Hendershot Gallery Exhibit

Visitors to Labette Community College’s Hendershot Gallery will enter the world of printmaking during the upcoming collaborative group exhibition Oct. 12 to Nov. 12.

The Hendershot Gallery is open to the public Monday through Thursday 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

This exhibit will feature “Printmaking Portfolios” from the collection of Professor Burt Bucher. “Dog Head Stew: The Second Course” organized by Melanie Yazzie and “Expectation of Privacy" organized by Justin Diggle.

“Dog Head Stew: The Second Course” celebrates disregarded narratives of native indigenous peoples. Organized by Melanie Yazzie, (Diné-Navajo who works in a wide range of media that include printmaking media and explores interesting themes related to Native American stereotypes.

The first part of the exhibit, “Dog Head Stew – The First Course,” debuted in 2003 in Boston. The title of the exhibit was inspired by a fictional story of a similar name, “Dog Head Stew (for Fifty People),” by Dorothy Pennington, in which Native Americans conform to their stereotype as savages, serving dog meat to unwelcome non-Native dinner guests.

This exhibit invites artists from all cultural backgrounds to work with traditional and non-traditional archival print media. Burt Bucher, Assistant Professor of Art at LCC, who specializes in printmaking, was one of the collaborating artists.

“We often say [prints] are very democratic in their format in that they are financially and geographically accessible; as well as highly portable. They are made in multiples, and we can give them away or share them more broadly, making them perfect for the interchanging of creativity, ideas and cultural exposure,” Bucher said.

During the process of collaboration, printmakers freely exchange their prints. For “Dog Head Stew,” prints were shipped nationwide and shared via museums, galleries and the Library of Congress.

Collaborators layer excerpts from poems, maps, drawings, photography and other elements of design to create complex narratives. One of the prints illustrates the head of a wolf, an animal often perceived as a symbol of Native American culture, suspended in a mass of Jell-O. The juxtaposition between the wolf and the iconized American dessert invites critical reflection of native and indigenous peoples in past and contemporary America.

The cultural persistence of Native Americans and indigenous communities also manifests through black and white images and colorful comic strips. The nostalgic nature of the exhibit, with old Native American tales combined with contemporary American literature, transports viewers to a different time period and reminds them of the passing of time.

The exhibit aims to explore neglected narratives of Native Americans, indigenous peoples and minority groups in general. Printmaking is merely one creative medium for political expression, but because of its power in multiples and economy is uniquely suited to address these issues.

“Dog Head Stew – The Second Course” stems from the collaboration of artists from various backgrounds and alights open conversation about the history and current state of misrepresented narratives.

In the rising tide of today’s socially and politically engaged art, the "Expectation of Privacy" Portfolio organized by Artist and Printmaker Justin Diggle, dives into and explores the concept of privacy in the modern world.

This international exchange portfolio will encourage viewers to engage in analytical thinking regarding their beliefs on rights to privacy, what that entails and situational paradoxes.

Questions of informed consent, contextual integrity, autonomy and freedom, or even the right to a private life are issues dealt with in this portfolio of artwork.

You will see a wide variety of printmaking techniques ranging from serigraphy, lithography, digital archival inkjet prints, etching, aquatint and many more.

This portfolio has been exhibited across the United States and even in China and Japan.

Diggle is an artist living and working in Salt Lake City, Utah (USA). He is a professor of printmaking at the University of Utah.

There will be a closing reception Nov. 10 at 5:30 p.m. There will be a brief gallery talk by Professor Burt Bucher covering Printmaking as a medium, portfolio exchanges and some discussion of individual works in the gallery.