Cover image: MFA student Rachel Seburn speaks with instructor Mac Balentine and guest at the Thomas Street Art Complex. Photo by Sidney Chansamone, @sid.chansa 

On the evening of Thursday September 29, the Lamar Dodd School of Art invited students, faculty, and the community at large to explore graduate studio spaces in sculpture and jewelry & metalwork at the Thomas Street Art Complex. In addition, visitors enjoyed the 2022 Short Shorts Film Festival juried by the school's director Joseph Peragine and a behind-the-scenes view of an in-progress scale model of the Notre Dame de Paris roof structure constructed by students in partnership with Handshouse Studio. Moreover, guests perused and purchased one-of-a-kind jewelry for a fundraising sale hosted by students in the Phi Beata Heata organization preparing for a trip to New York City Jewelry Week in November.

Students, faculty, and members of the community gathering at Thomas Street Art Complex for the Short Shorts Film Festival and Open Studios on September 29, 2022. Photo by Sidney Chansamone, @sid.chansa 

Students and visitors gathered around table with jewelry for sale. Phi Beata Heata, a jewelry and metalwork organization at the Lamar Dodd School of Art, hosted a sale and auction to raise funds for travel to New York City Jewelry Week this fall. Photo by Sidney Chansamone, @sid.chansa 

Visitors viewing artwork on display at Thomas Street Art Complex. Photo by Sidney Chansamone, @sid.chansa 

MFA student Meredith Emery in her studio at Thomas Street Art Complex. Photo by Jason Thrasher, @thrasherphoto

MFA student studio space at Thomas Street Art Complex. Photo by Sidney Chansamone, @sid.chansa 

MFA student artwork on display at Thomas Street Art Complex. Photo by Sidney Chansamone, @sid.chansa 

Notre Dame de Paris Truss Project on display at Thomas Street Art Complex. Photo by Sidney Chansamone, @sid.chansa 

Marie Brown, executive director of Handshouse Studio, indicating truss element in architectural drawings used for the Notre Dame de Paris Truss Project. Photo by Sidney Chansamone, @sid.chansa 

Joseph Peragine, director of the Lamar Dodd School of Art and juror of the 2022 Short Shorts Film Festival, introducing the film showcase. Photo by Sidney Chansamone, @sid.chansa 

Short film projection during the 2022 Short Shorts Film Festival at Thomas Street Art Complex. Photo by Sidney Chansamone, @sid.chansa 

Students smiling at Thomas Street Art Complex. Photo by Jason Thrasher, @thrasherphoto

Short Shorts Film Festival, Jiffy Louvre II: Leave Worry Behind (Again)

The Short Shorts Film Festival is an annual event hosted by whitespace gallery in Atlanta that was on hiatus over the past two years. In its seventh iteration, the program included two additional screenings of the program, one at Georgia State University and the other at the Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia. This year’s guest juror was Joseph Peragine, director of the Lamar Dodd School of Art. Selected films varied widely in budget, genre, narrative, and experimentation, but all came in under five minutes in length.
 
The theme for this year’s festival was Jiffy Louvre II: Leave Worry Behind (Again). Originally used in Short Shorts 2019, the title is a mash-up of high (the Louvre, the museum of museums) and low (Jiffy Lube, purveyors of the drive whose slogan is "leave worry behind"). The title encapsulates the wide-ranging aesthetic goal of the festival. Any budget, any genre, any story is welcome, provided it gives a brief respite from these off-kilter times. Short Shorts is open to the off-beat, non-narrative, and experimental.
 
On the final, curated selection of films for the 2022 festival, juror and School of Art director Joseph Peragine reflected, “One of the things I found fascinating about everybody’s submissions is that I gave a very broad call, yet there were themes that cut through. One was a general nihilism; the other one was this notion of self-care. Some of the films had both going on at the same time. I think that’s the theme that runs through—trying to protect oneself in a time that is very difficult and in transition.”

Open Studios

Students, faculty, and the public were welcome to explore sculpture and jewelry & metalwork graduate studio spaces before, during, or after the short film festival. This event was the second opportunity for visitors to view open graduate studios at the school. The Art Party Extravaganza on September 16th in the main building of the School of Art included open studios in drawing & painting, printmaking & book arts, photography, and textiles.

The Notre-Dame de Paris Truss Project

Handshouse Studio has organized a national project to invite colleges, universities and their faculty and students to build a large-scale wooden model of the oldest trusses in the roof structure above the Notre Dame de Paris cathedral’s choir.
 
In the summer of 2021, the Catholic University of America offered a course, taught by Tonya Ohnstad AIA, NCAR, centered on an effort to explore the architectural history of Notre Dame through hands-on construction of a model of “La Forêt.” La Forêt Model has and will continue to be built and exhibited around the country as part of The Notre Dame de Paris Truss Project, a collaboration led by Handshouse Studio that endeavors to explore how this medieval architectural icon was originally made.
 
The project, led by the Model Project Manager, architect Nat Crosby, has expanded to include participants from additional colleges and universities: Florida State University, Ball State University, Virginia Tech (WAAC), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Gordon College, Washington University, the University of Georgia, and the North Bennet Street School.
 

Thomas Street Art Complex

The Thomas Street Art Complex at the University of Georgia is host to a range of facilities supporting sculpture and jewelry & metalwork, including two project spaces/galleries, a wood shop, a metal fabrication shop, a jewelry metals shop, a foundry, computer labs and classrooms, and faculty, graduate, and undergraduate studios.

The site serves as one of five instructional buildings at the Lamar Dodd School of Art, along with the school’s main building on River Road, a Ceramics facility, Broad Street Studios housing an interior design program, and the Athenaeum gallery and collaborative space.