by Brody Truce
Senior Staff Writer
This week, The Gallery at Carter College unveiled its spring exhibit, “Tedium: 30 Years of Meeting Agenda Doodles.” The Gallery will display more than fifty works of art from students, faculty and administrators that have been doodled on the margins of meeting agendas during boring meetings.
Charity Stevens shows the best in abstract agenda art. CLICK FOR FULL SIZE.
“I was inspired to host this exhibit after missing a faculty senate meeting last fall and asking a colleague if I could borrow her notes,” explained Charmaine Branson, Director of Acquisitions at The Gallery. “There wasn’t a useful piece of information on her agenda, but the doodles were exquisite!”
Branson spent several months combing Carter College archives for other artwork scrawled into the margins of meeting agendas.
“The 90s were a particularly volatile time at Carter College,” said Branson. “Especially in the Physics Department; I unearthed some really dark works from several of our brightest professors.”
“I’m so excited to have my work shown!” exclaimed former Residence Life employee and class of 1984 alumnus Charity Stevens. Stevens’ work depicts a boarder of curious geometric shapes crafted in black ink. “I don’t remember anything about that meeting, except that I was bored out of my mind. I never dreamed anything productive would have come from that agenda.”
Dr. Nehri's art shows the complexity of emotion and artistic nuance found in the "Tedium" exhibit. CLICK FOR FULL SIZE.
Jack Nehri, a first-year professor of sociology, will also have his work featured in the exhibit. “Professor Nehri’s work is an excellent commentary on the often conflicting directions in which modern life pulls us,” explained Branson. “His choice of purple ink and primitive style punctuates the ennui of the modern human.”
“It was the longest meeting ever,” said Nehri. “It was supposed to last an hour, but they just kept going. I had to do something to stay awake; I didn’t realize it was art.”
The exhibit will run through June of 2010.
This is a great story — I laughed out loud!
Excellent, I couldn’t stop laughing as I read this aloud to my coworkers. In this case, art imitates life.
The college I work for actually did this (after a sort) for the last two years, and I was one of the organizers. We had really good response both on-campus and from the community, though we took more of an educational/visual-spacial learner lens to it. We aren’t doing it this summer because of time constraints, but you can see the press release from last year here: http://www.ucollege.edu/news/2009/07/23/union-college-presents-margins-doodle-art-exhibit