people would just photocopy, photocopy, photocopy.”

“I’m hoping that once I get that done, I’ll show it to her, and she’ll want to publish an English version,” Gillick said. “It’s something nobody has done, so it’s exciting to me to be the first.”

Austin Peay recently also awarded Gillick a faculty research grant to work on the translation. She hopes she can get somebody more fluent in Portuguese to help her with the translation before she travels to Brazil to show the Mignone family.

“If I did get to go down to Brazil, I’d be bothering his daughter, seeing if I could get some of these things that aren’t published to bring them back,” Gillick said. “I have all the titles of the things that he’s written, but I don’t have the actual music. I know they exist somewhere.”

She also hopes she can meet Mignone’s wife.

“She’s a dynamo, she still performs, she’s a pianist, and she’s recording a CD in a couple of months,” Gillick said. “I hope to get a chance to meet her.”

To learn more

• For more about Dr. Amy Gillick, visit www.amygillick.com. She performs some of Mignone’s work, and you can see some of her Mignone writings.
• For more about Austin Peay’s Department of Music, go to www.apsu.edu/music.
• To learn more about the International Double Reed Society, including videos from the 2018 conference in Granada, visit www.idrs.org.

Acting students from the Department of Theatre & Dance collaborate with counseling students on disaster training

The survivors were ushered into a large room where they sat in groups, trying to figure out what just happened. One young woman simply cried, unable to control herself. When family members arrived, the lack of information led to shouting matches, and a group of counseling graduate students, trying to offer help, quickly found themselves overwhelmed.

“Because they’re all in the same room and emotions are high, people get loud,” Dr. Kim Coggins, Austin Peay State University assistant professor of psychological sciences and counseling, said. “You get lots of personalities in a group, and you have to know how to manage that.”

The crisis that evening was only a training exercise, designed to mimic the aftermath of a school shooting. Coggins wanted to prepare her counseling graduate students for disaster and crisis situations, but she also wanted the chaos of that type of environment to feel real. Her students wouldn’t get the full benefit by having their peers pretend they’d experienced a traumatic event.

“In the counseling program, they’re friends, and they already know what counselors are trying to do,” she said. “I thought acting students would be much better at being real people and responding in real ways.”

That’s why Coggins contacted Talon Beeson, assistant professor of acting/directing, and earlier this month, students from two different APSU colleges – the College of Arts and Letters and the College of Behavioral and Health Sciences – met in the Morgan University Center for the disaster training exercise.

“I train my students to disrupt. That is the goal. Be real, be alive, disrupt the scenario,” Beeson said. “It was purely improv for them.”

When Coggins contacted the theatre professor, he knew his students could help, but he also saw the experience as something they could take with them in their future careers as actors.

“This is a viable way for an actor to make money, to pretend to be in a disaster scenario or help with medical diagnosing,” he said. “There are lots of ways to make money as an actor, and you have to use all of them. If you don’t have experience doing them, you might be afraid of them, so I said, ‘let’s get it out of the way now.’”

Beeson’s students took the assignment seriously, researching their roles and trying to tap into how parents would respond to something like a school shooting. As the evening went on, the young actors found themselves more comfortable playing their parts. Their different emotional reactions sometimes surprised the counseling students, which was exactly what Coggins wanted.

“The skills they learned will be very good for quick crisis interventions,” she said. “They may never directly intervene after a disaster, but they’re likely to lead groups with different personalities. They were surprised by what they were able to do, and identified areas they weren’t prepared for.”

This is the second year the two different colleges collaborated on the disaster training. Both Coggins and Beeson see the partnership continuing, with the idea of collecting data and expanding their research in this field.

For information on Austin Peay’s counseling graduate program, visit www.apsu.edu/mscounseling. For information on Austin Peay’s Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in theatre and dance, visit https://www.apsu.edu/theatre-dance/.

APSU music professor, Spencer Prewitt performs at Carnegie Hall and throughout China

Dr. Spencer Prewitt, Austin Peay State University assistant professor of music, recently finished a whirlwind tour of China as well as an impressive performance at the famous Carnegie Hall in New York City. Read all about it in the Clarksville Online article written by APSU Associate Professor of Dance, Marcus Hayes.  www.clarksvilleonline.com

Installation artist Valery Jung Estabrook presents “Three American Bodies” and gives a public lecture on Nov. 5 at 6 p.m.

Estabrook is a multidisciplinary installation artist whose works explore the intersections of culture, identity and technology. She seeks to push the boundaries of how we interact with and perceive time-based artwork by using unexpected approaches and materials.

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Theta-Delta Chapter of history honor society Phi Alpha Theta wins Best Chapter award for 10th year in a row

Congratulations to those who made it possible and special congratulations to Dr. Uffelman and Dr. Banerjee as well as previous president Jenny Brown for their immense contributions to the organization.

Assistant Professor Talon Beeson nominated for Best Podcast Award

Talon Beeson, APSU assistant professor of acting/directing, is a cast member on the radio drama/podcast "Suspense!," which was recently nominated for the Best Podcast Award by the Society of Voice Arts and Sciences (SOVAS). The award ceremony will take place in November at the Warner Bros. Studio in Los Angeles. Beeson was previously nominated for a SOVAS Award last year for his performance in the audio book "Wonder."

Professor David Steinquest from the Department of Music is the Recipient of the Prestigious Richard M. Hawkins Award.

The University’s Richard M. Hawkins Award, presented each year to a faculty member who has demonstrated exceptional scholarly and creative activity, was presented to David Steinquest, professor of music. Steinquest is the recipient of four Grammy Awards for his participation with the Nashville Symphony. He’s had an extensive performance career in an incredibly diverse array of performing ensembles, including symphony orchestras, percussion ensembles, concert bands, country bands and jazz ensembles. He’s published more than 50 arrangements of percussion music, and he is a regular clinician at professional music and percussion conferences.

Bread and Words - 24th Annual Reading and Dinner

Monday, November 19th
Dinner at 6 PM / Readings to follow
Morgan University Center Ballroom

$5 suggested donation.
All proceeds go to Austin Peay’s Food Bank.

The Department of Theatre and Dance Present "You're a Good Man Charlie Brown"

November 15th - 18th, Trahern Theatre
Thurs / Fri / Sat  7:30 PM
Sat / Sun  2:00 PM
$15 General Admission, $10 Student/Military/Senior
Box Office (931)221-7379
boxoffice@apsu.edu

The APSU Department of Art + Design and CECA are Proud to Welcome Sharon Louden.

Sharon M. Louden is an artist, educator, advocate for artists, editor of the Living and Sustaining a Creative Life series of books and the Artistic Director of the Visual Arts at Chautauqua Institution.    https://www.sharonlouden.com/

The Roy Acuff Chair of Excellence, Lorna McGhee, Principal Flute of the Pittsburgh Symphony to Perform and Give Master Class

Tuesday, November 13
9:35-11:00, Concert Hall
“The Art of Teaching” Part I: Self Mentoring

12:45-1:45, Concert Hall
Q and A - “Getting to Know Lorna McGhee”

2:00-3:00, Concert Hall
Participatory Class: “Breathing (the life of the music) and Alexander Technique”

3:00-5:00, Concert Hall
Masterclass

Phantom of the Opera's Quentin Oliver Lee to host masterclass at APSU

Theatre, dance, and music students welcome to attend masterclass on November 1 in the Trahern Lab Theatre.

"Fortnite" lead Technical Animator Kaye Vassey visits Austin Peay

Vassey – who worked on such movies as “Shrek,” “Madagascar” and “How to Train Your Dragon” before joining Epic Games and the “Fortnite” team – visited APSU on Oct. 23 to give a public lecture about her work and artistic practice. She also gave two workshops in animation classes before the lecture. 

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"Fall Into Dance" production by the Department of Theatre and Dance partnered with artistic director Kevin Bradley Loveland Jr. Runs Oct. 25-28 in the Trahern Theatre

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CECA Presents A Reading with Steve Yarbrough Thursday Oct. 25 at 8pm in Margaret Fort Trahern Laboratory Theater

Steve Yarbrough is the author of eleven books, most recently the novel The Unmade World. Some of his other books include the nonfiction title Bookmarked: Larry McMurtry’s The Last Picture Show, the novels The Realm of Last Chances, Safe from the Neighbors, and The End of California. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award for Fiction, the California Book Award, the Richard Wright Award, and the Robert Penn Warren Award.

To learn more, visit steveyarbrough.net.

The New Gallery, with support from The Center of Excellence for the Creative Arts and the Department of Art + Design, is pleased to present Wendy Red Star: Apsáalooke Feminist, Four Seasons, White Squaw, to continue an exciting 2018-19 exhibition season.

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Amy Sherald, Michelle Obama portrait artist, to speak at Austin Peay

Amy Sherald unveiled her Smithsonian-commissioned portrait of Michelle Obama in February. She speaks at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 27 in Austin Peay's University Center Ballroom. Anyone can attend the free event.

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Principal with LA Philharmonic to visit APSU as Acuff Chair for Clarinet Day

The day will consist of master classes, recitals, breakout sessions from regional clarinet professors and teachers, vendors with mouthpieces, reeds, music and instruments to try and a clarinet choir for all participants.

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Professor Virginia Griswold's  solo exhibition "Building Bodies" is currently on view at the Appalachian Center for Craft

The New Gallery Presents "Undiscovered Country" by APSU Assistant Professor of Art McLean Fahnestock

The New Gallery, with support from The Center of Excellence for the Creative Arts and the Department of Art + Design, is pleased to present McLean Fahnestock: Undiscovered Country, to open an exciting 2018-19 exhibition season.

McLean Fahnestock is a media artist who works across modes of communication, from video and photographic images to sound, and sculpture. Her work begins in the institutions that tell the tales of exploration and describe distant lands– museums, libraries, and the media. She considers each of these and their roles and contrasts them with heuristic experiential modes of acquiring knowledge.

“The historic explorer is a troubled character at best,” states Fahnestock. “I am a descendent of one. My grandfather sailed the South Pacific for the American Museum of Natural History. His story, his flaws, and those of explorers before and after are in the work as well. I remain drawn to the explorer and their singular focus on frontiers in spite of risk, all for the possibility that they could experience something authentic.”

Michael Dickins, Director of The New Gallery, states, “This year, we’re opening up our exhibition season with a celebration of one of our own faculty members. McLean joined the Department of Art + Design as an assistant professor of art in 2016, and currently serves as our foundations coordinator. I have been familiar with McLean’s work for several years, and I am honored to be able to work with her in my role as gallery director. The discussion, planning, and installation of this exhibit has been personally rewarding, and I am excited for her to unveil her newest works, that combine video projection, sculpture, sound and discovery, to the Austin Peay and surrounding communities.”

McLean Fahnestock is a media artist who works in video, sound, sculpture, and digital collage. McLean reclaims material from institutions, seeking out footage, images, and items that intimate place and delve in to the mythos of exploration. McLean received a BFA from Middle Tennessee State University and MFA from California State University Long Beach.

Her work has been exhibited and screened across the United States and Internationally at institutions such as the Aurora Picture Show with the Menil Collection, Houston, Texas, Black Mountain College Re{Happening}, North Carolina, Technisches Museum Wien, Vienna, Austria, The California Science Museum, Los Angeles, The British Library, London, and MOCA Hiroshima, Japan. Her work was included in a DVD compilation of short videos by the LA Film Forum. She was a finalist for a 2012 Vimeo Video Award and was named “Most Promising New Artist” at MADATAC 5, in Madrid, Spain.

Fahnestock keeps her studio in Nashville, TN.

The exhibit opens Monday, August 27 at The New Gallery, located in the Art + Design building on the campus of Austin Peay State University, and runs through September 21. Fahnestock will be giving a public lecture on her work, September 18 at 6:00 p.m. in Heydel Hall located in the Art and Design building. There will be a reception the following day on September 19 from 12 – 1:00p, and a gallery talk with Fahnestock beginning at 12:30. All events are free and open to the public.

For more on McLean Fahnestock and her work, visit: mcleanfahnestock.com.

Hours for The New Gallery are Monday – Friday, 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. Closed on weekends and holidays, and follows the university’s academic calendar. For more information on this exhibition, which is free and open to the public, contact Michael Dickins, Director of The New Gallery, at dickinsm@apsu.edu.

The Department of History and Philosophy, Phi Alpha Theta, and Department of Political Science and Public Management welcome Dr. Lorri Glover to Speak for Constitution Day.

Join Faculty, Staff, and Students for Critical Conversations #1 "Opposing Views in the Age of Trump" on Tuesday, September 4