Carmichael show

at Kiesling House

Designs,

watercolors,

drawings on

display for the next three weekends

By RON LARSEN

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM--When it comes to expressing herself, the art world is Charis Carmichael's eclectic oyster.

The New Ulm artist, currently a senior at Bethany Lutheran College in Mankato, will have her diverse art, design and photographic selections on display at the Council for the Arts in New Ulm's Kiesling House Garden Gallery for the next three weekends.

The exhibition opens today at 10 a.m., and an artist's reception will be held Sunday from 2-4 p.m. Gallery hours are 10 a.m.-4 p.m. on Saturdays and 1-4 p.m. on Sundays.

"Everywhere I look, I see a photograph, an illustration, a sketch, a painting, a dress, a room and on and on. I stop looking at the world, and see only an interactive canvas before me," said the 23-year-old studio art major.

In her exhibition, the viewer will see digital photographic designs, gouache (opaque watercolor) paintings, drawings and graphic design and even a set design, but they won't see any oil paintings.

"I'm saving my oils for my next exhibition (at the Garden Gallery)," she smiled.

Perhaps the only common denominator in Carmichael's art works is that she works primarily in two dimensions, except for a few sculptures. Her occasional forays into set or scenic design usually satisfies any cravings she has for three-dimensional art, she explained.

Working with two-dimensional art forms, "the way it comes out is all very similar. I always look for lots of detail, balanced composition and precision and accuracy in the representation. Photography allows me to do that, graphic design allows me to do that, drawing allows me to do that. Sculpture not so much," she explained.

Carmichael really wasn't bent upon being an artist when she entered Bethany.

"As a child, like any child does, I drew. In high school, I was a bit more talented than others, and they would ask me draw things for them--the homecoming posters, the buttons and whatnot. But I never did anything for myself.

So, when she started college, she was thinking more in terms of "being a diplomat or a political science major, but when I looked at all the classes that political science comprised, I realized the only thing I wanted to do was not those classes. I wanted to do art; it was the only thing I could stay interested in."

Her interest in photography really started to rise when she was given a digital camera. Her interest in photography is limited to its being an art form.

"Often, I will use the digital image as a foundation for a drawing or painting."

Her works have been displayed in several student shows at the college, as well as the 2003 "Matters of the Heart" CANU-BCHS Juried Art Exhibition in New Ulm where her painting, "Figures of Speech," received an Honorable Mention and at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Fall 1999.

She was the first student to be selected to do the set design for a Bethany Lutheran College production, and she's currently attending college on a fine arts merit scholarship and an academic scholarship.