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UE’s Emerging Contemporary Artists Lecture Series Welcomes Joseph Anderson

Posted: Monday, October 28, 2013

With generous support from the Efroymson Family Fund, a fund of the Central Indiana Community Foundation, the University of Evansville is pleased to welcome North Carolina blacksmith and sculptor Joseph Anderson to the Emerging Contemporary Artists Lecture Series.

Anderson will present a free, public lecture on his career and work at 7 p.m. Friday, November 1 in the Melvin Peterson Gallery, located at the corner of Lincoln and Weinbach avenues.

An exhibition of Anderson’s work, featuring approximately 30 sculptures, will also open Friday, November 1 and run through Friday, November 22. The Melvin Peterson Gallery is open 12-3 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday, and 12-6 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday.

Anderson began his career as a jeweler, but switched to working with hot iron as a blacksmith and sculptor. His work has been commissioned for private collections, parks, corporate headquarters, and hospitals, and he has exhibited and won awards in more than two dozen juried exhibitions and shows around the United States, including a show at the National Ornamental Metal Museum in Memphis.

“It has been 40 years since I first touched hot iron with a hammer, and still not a day goes by that I am not amazed at some new way that I can find to speak through this medium,” Anderson said.

“Moving hot iron with a hammer breathes life into this cold, industrial material,” he added, “allowing us to express human ideas while imbuing those ideas with the strength and permanence of this noble material.”

The Emerging Contemporary Artists Lecture Series, founded in 2012, provides free lectures to UE students and the community, as well as workshops and studio demonstrations for specific classes and arts organizations.

“With the support of the Efroymson Family Fund, we’re thrilled to continue this series, which supports emerging artists around the nation while benefiting UE and the entire Evansville community,” said Stephanie Frasier, chair of the Department of Art. “We hope the series will bring new patrons to the Melvin Peterson Gallery, increase UE’s stature in the art community beyond our region, and help attract talented art students to UE.”

The University of Evansville wishes to thank the Efroymson Family Fund, a fund of the Central Indiana Community Foundation, for its support of the arts at UE. Since the fund was established in 1998, it has awarded more than $70 million to nonprofit organizations in central Indiana and beyond. For more information on the Efroymson Family Fund, please visit www.cicf.org/efroymson-family-fund.

For more information on Anderson’s lecture and exhibition, please call the Department of Art at 812-488-2043.

(Pictured: Superman, forged iron sculpture by Joseph Anderson.)

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