Author: Liam Otten

Bee populations are declining worldwide. But recently, students in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts worked with PAUSE, a multinational group of scientists, gardeners and beekeepers, to design pollinator-friendly sculpture in St. Louis’ Florissant Community Garden.

The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts and the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University invite the St. Louis public to meet three finalists in PXSTL — a collaborative design-build competition that will transform a vacant lot in the heart of Grand Center — on Tuesday, July 30. Shown is “Lighthearted,” an installation by Freecell Architecture, one of the finalists.

Piano prodigy, social activist, folksinger and chart-topping recording artist — Judy Collins has done it all. This fall, “Sweet Judy Blue Eyes” will launch WUSTL’s 2013-14 Edison Ovations Series. Featuring almost a dozen events by nationally and internationally known artists, the season will range from athletic contemporary dance and incisive one-man shows to hip-hop violin and the world’s first live-action graphic novel.

Ovations 2013-14

A young man in suit and tie gazes warily at the camera, taking its measure, betraying nothing, sly wit reserved for the title. In Self Portrait with My Hair Parted Like Frederick Douglass (2003), Rashid Johnson pays homage to the renowned 19th-century abolitionist while also crafting for his own myth of artistic self-creation. This fall, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will present Rashid Johnson: Message to Our Folks, the first major solo museum exhibition to survey the career of this Chicago-born, New York-based artist.

On their recent album You’re Everything, jazz vocalist Feyza Eren and drummer Steve Davis swing through a range of jazz and pop standards. On July 11, the pair will launch WUSTL’s Jazz in July series with a free concert in Holmes Lounge.

Leslie Heusted, director of the Danforth University Center & Event Management Office, sits down to discuss students, nerf guns and the structured aimlessness of afternoon tea.

Pagedale, Mo, is a small community but emblematic of the challenges facing many inner-ring suburbs. Yet in recent years, city officials and local nonprofits have sparked waves of improvements as well as new development. Last month, the city installed a monumental welcome sign conceived and designed by architecture students from the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts.

What you see often depends on where you stand. For Sarah Theis, a senior in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, this simple truth served as starting point for A Play of Perception. Now installed in Mooney Park, the sculpture is one of five featured in this year’s University City Sculpture Series.

Has a painting or drawing ever stopped you in your tracks? Have you ever circled a sculpture, collating angles and comparing views? Have you ever been challenged, or simply amused, by an installation or performance? If so, you’re not alone. On May 18, the Kemper Art Museum and more than 100 other institutions across North America will celebrate Art Museum Day.