April Surgent works with an ancient technique that few contemporary glassmakers choose to attempt. Cameo engraving entails precise and painstaking work to carve through layers of various colors of glass to create unique low relief images. While cameo engraving is best known for its use by gem cutters with differed colored stones or shells, it is equally as dynamic when implemented on layers of subtly colored glass. It is a slow process that requires great skill and meticulous attention to detail. As a young artist Surgent first encountered engraving under the tutelage of the Czech master engraver Jirí Harcuba, which led to her focus on the use of cameo engraving as way to depict landscapes and environments in glass.

While nature is her source of inspiration, Surgent draws on her experiences with several science-funded research grants to inform how she chooses to represent the natural environment. Each research trip, from areas as diverse as Antarctica to the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, has yielded a range of breathtaking imagery that later, in her studio, is recorded in glass. There is a great emphasis on using her engravings to document the present moment as the world is in the midst of a vastly accelerated loss of natural habitats and environmental impacts due to climate change. The depictions stand as a testament to the significant change that has already occurred, marking where the land, the sea, and animals are today; yet on this trajectory, the imaged landscape will no longer exist in just a few decades.

University Museums is honored to host an exhibition of April Surgent’s incredible cameo engraved glass along with two art installations created from human-made debris collected out of the ocean. The exhibition, along with a new commission created for University Museums’ permanent collection, all confront the environmental impact of climate change on the world. The art presents the perfect opportunity to direct further discussions on how glacial and sea changes continue to have a dramatic impact on Iowa. Through examining Surgent’s art the conversation must be had that we, and especially future generations, are and will be impacted by the devastating loss and accelerated environmental change occurring around the world.

This exhibition is curated and organized by the artist, April Surgent, and University Museums with Traver Gallery. Generous support for the exhibition was given by Marcia and Jim Borel; Carol Gee; Lucinda and Dirk Scholten; Phyllis and Larry Lepke; and University Museums Membership.

Industrial Design as a profession was established between World War I and World War II in the United States, but the idea of implementing design to manufactured goods began after the advent of the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century. New mechanization removed artisans from their traditional roles as goods could be made cheaper and faster. Quality quickly deteriorated, and as a result, design reform movements spread throughout England and into Europe and the U.S.

By the 20th century, ideas of Modernism and good design were rapidly shifting industrial production. On exhibition at the Brunnier Art Museum is a collection of objects examining how the design profession radically changed how objects were made and consumed by Americans and around the world. Included in the exhibition are objects donated by William Prindle (1952 – 2019), a prolific industrial designer and one of the first faculty members of the Iowa State University Industrial Design department.

The epergne, a strange word, and an even stranger object to modern eyes. An epergne is essentially a spectacular centerpiece for the presentation of fruit, sweets (or what was called sweetmeats), and later flowers on the dining table. It would have been the dramatic central focus for a perfectly set table from the 18th century and into the 20th century. Throughout this over 200-year history, the epergne significantly changed in shape, design, and material. Like many luxury goods of the 18th century, the desire for and interest in owning an epergne trickled down from the tables of the wealthiest diners to the ever-growing middle classes of the 19th and 20th centuries. New materials, along with the Industrial Revolution, allowed expensive tableware to be more accessible and the demand for a well-laid table continued to grow. With the advent of Victorian life, the proliferation of tableware only heightened an interest in developing more unique, colorful, and extravagant epergnes.

Epergne History by Adrienne Gennett, Curator of Brunnier Art Museum.

This exhibition is curated and organized by University Museums with special thanks to Karen and Robert Duncan whose generous gift of objects to the University Museums Permanent Collection made the exhibition possible. Support was given by University Museums Advancement Council and University Museums Membership. Programs are made possible through support from the Kathy & John Howell Art Enrichment Program.pergne History

Drift examines how the materiality of sculpture and its form function in conveying the perception of memories and the artist’s experience of the world. The concept of displacement is prominent in Stancliffe’s work and the exhibition. Societal order is disrupted as climate changes, politics shift, and even the act of altering the Iowa landscape to produce crops displaces the understood order within our landscape and society. Through these sculptural works of art, Drift conveys the acknowledgement of change as a constant in the world as we see it.

Tom Stancliffe is a sculptor who lives outside Cedar Falls, Iowa and maintains a large studio there. Although he works in a wide range of scales, he is best known for his large public sculptures of bronze or stainless steel that find expression in both the historical and contemporary contexts of a given site. He has completed over thirty commissioned works for public art collections nationally and was a former Professor of Art at the University of Northern Iowa (UNI) from 1988 to 2020. There, he also directed the Public Art Incubator at UNI, which he dedicated years of his career building up. The Public Art Incubator continues to teach students in the processes of creating public art and conserving works of art to be enjoyed for years to come. Stancliffe’s first encounter with University Museums was in 1986 when he assisted artist Bruce White with the sculpture Carom. Since 1994, Stancliffe has been a significant contributor to the Art on Campus Collection at ISU. Sculptures such as Glean I and II were designed and created by Stancliffe, while others were designed by fellow artists and fabricated by Stancliffe, often via the Public Art Incubator. Stancliffe has also conserved four sculptures in the Art on Campus Collection at ISU.

Two exhibitions related to Stancliffe's studio practice and his work in public art will be on exhibition at the Christian Petersen Art Museum. Drift is an exhibition made up of individual works of art; to truly grasp the overarching concept, the fifteen sculpted paintings should be experienced collectively along with the newly created sculpture installation Ghost Trees just outside in the Anderson Sculpture Garden and viewable from the Christian Petersen Art Museum. Together, the art acknowledges change as a constant in the world: societal order as climate changes, shifts in politics, and altering the Iowa landscape to produce crops displacing the understood order within landscape and society. Art of Fabrication explores the process of commissioning public works of art from the perspective of University Museums, the intricacies of public artists working with the campus community, and building collaborative relationships to care for the Art on Campus Collection; all in connection with Stancliffe’s art.

Public art is one of the fundamental values of the Christian Petersen Art Museum, named after the nation’s first permanent artist-in-residence who sculpted and taught at ISU. Because of its namesake and his contribution to the public art world, including Petersen founding ISU’s Art on Campus Collection, this museum showcases public artists like Tom Stancliffe who have a connection to the Art on Campus Collection.

Tom Stancliffe is a sculptor who lives outside Cedar Falls, Iowa and maintains a large studio there. Although he works in a wide range of scales, he is best known for his large public sculptures of bronze or stainless steel that find expression in both the historical and contemporary contexts of a given site. He has completed over thirty commissioned works for public art collections nationally and was a former Professor of Art at the University of Northern Iowa (UNI) from 1988 to 2020. There, he also directed the Public Art Incubator at UNI, which he dedicated years of his career building up. The Public Art Incubator continues to teach students in the processes of creating public art and conserving works of art to be enjoyed for years to come. Stancliffe’s first encounter with University Museums was in 1986 when he assisted artist Bruce White with the sculpture Carom. Since 1994, Stancliffe has been a significant contributor to the Art on Campus Collection at ISU. Sculptures such as Glean I and II were designed and created by Stancliffe, while others were designed by fellow artists and fabricated by Stancliffe, often via the Public Art Incubator. Stancliffe has also conserved four sculptures in the Art on Campus Collection at ISU.

Two exhibitions related to Stancliffe's studio practice and his work in public art will be on exhibition at the Christian Petersen Art Museum. Drift is an exhibition made up of individual works of art; to truly grasp the overarching concept, the fifteen sculpted paintings should be experienced collectively along with the newly created sculpture installation Ghost Trees just outside in the Anderson Sculpture Garden and viewable from the Christian Petersen Art Museum. Together, the art acknowledges change as a constant in the world: societal order as climate changes, shifts in politics, and altering the Iowa landscape to produce crops displacing the understood order within landscape and society. Art of Fabrication explores the process of commissioning public works of art from the perspective of University Museums, the intricacies of public artists working with the campus community, and building collaborative relationships to care for the Art on Campus Collection; all in connection with Stancliffe’s art.

Public art is one of the fundamental values of the Christian Petersen Art Museum, named after the nation’s first permanent artist-in-residence who sculpted and taught at ISU. Because of its namesake and his contribution to the public art world, including Petersen founding ISU’s Art on Campus Collection, this museum showcases public artists like Tom Stancliffe who have a connection to the Art on Campus Collection.

In the mid to late 1800s nearly half of all children received no formal schooling or education of any kind. By eighteen-ninety a law passed in Massachusetts that required children from the ages of six to ten to attend school. When children were in school it was nothing like it is today. Many children would be ushered into the ever so famous one room schoolhouses where they would spend their day learning from their teachers, have an hour break for lunch and roughly fifteen minutes for a recess, then venture home. Recess is where many children would play games with their friends and enjoy just being kids.

Games, toys, and recreation are always a big part of any child's life, this was no different for children in the Victorian era. Unlike today where children most often play inside with electronics, children back then did not have the same luxury. Many games played at school or at home would most often be games either made up on the spot or games that can be played with minimal equipment, such as an easy game of tag. Toys were also different from what we see today. Examples of these toys would be porcelain dolls, tea sets, game balls, dominos, yo-yos, rolling hoops, and books. This period of time has come to be known as the “Golden Age'' for children’s literature as evidenced by the generation-defining titles published in this era including Lewis Carrol’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Mark Twain’s famous book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

Childhood and play are essential parts of understanding life in Victorian America, leading to decoding and how adolescents were shaped from a young age with both an ethic for hard work and creativity in play. Growing up Victorian is curated by intern Travis Berhenke and will feature traditional toys and games, educational tools, with a closer look at what life was like for a child in the late 1800s in America.