In order to showcase student artwork, the Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center will house Creative Co-Op’s first off-campus gallery showing titled “Branching.”
The Cultural Arts Center took the show for many reasons, including a desire to foster student artwork, which Creative Co-Op actively represents as one of the only outlets on campus for student artists looking for a support group as well as a forum to sell their creations. Katie McAllister, director of the Dinah Washington Arts Center and the Paul R. Jones Gallery, said she thinks Creative Co-Op is a good fit for the gallery.
“It’s the University-run gallery, so it’s open to the entire University and not just the College of Arts and Sciences, and we like to have a variety of shows,” McAllister said. “We like to support students and what they’re doing creative-wise. We thought it was just going to be a good match for us.”
The opening reception for the show will be held Friday, Dec. 6, from 5:30-7:30 p.m. From the time the gallery opens Nov. 22 to the day it closes, a Creative Co-Op member will be present to help with purchasing items. The show will feature 21 Creative Co-Op artists and will not have an overall theme. Instead, artists’ works will stand alone, grouped only by medium. Tori Taylor, a senior majoring in print making and vice president of Creative Co-Op, said the title of the show, “Branching,” was chosen carefully to mirror this format.
“We came up with the title as a way to represent the different branches of art – that it can be functional, crafty as well as formal,” Taylor said.
Items and art pieces at the show will range from ceramic mugs and bowls to custom notebooks all the way to traditional artwork, such as paintings and sculptures. The prices will range from $5 to $700 depending on the piece. Taylor said it’s a good stop for Christmas shopping. Besides representing the different kinds of art Creative Co-Op members produce, Allyson Mabry, Creative Co-Op president, said it also encompasses Creative Co-Op’s journey and diversity.
“We represent so many diverse media and disciplines, and then we also have 12 or 13 different majors represented, so it’s kind of like all of us coming together, but we’re all different branches,” Mabry said. “And then it’s also about how we’ve grown our roots for the past year, ’cause we have a really solid foundation now, and we’re focusing on spreading our branches and growing a lot more.”
Many of the artists featured in “Branching” will have never had gallery experience before the show.
“It’s one thing to graduate with a degree in painting, but it’s another to have hung your own show, sold your own work, promoted your own work,” she said. “And I think the more that students get of that while they’re in school, [having] the college to get behind them and back them on that, [is] only going to make them more successful when they graduate and actually get out there on their own.”
Until this point, Taylor said Creative Co-Op has been picking up steam as an art source for students but has recently sought to branch out to the Tuscaloosa community. The show has an aim to sell art but could also be used for the Tuscaloosa community to learn about Creative Co-Op and for Creative Co-Op to be seen as a legitimate organization supporting artists.
“It means a lot to be in the new [Dinah Washington] space because it’s such a beautiful space,” Taylor said. “And since it’s sponsored by the Tuscaloosa Arts Council, there’s going to be a specific set of people who will be seeing this work not from campus, but from the community, which gives us such a better opportunity to have our work sell and be better appreciated.”
