The 47th Annual Faculty Exhibition is underway at Montgomery College’s Sarah Silberman Art Gallery.

As its name suggests, it’s the 47th of its kind, however, the reason why it started has since been forgotten.

“It’s one of those things when the tradition starts and after a while you’re not really sure where it comes from,” said gallery director and professor Judith Stone.

Even if its original reason for conception isn’t remembered, the professors do it now to not only show off their work, but also as a teaching tool, according to chair of the art department Michael Farrell.

The gallery features 29 sculptures, paintings, and other forms of art from full-time, part-time, and even retired faculty.  Included in there are professors Tendai Johnson (Confining Angst), Edwin Ahlstrom (August), and the aforementioned Michael Farrell (Swarm).

The exhibition is held on the second floor of the second floor Sarah Silberman Art Gallery (10 a.m. – 4 p.m. on weekdays) and runs through October 12.

The works

[frame_right src=”https://mcadvocate.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/IMG_7210-150×150.jpg” href=”https://mcadvocate.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/IMG_7210.jpg”]Tendai Johnson, Confining Angst[/frame_right]Tendai Johnson (Confining Angst): [My piece] is a response to the summer that I had. I have a new place, and I was tearing out walls. I hired a contractor to come in and while I’m trying to work in my studio, they were pulling down a wall. So this is more so a response to the crisis of the moment: dust everywhere and so forth, me trying get away at the moment and draw.

Where does the name come from?: The sense things closing in on you. The stress that we create around us and how we try to negotiate that through life.

[frame_left src=”https://mcadvocate.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/IMG_7217-150×150.jpg” href=”https://mcadvocate.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/IMG_7217.jpg”]Edwin Ahlstrom, August[/frame_left]Edwin Ahlstrom (August): It’s called “August.” I love the month. I love the clouds that appear only at this time of year. I work with photographs that I’ve taken myself and I concoct the entire still life and put in the things I want to be there. [It took] about four weeks to finish. I just finished this in the month of August. Normally it may take me couple months to work on a painting, but I had this idea and I wanted to get ready for the show.

[frame_right src=”https://mcadvocate.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/IMG_7278-150×150.jpg” href=”https://mcadvocate.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/IMG_7278.jpg”]Barbara Allen, Closed Forms for Sol Le Witt[/frame_right]Barbara Allen (Closed Forms for Sol Le Witt): Sol Le Witt is a conceptual artist, and I’ve always admired his ideas and his work. He did a lot of sculpture, drawings, and wall paintings. The sculptures and drawings were described as open or closed cubes — or open cubes, primarily.

Recently, I’ve built a kiln for myself to fire with wood fuel. (pointing to sculpture) These are two boxes, closed forms, that I made to fire in the kiln. And I placed almost inside the fire box itself. So what you see here on [two adjacent edges] is the coals and the heat of the fire itself. What you see that makes the glass is the wood ash getting hot enough in the fire to melt. If you can imagine a wood ash in your fireplace getting so hot that it would become glass, because the ash is made of things that glass is made of, primarily.

It went through a violent 12-hour firing to about 2650 degrees.