Alumni Updates: 1970s
Archive
Below are archived updates for Art & Art History alumni graduating between 1970 and 1979. Visit the main Alumni Updates page for updates received this year.
Laurel Aston '72 (Studio / Education) Laurel writes "Hi Wm & Mary friends, I will be visiting the east coast this fall 2011, but will not make it to Homecoming... contact me if you wish to join me either around D.C., Bethesda, Richmond, C'ville, or Wmsburg for a visit! A wave from the west coast to all! Laurel" (2011)
Taylor (Barbour) Bordogna '74 (B.A. Fine Arts, Honors in Painting) writes: "My Buckle Series works were included in the Spartanburg Artists' Guild juried show that opened in August at the Carolina Gallery in Spartanburg. I also had a one woman show at Cannons Elementary Gallery in August/September. From the artist's statement for that show: The works in this show cover a wide range of my interests. They are all recent work, done in the last year or two. I have always enjoyed picking up little things others have discarded and including them in my work: rocks, seashells, bird feathers, butterfly wings. Lately I have experimented with more confidence, in the belief that it is ok to add things that aren't generally considered fine art if I feel like it. If Robert Rauschenberg and Miriam Shapiro could do it, I'm in good company. For several years I have been working toward art that encompasses my joy in fiber as well as drawing and painting. The crocheted Picasso and the shopping bag bowls are two examples of that impulse. I find meaning and commonalities in old photos of family and of strangers in antique stores. I enjoy making something from nothing and feel like Rumpelstiltskin spinning straw into gold when I make a container that is beautiful or whimsical from something that is so common and so often thrown away or left to blow over the landscape. Life is complicated. I want my art to be complicated, too; but I also want people to find images that touch them in the things I put together either with paint and paper or with string and plastic." (2010)
Carol Brown '75 (Studio with Honors) Carol wrote to tell us that she is currently the of Vice President at Kumeu Arts Centre Inc. She has also been an arts teacher Massey High School in Auckland, New Zealand since 1997. She also told us that she obtained her Master of Visual Arts in printmaking, 2006 from Monansh University in Australia. (2011)
Steve Douglas '78 (Art History) Steve writes: "I have been playing music in a number of bands since graduation, including the shock-rock band GWAR, of which I was a founding member. I am currently living in Australia where I play with the internationally touring ska/punk band The Resignators and the alt-country band Family Farm." (2012)For more information about Steve's music, please visit:www.theresignators.com or www.familyfarm.com.au
Anne Gochenour, ’79 (Fine Art and Psychology) Anne writes: After graduation I earned an MA and MFA in sculpture from the University of Iowa. I have shown regionally and nationally. I also got very involved in the exhibition of art and have been the curator of contemporary craft at the Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock, Arkansas. I am currently the gallery director at Central Michigan University in Mt. Pleasant Michigan. I am married to Tom Karson and have a daughter getting ready to graduate from college. My interest in exhibiting art started at Andrews Hall gallery installing our senior exhibition.
(Oct 2017)
Edward Hopkins, ’79 (Studio Art) Edward writes: I earned an MDiv degree in 1983 and have served as a United Methodist pastor since then. I am currently serving Wellspring UMC in Williamsburg. The only art I do is calligraphy now and then. I am married to a W&M graduate and one of my two sons graduated W&M in 2011. (Oct 2017)
Shelley Nix '75 (B.A., Fine Arts & Spanish) For the past 20 years Shelley has been living in London, going there initially to set up and manage the Education and Training Department of a UK/European branch of a small computer company headquartered in California. After working for this company 7 years, she began to fulfill a long-cherished dream of becoming a translator, obtaining a Master's Degree with Distinction in Technical and Specialized Translation from the University of Westminster in London in 1995.
Shelley set up as a freelance exactly 12 years ago, and has never looked back. She specializes primarily in medical, pharmaceutical, and healthcare translations and work from Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Catalan into English. Medical translations account for about 90% of her work, with the remainder consisting of translations in the fields of art and art history.
Over the years Shelley has worked on several fascinating, high-profile assignments in these areas: a group project for the translation of audiocassette guides for the Louvre; a group project for translation of the exhibition catalogue of Art in Rome in the 19th Century for the Philadelphia Museum of Art; translation with a colleague of Luc Besson's 'The Story of the Fifth Element', his account of making the movie of the same name; translation of the review of a book about Italian memorial sculpture; and more recently, providing the French to English web site translation of a description of the Marc Chagall exhibition at the Foundation Pierre Gianadda in Martigny, Switzerland. Shelley is glad that she can put her art, art history and language background and training to good use. (2009)
Karen Crowe Pitts '78 (Studio Art) Karen writes: "After teaching art in Spotsylvania County for thirty-two years, I have recently gotten married, retired, and moved to Phoenix, Arizona. The Phoenix metro area has a very vibrant art scene, and I am looking forward to becoming a participant." (Oct, 2013)
Karen Kennedy Schultz '75 (B.A. Art History) writes: "I am currently the Director of The Center for Public Service and Scholarship at Shenandoah University, Winchester, VA. In the office suite, I have initiated a rotating art display of student art! Such fun! Thank you to people like Dr. Miles Chappel for providing a fantastic base of knowledge and appreciation of the arts for living full lives. I look forward to seeing my classmates at our 35th college reunion. I am glad we all graduated when we were 10 years old." (2010)
Mary-Montague Sikes '71 (Studio) Mary writes: "Jungle Jeopardy, an adventure novel, is my latest book, released in August 2011. Inspired by my series of large acrylic paintings of the Maya ruins at Palenque and at Chichen Itza, this book uses the Maya ruins of Central America as a major component of the plot. I also have another novel, A Rainbow for Christmas, scheduled for release in November. An historical novel, A Rainbow for Christmas is a sweet romance set in 1869 on a wagon train heading from Independence, Missouri to Denver, Colorado. I also have three short hardcover non-fiction books from the "Snapshot in Time" series set for release in October at the Virginia Librarians Conference in Portsmouth."
I maintain two studio/gallery spaces at Petersburg Regional Arts Center, 132 North Sycamore St., Petersburg. I also have paintings on display at Prince George Art & Frame on Jamestown Road in Williamsburg." www.marymontaguesikes.com (2011)
