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Students to display artwork at Downtown Saturday Night

3-D art class opens 1-night gallery to showcase semester's work

A class of 23 UA sculpting students will display their works Saturday at "Conglomeration," a collection of various dimensional works created over the course of this past semester.

The show, to be held at 6 p.m. at this week's Downtown Saturday Night, will occupy an empty store at 312 E. Congress St. It was donated by Rich Rogers Investments and will be converted into a gallery for the night.

In conjunction with the Tucson Arts District Partnership, graduate student Mary Babcock's Art 104 three-dimensional design class will display their pieces as part of a final project, as well as for recognition.

"I think to be successful in art, you have to believe in yourself," Babcock said. "Getting your art out so people can see it is one way to make that happen."

Babcock is currently working toward her master of fine arts degree in fiber and fabric design while teaching 3-D design and construction.

Art history sophomore Landon Vincent, a student in Babcock's class and promotional director for "Conglomeration," expressed his desire to allow the public to view the artwork he and his classmates have worked on all semester.

"This is like a final project, although our work has already been graded," he said. "Our teacher (Babcock) was pushing us to let others see what we've done in our class."

For some of the students, this will be the first time their work will be viewed outside of the classroom.

"I guess it's a little scary, but it's also exciting," said Cindy Reily, a studio art sophomore. "It will be different because our professor and other students will not be the only ones seeing our work."

Babcock said because the show is in its first year, there were concerns about where the class would get the needed space to properly display the works.

"It's a little bit of an experiment because we have not seen the inside of the space," she said. "We've only seen it from the window."

Yet Babcock remained optimistic, noting the hard work her students are putting into making the show happen.

Since the beginning of the semester, the class has worked with a number of forms of art, including wire sculpture, containers made with natural materials, clothing and even a surrealistic tool suggesting a desired product that does not exist.

Many of these surrealistic tools boasted sarcasm as well as ingenuity, including a phone that had been transformed into a combination purse-cosmetic kit and an automatic note taker, complete with self tape recorder.

Babcock explained that the 3-D class intends to explore basic principles of design like balance and contrast, as well as experiment with different materials, how they connect with each other and what they communicate to the public.

"The people in my class challenge each other," she said. "They work pretty hard and are pretty invested in being artists as well as being in class."

Reily said the class has been helpful both in and out of the classroom.

"It really helped me look outside of my own box, my creative box," she said. "Mary Babcock pushed all of us to look at things in different ways and from different perspectives."