Reception To Be Held For Only Line: Pencil and Ink by Alan Garfield and Steve Ziegler
Mar 15, 2017
DUBUQUE, Iowa – University of Dubuque’s Bisignano Art Gallery will host a reception for its newest exhibit, Only Line: Pencil and Ink by Alan Garfield and Steve Ziegler, on Tuesday, March 21, from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. in the art gallery, Heritage Center, 2255 Bennett Street. Refreshments will be served.
The reception is free and open to the public. It is held in conjunction with American Shakespeare Center’s 2016/17 Hungry Hearts Tour production of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town in John and Alice Butler Hall.
The exhibit features recent work by Midwestern artists Alan Garfield, of Dubuque, and Steve Ziegler, of Madison, Wisconsin, who actively decide only to use pencil and ink. Garfield, gallery director and professor of computer graphics and interactive media at UD, uses charcoal because he’s constantly on the move. Ziegler wanders around his farm and uses nature as a jumping off point for his ink drawings.
“While I surround myself every day with such marvelous technology tools involving millions of colors, 2D and 3D manipulations, and loads of levels of undos, I just love drawing,” Garfield said. “So when I can, usually when I am away and traveling internationally for work, I get out a nice buff or textured sheet of watercolor paper and a charcoal pencil and draw. I don’t have much time in my responsibilities when I am leading students to Paris or London or Rome. So, bringing a rather small cache of drawing materials is a reality. But besides that limitation, one of the elements I like best about using this deep, rich, dark charcoal or graphic pencil is, simply, that you cannot erase it. Once you make a mark, that’s it. It’s done. Nothing to do but keep going.”
Ziegler described his life as one in pen and ink that started around the end of high school and got a footing in his first year of college at the University of Wisconsin.
“At year two I dropped out of college, packed my pen and ink as it was easy to carry, and headed to Colorado for a winter of skiing that ended in a skiing accident and convalescing in Torrance, California,” he said. “At this point the perpetual motion of my life in pen and ink became permanent and became a significant part of who I am today and how I feel the world. My art is of the line.”
The exhibit continues through Friday, April 14.
Bisignano Art Gallery Hours are Monday through Friday from noon to 5:00 p.m. during the academic year. Summer hours vary or by appointment only. The gallery is also open in conjunction with all major events staged in John and Alice Butler Hall. For more information, please contact Alan Garfield at 563.589.3717 or agarfield@dbq.edu.
