Photographs, drawings and installations from all over the country fill the walls of the Sarah Moody Gallery. A class of graduate students sits on the floor clustered around one of the works as they discuss the exhibition with a professor.

From now until March 7, the gallery will host a variety of artwork created by full-time professors at The University of Alabama. Every two years, faculty members submit recent work for the exhibition. The show gives students a chance to see what their instructors create.

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“We are practitioners as well as educators,” said Pete Schulte, a drawing professor at the University with a piece in the show.

Although he has work on display in New York and Atlanta, the faculty exhibition is the only show he has had in Tuscaloosa. He came to the University in 2011 and has participated in the exhibition both this year and in 2012.

Schulte described his piece as “an installation of drawings,” comprised of seven or eight individual elements. After the gallery set them up, he adjusted them to his liking. He said the piece will never be set up in the exact same way again.

The exhibit contains two or three pieces from each of the 10 artists involved. The works do not follow any particular theme, but they were all created recently. Faculty members submit the pieces they would like to show, and the gallery approves them for the space. The gallery, located in Clark Hall, is small, but Vicki Rial, exhibitions coordinator, said the professors are familiar with the space as they choose works they want to submit.

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Schulte said the exhibition illustrates that professors encounter difficulties with their own work just as their students do.

“On some level, artists are always students,” Schulte said.

The Sarah Moody Gallery officially opened in 1967, but the faculty show has been going on much longer.

“As long as there has been a department, there have been faculty shows,” Rial said.

The gallery put on the show annually until 2008, when an opportunity for a student show came up.

“It makes sense to show the students what the faculty are doing, and so they become familiar with the faculty’s way of thinking, way of processing information, way of working. That can influence a student quite a bit,” Rial said.

Bill Dooley, the director of the gallery, said it’s an unusual opportunity for faculty exhibiting primarily outside of Tuscaloosa to show their work.

“The things they explore, the issues in their artwork, might be different,” Dooley said.

Schulte said he requires his students to visit shows on campus and around Tuscaloosa for sketchbook assignments.

Dooley said that coordinating the faculty exhibition differs from other shows because exhibitors have the opportunity to visit the show during the curation process.

The gallery is open from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, and from 5 to 8 p.m. on Thursday evenings. The exhibition opened on February 6, but the grand opening was rescheduled for this Thursday from 6 to 8 p.m. due to inclement weather. The event is free and open to the public.

“You’re always looking to do something better or something you haven’t done before. I think that’s the real competition for artists,” Rial said.

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