Welcoming the NEW faculty

With the start of a new academic year, we welcome the members of our faculty who are new to the College of Fine Arts. Invariably, these individuals bring energy and enthusiasm to teaching and learning, new ideas as well as different perspectives on old ideas and new approaches to scholarship and creative work. For these reasons, change is healthy.

In this issue, we present five new members of our faculty. This is an impressive group. While each has been appointed at the assistant professor level, they bring considerable teaching experience to UNM as well as established records of creative work and scholarship. We’ll all benefit from their presence!

Another activity to which we look forward each fall is the awarding of grants to support research, creative work and career enhancement. All college faculty and staff are eligible to apply for these categories of support through a competitive proposal process. College students may apply for research and creative work grants related to the missions of our two new research centers, the Arts of the Americas Institute and the Arts Technology Center.

In October, 26 grants, totaling approximately $50,000, were awarded to our faculty, staff and students. About two-thirds of these funds are provided by annual gifts to the college–gifts from individuals who recognize and reward the excellence that exists in our college and who understand the importance of assisting our faculty, staff and students in carrying our their work. In this issue you will learn more about one of our donors as well as the Dean's Circle, whose members provide support for outstanding faculty and student projects. I hope you enjoy this issue of our newsletter and I invite you to visit our Arts Technology and Arts of the America web sites to learn more about our programs and activities.

Dean Tom Dodson

tdodson@unm.edu

Donald Robert Fox When he was a high school student in Richardson, Texas, Donald Robert Fox already was working in the theater—for money. He started out running the lights for his school productions, a position that offered not only experience, but a paycheck as well. He also ran sound boards.
After high school, already a theater veteran. Fox became involved in the fringe theater movement in Dallas and worked on productions at local commercial theaters, the University of North Texas, Richland College and private parties, offering a variety of skills, from electrician to light board operator and stagehand. A few years later.	Grapes of Wrath. Set designed by Donald Fox. Produced by Starlight Productions, Pittsburgh, PA.
Fox decided to take a look at other career possibilities; for five years, he trained as a jeweler. He designed and manufactured gold and platinum jewelry for Alphin Jewelers and Nieman-Marcus. After determining that wasn't his calling, he worked as an assistant manager at the Bookstop, one of the nation's first super-chain bookstores, and with developmentally disabled adults. By 1990, he was ready to return to the theater. He earned his bachelor of fine arts degree in directing and design at Baylor University in 1994 and a master of fine arts degree in lighting and design from Wayne State University in 1997. Along the way, he designed and built sets for a number of regional theaters and worked on the stage crew for touring shows. "I did anything I could get my hands on," he says. "When I went back to the theater, there was no question in my mind what I was supposed to do." After his master's work. Fox decided to try his hand in the academic world and became a visiting faculty lecturer at the University of Pittsburgh. While there, he designed and supervised the building of the Henry Heymann Theatre, which opened last May.
He also discovered how much he enjoyed training students to work in the commercial theater world. This fall, he filled a new position: assistant professor in production management and design in the UNM Theatre and Dance Department. The nature of the work demands training to be mostly hands on. As a result, students will be responsible for lighting design and sound for a variety of upcoming UNM shows.
Fox is a member of Actor's Equity Association, the professional union for actors and stage managers, and recently passed the exam for membership in United Scenic Artists, the professional union for designers.	Purlie Victorious. Set designed by Donald Fox. Produced at the Bonstelle Theatre, Detroit, MI.
Still finding his feet in his new job. Fox sees immense potential at UNM, especially envisioning a transformation of the Carlisle gymnasium into a dance performance space. He also would like to continue to update the lighting and sound equipment to better prepare students for the flourishing field of entertainment. Getting to know Albuquerque, he regularly bicycles around town and hikes in the Sandia Mountains. He also looks forward to learning how to ski.

Kathleen Jesse

Once her parents enrolled her in art classes at the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, NE., Kathleen Jesse never looked back. Beginning in grade school, she spent every Saturday at the museum, in painting and drawing classes and working with clay.

She studied art at Creighton University, but in her junior year, after sitting through a lecture about the hunger problem in Bangladesh, she shifted her attention to starving people.

In 1975, she earned a degree in food science and technology from the University of Nebraska.

The Education of Young Women.
Mixed media on wallpaper
and canvas. 50" x 55"
by Kathleen Jesse.

Jesse continued to paint, and in the mid-1980s went back to school, earning a 1989 master of fine arts degree in painting from the University of California at Berkeley. After graduation, she struggled to find work, teaching sporadically at schools in northern California. A part-time receptionist job with two Iranian food brokers enabled her to survive and continue painting.

In 1992, she accepted a teaching position at Syracuse University. Four years later, she began spending summers at her sister's ranch in the Manzano Mountains southeast of Albuquerque, living in a small two-room adobe at the edge of the property, to where she still escapes weekends. Despite receiving tenure at Syracuse, Jesse's attachment to New Mexico grew and this fall she joined the Fine Arts faculty as assistant professor in painting and drawing. The college's enthusiasm for innovation sealed her decision to leave New York, but she admits a strong attraction to New Mexico's space and cultural diversity, as well. The broad range of students in her painting and two-dimensional design classes provides a challenge, but one that she relishes.

"When students try to assimilate a concept, it's a struggle. But when they break through and make something unique, it's rewarding," Jesse says. In her own work, Jesse embraces many influences, from childhood images to Renaissance masters to 20th century women's literature. Her process involves working in layers: putting down paint, scraping some off with a scrub brush and ammonia, then putting down more paint. "I use the figure a lot and I might remake an art historical painting to make a comment about it," she explains. "A feeling of 'passing through' influences how I work and what I'm looking at."

Jesse is a current year recipient of a Saltonstall Foundation grant. Her work will be included in the upcoming "Contemporary Devotion" exhibition, which will be shown concurrently with "El Favor de los Santos: The Retablo Collection of New Mexico State University" at the San Jose Museum of Art.

Newsletter Editor: Ellen K. Ashcraft; Assistant Editor: Kate Downer; Writer: Nancy Harbert; Graphic Designer: Michael T. Sanchez; Webpage Editor: Ana Marie Mowrer

College of Fine Arts

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New Faculty Continued

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Welcoming the NEW faculty

Donald Robert Fox

Kathleen Jesse