ART EXHIBIT DRAPES GALLERY WALLS
“Assembly, line, image, system,” an exhibition of work by Portland artist Bean Gilsdorf, is on display now through Oct. 10 in the Linfield College Fine Art Gallery in the James F. Miller Fine Arts Center.
Using life-sized prints from 10 different automobiles, Gilsdorf constructs a large scale installation from fabric, paint, dye, bleach and thread that sweeps along the circumference and runs beyond the enclosure of the gallery’s four walls, building a continuum of color and implied motion.
Gilsdorf takes a cue for this exhibition from the French idiom faire la navrette, which references the back-and-forth pass of the shuttle in the loom while weaving cloth. The images of industrially-produced objects on hand-printed and dyed fabric explore formal relationships of line, shape and color. Composed of more than 100 continuous feet of cloth and hung from the ceiling by 220 individual threads, the installation references mass production but retains the allure of the hand-crafted.
The Linfield exhibit is free and open to the public. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, noon to 5 p.m. For more information, call 503-883-2804.
MATH TO LAUNCH FACULTY LECTURES
A Linfield College mathematics professor will kick off this year’s faculty lecture series. Chuck Dunn, associate professor of mathematics, will present “Linfield College and the Willamette Valley Mathematics REU-RET” on Wednesday, Sept. 9, at 7:30 p.m. in 201 Riley Hall at Linfield.
For the past two summers, Linfield has hosted 10 undergraduates from across the country and one local middle school teacher in a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) and a Research Experience for Teachers (RET). The program, called the Willamette Valley Mathematics REU-RET, has been run through funding from the National Science Foundation and the cooperation of four schools including Linfield, Lewis and Clark College, Willamette University and the University of Portland. The students, teachers and faculty mentors from the participating schools work in research groups on original mathematics for eight weeks each summer.
Dunn will discuss the program’s success, an overview of the funding process and the day-to-day process of working with students on original research. He will also present portions of the collaborative work, the majority of which is in the process of being prepared for submission to peer-reviewed mathematics journals.
At Linfield, Dunn and Jennifer Nordstrom, associate professor of mathematics, worked with six students and Erin Pitney, a local middle school teacher and 2003 Linfield graduate, on problems in an area of graph theory called competitive graph coloring. Their focus has been a two-person game in which two players, Alice and Bob, alternate coloring the vertices of a graph.
“Alice wants to ensure that the entire graph is colored, while Bob wants to thwart Alice’s plans,” Dunn said. “In our research, we look for the least number of colors necessary to guarantee that no matter what Bob does, Alice can always make sure that the graph is colored.”
Dunn, a member of the Linfield faculty since 2002, holds a bachelor’s degree from Lewis and Clark College, a master’s from the University of Illinois and a Ph.D. from Arizona State University.
The lecture is free and open to the public. The Linfield College faculty lecture series offers one presentation each month by a member of the Linfield faculty. For more information, call 503-883-2409.
RUNCIMAN POETRY READING ON TAP
Inspiration from everyday life is at the core of a new collection of poetry by award-winning Northwest author Lex Runciman.
Runciman, Linfield College English professor, will read from “Starting from Anywhere” on Tuesday, Sept. 15, at 7:30 p.m. in the Austin Reading Room in the Jereld R. Nicholson Library at Linfield.
The event, part of the Readings at the Nick series, is free and open to the public. During the reading, Runciman will show slides to illustrate his poetry.
“Starting from Anywhere,” published by Salmon Poetry in Ireland, is based upon the belief that poetry can begin with anything. Among other topics is the notion of being born to other parents, which Runciman explores in a poem, “In My Alternate Life.” The collection’s title is particularly poignant for Runciman, who was adopted at birth and raised in an era of strict secrecy laws.
“It was a secret that was undiscussed in my household,” said Runciman. “In this book, I’ve been trying to figure out a voice or a way of talking about this. I could have been adopted by anybody. I could have grown up in any family. But we all pretended this wasn’t the case. We lived according to the fiction that our family was exactly like every other.”
According to Runciman, similar fictions can be seen in facets of everyday life, such as property lines and money. “The paper money itself doesn’t have any value particularly,” he said. “We just agree it’s going to be something important. We do a fair amount of our most important transactions on that basis.”
Runciman is intrigued by phrases and titles and named many of the poems in the collection after various titles from other writing. The book title itself was taken from a TS Eliot poem, “The Four Quartets.” In his writing, Runciman drew on locations he has visited, some of them with his Linfield students. He has led Creative Writing in Literary Britain during January Term since 2002.
“It’s important for young creative writers to realize everything they’re reading was written by someone just like them,” he said. “During this class, we went to their houses and places they lived, worked and wrote. We walked their streets and looked at their skies. That helped with some of the poems in this book. I was just as inspired by doing that as anybody.”
Runciman earned an English degree from Santa Clara University, an MFA from the University of Montana and a Ph.D. from the University of Utah. His interests include environmental concerns, literature of the West, creative writing, contemporary literature in the UK and American literature in general.
Runciman has published three other poetry collections, “Out of Town,” “The Admirations,” winner of the Oregon Book Award, and “Luck.” He has also co-authored three writing text books with Chris Anderson, professor of English at Oregon State University — “Open Questions: Readings for Critical Thinking and Writing,” “Forest of Voices: Reading and Writing the Environment” and “Asking Questions: A Rhetoric for the Intellectual Life.” His reviews and comments on books appear irregularly in his blog, The Far Corner Reader. His work has appeared widely in magazines.
The reading is sponsored by the Linfield English Department and Friends of Nicholson Library. For more information, contact Susan Barnes Whyte, college librarian, at 503-883-2517, swhyte@linfield.edu.
TRAFFIC SAFETY TIPS OFFERED
Linfield’s campus has once more become flooded with students on the go. As bicyclists, pedestrians and motorists converge around campus, it is important for all community members, regardless of their method of transportation, to remember some basic safety tips while navigating around campus.
Driver safety tips:
- slow down
- expect the unexpected
- take in what’s going on
- yield to pedestrians
Pedestrian and cyclist safety tips:
- Be visible
- Be predictable
- Communicate with drivers
Darting unexpectedly into the street is a common pedestrian error, especially in the school setting where students often assume slow speeds and fewer vehicles guarantee safety. It’s particularly important for pedestrians to remember to make eye contact with drivers before stepping into the street, even if they do have the right of way.
COMMUNITY NEWS
An article by Mike Leahy, visiting associate professor of health sciences, was published in the Lund Report, a web site dedicated to educating Oregonians about the inner workings of the healthcare industry. His submission was titled “Let Cool Heads Prevail.”
The work of Liz Obert, associate professor of art, was included in the 14th Annual Photographic Competition Exhibition, Photo-Op, which ran July 13 through Sept. 4 in Seattle, Wash.
Mary Lee Nitschke, professor of psychology, presented “Variables in the Human-Animal Bond” at the American Veterinary Medical Association in Seattle, Wash., July 13.
Vital Statistics, the Portland Campus student newsletter, has been featured at http://www.geriatricnursing.org/. Students Liz Patail and Sandra Lupton authored two featured articles on geriatric nursing and Kinara Brocius created and edited the newsletter.
CAMPUS CALENDAR
MONDAY, SEPT. 7
2 p.m.: Men’s soccer vs. Cal Baptist
WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 9
7:30 p.m.: Chuck Dunn faculty lecture, “Linfield College and the Willamette Valley Mathematics REU-RET,” 201 Riley Hall
THURSDAY, SEPT. 10
7 p.m.: Women’s soccer at Warner Pacific
FRIDAY, SEPT. 11
3 p.m.: Men’s soccer at UC-Santa Cruz
3 p.m. and 7 p.m.: Volleyball at Cal-Lu-fornia Tournament
SATURDAY, SEPT. 12
9:30 a.m.: Dodging with Durham One Last Time, Ford Hall
1 p.m.: Volleyball at Cal-Lu-fornia Tournament
10 a.m.: Cross country at Lewis & Clark
1:30 p.m.: Football vs. Hardin-Simmons
5 p.m.: Volleyball at Cal-Lu-fornia Tournament
SUNDAY, SEPT. 13
11 a.m.: Men’s soccer at Redlands
