An opening reception is scheduled Wednesday night (May 23) for the Design M.F.A. Graduation Exhibition, this year comprising the works of two students — each of whom will make a research presentation during the reception.

“Working with renowned design faculty, M.F.A students explore the broader topic of ‘design’ through a specific design discipline, drawing on collaborations with the arts, humanities, social sciences and sciences,” states a news release from the Design Museum, site of the exhibition and reception.

The exhibition opened May 21 and continues through June 7 at the museum in Cruess Hall. Wednesday's reception is set to run from 6 to 7:30 p.m.

The students and their exhibitions:

Esther Kim — Dockable Shelter: Housing for Homeless Families

Kim is “upcycling” with her design project, using shipping containers as temporary housing for homeless families. The containers are docked in a high-rise steel frame.

As envisioned in her thesis, this project would be situated in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district. The frame would go behind an existing single-room-occupancy hotel — which would serve as an entrance, art gallery and social service facility.

“The unexpected tower of containers — objects typically associated with freight and portability — raises consciousness of the need for both new housing and improved living conditions within the notoriously blighted SROs,” according to the news release.

Carol Shu — Soulcraft Clothing: Linking Indian Handcrafts with Sustainable Design

Shu’s thesis collection bridges development research and design practice to explore how fashion design can advance women’s cultural, economic and social well-being in developing countries.

Her designs are the synthesis of her experiences in India, interning for two nongovernmental organizations that support women artisans in the making of handcrafts.

Embellished with embroidery by artisans in Mumbai and Kutch and made with sustainable and block printed fabrics, her garments are designed to be manipulated by their wearers with features such as adjustable straps and waistbands.

Her exhibition highlights the artisans who helped create her garments and shows viewers how they can participate in the design-for-social-change paradigm shift.

ONGOING EXHIBITIONS

• Cielo Rojo — Maceo Montoya, artist, writer and assistant professor, Department of Chicana/o Studies, presents 17 paintings in charcoal and acrylic on paper, plus five limited-edition silkscreen prints based on the Cielo Rojo series. Taller Arte del Nuevo Amanecer, or art workshop of the new dawn, 1224 Lemen Ave., Woodland. Call for exhibition hours: (530) 402-1065.

• A Collection of Birds in Linocut — By Emily Sin, who teaches relief printing at the Craft Center. Through June 8, Craft Center Gallery, South Silo. Regular hours: 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Friday, and 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday-Sunday.

• Dreams of the Darkest Night — So, you think photographs don’t lie? Well, not when digital technology has utterly transformed the ability to make photographs do pretty much anything the artists want them to. Not only that, but the Nelson describes a trend in which photographers no longer feel any obligation toward or even have much interest in reflecting objective reality. In this exhibition, Vanessa Marsh and Sean McFarland present separate suites of nontraditional artworks. Marsh makes sophisticated photograms (images made on photo paper without the use of a lens), creating a sense of dread, showing varieties of calm before the storm. In McFarland's most recent body of work, he presents large color images from nature that are very dark, almost all black, giving the viewer the feeling that he or she is glimpsing a dream in the depths of the darkest night. Through May 27, Nelson Gallery, Nelson Hall. Regular hours: 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Thursday, Saturday-Sunday, and by appointment on Fridays.

• Bruce Guttin: Headwear Improvisations by a Sculptor —  Guttin, a UC Davis MFA alumnus from the early 1970s, had an interest in headwear even when he was a sculptor working in wood. He now designs extremely simple, inexpensive and charming hats for his own use. The Nelson commissioned Guttin to make a selection of these hats; included will be related drawings and a sculpture. Through May 27, Nelson Gallery, Nelson Hall. Regular hours: 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Thursday, Saturday-Sunday, and by appointment on Fridays.

• What I See — Watercolors by UC Davis staff member Peter Shahrokh. Through May 25, Buehler Alumni and Visitors Center. Regular hours: 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday, and 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday.

Shahrokh is a self-taught painter, having started seven years ago, and now he is an instructor at the Craft Center. Holder of a Master of Business Administration from the Graduate School of Management (1999), his primary job at UC Davis is in Design and Construction Management, where he is the commissioning analyst, working with engineers to ensure the university gets what it ordered in capital projects and that they function as intended. He also serves as the commissioning authority on projects for which the university is pursuing LEED certification (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design).

Dateline UC Davis featured him last December when one of his abstract works appeared on the cover of Academic Medicine, the journal of the American Association of Medical Colleges.

• Where They Overlap: Sonya Kelliher-Combs — You will know this artist is from Alaska when you look at her work made from things like walrus stomach, seal intestine, reindeer hide, dentalium (tooth or tusk shell), and elk and moose fur. Indeed, she was born in Bethel and raised in Nome, of a cultural background that includes Athabascan, Inupiaq, and a mixture of German and Irish. Working in mixed media painting and sculpture, and drawing on Alaska's native culture, she blends the organic and the synthetic, the traditional and the modern, with acrylic polymer, nylon thread, glass beads, fabric and ink — in her creation of compelling objects, translucent and ambiguous, work that defies expectations in its cultural richness and conceptual interpretations of shape, form and luminosity. Through June 8, C.N. Gorman Museum, 1316 Hart Hall. Regular hours: noon-5 p.m. Monday-Friday, and 2-5 p.m. Sunday.

AT SHIELDS LIBRARY

• The Ground Beneath Our Feet: The Nikola P. Prokopovich Papers on Land Subsidence — Manuscript archivist Liz Phillips prepared this exhibition on the papers of engineering geologist Nikola P. Prokopovich (1918-99), who worked as a geologist with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's Mid-Pacific Region. He worked out of the bureau's Sacramento office from 1958 to 1986, investigating the geology and geochemistry of statewide water projects, including the Central Valley Project and the Solano Project. He was an avid field geologist and spent as much time as possible on site, collecting his own data. Prokopovich was particularly interested in the engineering geology of the Central Valley Project's canals and dam sites, and in the effects of state water projects and field irrigation on the surrounding landscape. The collection includes draft reports, memoranda and published writings, as well as nearly 25,000 slides and photographs documenting his work and the land around his work sites.

• "Imagination Turns Every Word Into a Bottle Rocket" — A selection of Sherman Alexie's work as a poet, short story writer, novelist and filmmaker. The exhibition's title (from Alexie's The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, a collection of short stories), evokes quintessential Alexie, in whatever format he writes, according to the library staff. "His words challenge, inspire and move the reader."

Exhibition prepared by the General Library Committee on Diversity, with assistance from Adam Siegel, Native American Studies bibliographer.

Presented in conjunction with the 2011-12 Campus Community Book Project, Alexie's novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.

• Paper Takes: The Power of Uncivil Words — Materials from the library's Walter Goldwater Radical Pamphlets collection, part of the library's Special Collections. The exhibition debuted last fall as part of the campus's Civility Project, and now Paper Takes is on display in the Shields Library lobby through winter quarter. Looking beyond the bounds of the campus, the exhibition explores the ways in which intolerant views are communicated and disseminated through pamphlets. Paper Takes explores the particular rhetoric supporting race-based hatred, gender and sexuality bias, and political divisiveness, to better understand the dominant discourses that frame some of our most uncivil exchanges. Displaying a selection from more than 17,000 items in the leading collection of “extreme” pamphlets in the United States, this exhibition provides historical depth to our understanding of the language of hate and intolerance, traces of which remain potent today.

Read more about Paper Takes and the Walter Goldwater Radical Pamphlets collection.

• Patti Smith — Another exhibition in conjunction with the Distinguished Speakers series at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts. Smith's visit to the Mondavi Center is scheduled for Wednesday, May 9. Shields Library describes Smith as "an important countercultural figure" since her seminal punk album, Horses (1975) — and notes that she has been active as a poet and writer as well as a musician. Just Kids, a memoir of her days with Robert Mapplethorpe, won the 2010 National Book Award for Nonfiction. Works of hers in the library collection include Seventh Heaven, Witt, Auguries of Innocence, Early Work, The Coral Sea and Ha! Ha! Houdini! (all poetry), Patti Smith Complete (lyrics) and Just Kids.

• The Spirit of New Orleans: Culture, Community, Community, Catastrophe, Construction — In conjunction with The Spirit of New Orleans series (film and music) at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts. The exhibition, prepared by Michael Colby, features items from library collections representing scholarship on the history, music, architecture, culture, practices and, most important, the people of New Orleans.

The Shields Library presents its exhibitions in the lobby. Regular hours: 7:30 a.m.-midnight Monday-Thursday, 7:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Friday, noon-6 p.m. Saturday and noon-midnight Sunday. Holidays and other exceptions.

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