Studio Art Faculty
Nick Bontrager
Assistant Professor of Art
Nick Bontrager received his MFA from The Ohio State University for studies in Art & Technology and his BFA at the University of Houston in Photography & Digital Media. Nick is an interdisciplinary artist whose work and research explores the physical and conceptual nature of the moving image, game-based interactions and exchanges, and mankind's struggle to discover the vast unknown. He recently began production on a feature-length film that is expected to reach completion in late 2013. As he develops the New Media Art program at TCU, Nick will be building bridges between the Arts & Sciences while infusing traditional techniques with new and experimental methods.
Contact via email: n.bontrager@tcu.edu
http://www.nickbontrager.com
Susan Harrington
Associate Professor of Art
Susan Harrington holds the MFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of North Texas, an MA from Purdue University in Painting and Drawing and a bachelor's degree from the Maryland Institute, College of Art in Painting. Professor Harrington is currently Associate Professor of art at TCU, where she has taught drawing and painting since 1988. An experienced and highly-regarded artist, Harrington has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States and Germany. Her many honors include the Pollack-Krasner Foundation Fellowship in 1999-2000; several Vermont Studio Center residencies from 1993 to 2001; an artist in residence at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art in 1995 and a Mid-America/National Endowment for the Arts Grant in 1990-91.
Contact via email:S.Harrington@tcu.edu
Dick Lane
Associate Professor of Art
Dick received his BFA from the University of Texas at Arlington and an MFA from the University of Florida. It was in Florida where he honed his knowledge and interest in highly manipulated forms of photographic imagery under the tutelage of Jerry Uelsmann and Evon Streetman. In 1986, Professor Lane began teaching Fine Art Photography at UTA before coming to TCU in 1989. His fine art photographs have been in over 80 group and solo exhibitions and are in several private and museum collections nationally and internationally. He received multiple grants for his research and has also been recognized as a Mortar Board "Preferred Professor".
Contact via email: R.Lane@tcu.edu
http://www.DickLanePhotography.com
Sally Packard
College of Fine Arts, School of Art Director
Professor Sally Packard serves as the College of Fine Arts, School of Art Director. Her background is in Theatrical Costume and Set Design. For many years, she lived in New York City and worked for companies such as The Metropolitan Opera, The Santa Fe Opera, Minnesota Ballet, Atlanta Ballet, The Guthrie Theater, The Jim Henson Company and The Juilliard School of Music. This experience greatly informed Professor Packard’s art practice and her interest in cross-disciplinary studies and its application in higher education, particularly in the visual arts.
In 1997 she relocated to Texas to pursue her MFA in Painting from Texas Christian University. She held two academic appointments previous to her current position at TCU. From 1999-2008, she served at the University of North Texas in the College of Visual Arts + Design where she was tenured and was co-coordinator of the Core Program as well as graduate teaching faculty. From 2008-2011 she served as the Chair to the Department of Visual Arts at The Sage College in Albany, New York.
Professor Packard has exhibited her installation and sculpture throughout Texas, as well as across the United States, Sweden, Poland and England. Recently, Professor Packard has begun to conduct research around the subject of cross-disciplinary learning in higher education and the impact this has on students once they enter the work force. She believes artists and designers are particularly well suited for cross-disciplinary pursuits because of their particular abilities to think critically and to creatively solve problems.
In her own practice as an educator at The Sage College she was involved in several initiatives to create inter-disciplinary courses. In the Department of Art she created a cornerstone course for all incoming freshmen art students. In addition, she was a member of the iThink team who created a series of team-taught, cross-disciplinary courses for all undergraduate students at The Sage College. And in the spring of 2011 Professor Packard team-taught a course in Product Innovation for MBA students with the Dean of the School of Management. In the spring of 2011 she presented at CAA on this subject.
Contact via email: s.packard@tcu.edu
Chris Powell
Assistant Professor of Art
Chris Powell has been an instructor at TCU since 1989, while simultaneously working as an independent artist. Powell received an MFA in ceramics from Bradley University and a BFA from Abilene Christian University. Recipient of numerous public and private commissions for outdoor sculpture, Powell works in stone, clay, and other traditional materials to explore the abstract shapes of plants, animals, and natural phenomena. His work achieves a subtle balance between figurative and non-figurative, evoking memories of early modernists. His proficiency as a stone carver and ceramicist imparts an air of timeless perfection to his deceptively simple exercises in pure form.
Contact via email:C.Powell@tcu.edu
http://personal.tcu.edu/~cpowell/
Cam Schoepp
Associate Professor of Art
Cameron is a new Associate Professor of Art and Art History. He has lived and worked as an artist in Fort Worth for the past 19 years. He received a BFA in Sculpture and Ceramics from Pacific Lutheran University in 1984 and a Master of Fine Arts from TCU in 1987. After receiving his MFA, Cameron taught Sculpture courses at TCU for three years before taking a position in the Sculpture program at the University of Dallas. He ran this program for over a decade, teaching Sculpture, Drawing, and seminar classes at the graduate and undergraduate levels and serving as Chair during his final year. In addition to teaching, Cameron has always maintained a studio and an active exhibition schedule. His exhibitions have appeared at the Foster Goldstrom Gallery in New York, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, the Contemporary Art Center in Fort Worth, and the Runyon Gallery in Dallas. In the summers of 2000 and 2001, he was selected with three other artists to participate in the Fort Worth Stone Symposium. His Hats from 2000 is currently installed in Worth Park in downtown Fort Worth; Bench of 2000; and Pollen of 2001; are each installed in the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens. These, like all of Cameron's works, are placed with careful consideration for their relationship to their environment.
Contact via email: C.Schoepp@tcu.edu
http://personal.tcu.edu/~cschoepp/
Luther Smith
Professor of Art
Luther Smith received an MFA in photography from the Rhode Island School of Design, where he studied with Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind. He holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. He is an active photographer and has exhibited extensively throughout the United States. His work is included in many collections. Professor Smith received the TCU College of Fine Arts and Communication Division of Fine Arts1999 Distinguished Research and Creative Activity Award, He has also received a National Endowment for the Arts Regional Grant. His current projects include Photographing the South, a series of landscape photographs of the Southern United States; and Where I live, a series of images of the people and landscape of North Central Texas.
Contact via email: L.Smith@tcu.edu
http://www.LutherSmith.net
