Devo founder Mark Mothersbaugh, who attended the ¶¶MÅ®ÆÍ School of Art, is collaborating with printmaking students and faculty as part of an upcoming retrospective of Mothersbaughâs work.
Michael Loderstedt, professor of printmaking, was selected to produce 100 prints to be sold at the Akron Art Museum during âMyopia,â the first retrospective of Mothersbaughâs work. Loderstedt then obtained approval from Mothersbaugh, his assistant and the Akron Art Museum to bring on two assistants of his own, senior printmaking students Casey Engelhart and Katie Metcalf.
âIn the School of Art we are often involved with collaborative efforts with our students, whether in the classroom or as advisors for their senior project exhibitions,â Loderstedt says. âProjects such as this one are rarer, and they require extra effort for both students and faculty above and beyond their already busy schedules.â
âSince Mothersbaugh attended ¶¶MÅ®ÆÍ and founded Devo, Michael thought itâd be a good idea to include other students from the university,â Casey says. âIt definitely speaks volumes of Michael. Weâre just extremely luck to be included.â
Both Casey and Katie say they feel honored to be the students selected for the collaboration.
âIt speaks for us as seniors that we were chosen by our professor to do this,â Casey says. âHe thinks that we have the skills and techniques to do master printing.â
Loderstedt hopes fostering collaboration within the school will meet studentsâ needs for experience.
âStudents hunger for real-world experience in the arts, which will later help prepare them for other career opportunitiesâ Lodersedt says. âSo, having a couple of our stronger students involved in the project seemed sensible, and provided the ability to more quickly complete such an ambitious project.â
In selecting students for the project, Loderstedt says he wanted equal gender representation. He also thought it important to recruit students with good print skills, who were reliable and hard-working. For Loderstedt, both Casey and Katie fit that description.
Casey and Katie look at the work as a labor of love, which Loderstedt and they believe to be intrinsically rewarding.
âOur mission is to print this project with a higher level of craft and attention than we would as students or even individual artists. I believe it's exciting for our students, university and print division to produce this project for Mark, one of the university's most esteemed cultural icons,â Loderstedt says.
The Akron Art Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland will jointly present âMyopiaâ in concurrent exhibitions. The Cleveland opening reception will be Friday, May 27, and the Akron opening reception will be Saturday, May 28. Both exhibits will run through August 28.
Contact: Alex Parrott, marketing associate, cparrot1@kent.edu, 330-672-2714 (office)