By Joan C. McKinney, news and publications coordinator
CAMPBELLSVILLE, Ky. - Campbellsville University art professor, Linda J. Cundiff, who is chair of the department of art at CU, will hold an art exhibit through Feb. 6 in the Art Gallery.
A reception in her honor will be Monday, Feb. 2, from 5 p.m. until 6:30 p.m. in the Art Gallery. The public is invited to attend free of charge.
Cundiff, who has taught at CU since 1982, will display pastel paintings, prismacolor drawings, acrylic paintings and pen and ink drawings.
Cundiff said the pieces in the exhibit are recent work and most have not been exhibited elsewhere.
“Although subject matter falls into categories of flowers, fruit and vegetables, landscape and animals, all of these subjects are about the theme of change,” she said.
“Of course, some things were chosen as a formal problem for me to work with shapes, colors, patterns and light that I wanted to investigate,” she said.
To Cundiff, flowers and fruit and vegetables are all momento mori or metaphors for the brevity of life.
“The landscapes are frozen in time, but change is understood here as well,” she said.
“The sheep have always been metaphors for the flock of the church that should be growing and working toward spiritual change,” she said.
Cundiff is a 1972 graduate of Campbellsville University receiving her bachelor of arts in painting and drawing. She received her master of arts in printmaking and drawing from Murray State University in 1975.
She received her master of fine arts is in printmaking and painting from Ohio University in 1978, and received her rank I with a Kentucky teaching certification, grades K-12, in art, in 1983.
Cundiff has attended a paper workshop at the Appalachian Center for Arts and Crafts, the Kentucky Institute for European Studies in Florence, Italy, a computer graphics workshop at Penland School, Penland, N.C., a post graduate class at the University of Louisville and has studied at the University of Oxford/University of California, Berkeley Program.
In addition to her art classes, she has also taught photography at the university.
Most recently, Cundiff had artwork featured in the 2008 Lincoln Days Art Exhibit in Hodgenville, Ky., and at the Professional Education Standards Board in Frankfort, Ky. She also won second place for a mixed media watercolor piece at the 2008 Kentucky State Fair.
She won a first place award for watercolor mixed media and a third place award for paste at the 2007 Kentucky State Fair juried art exhibit. Cundiff won a first place award in the open category at the 2005 Lincoln Days Art Exhibit, and first place for watercolor mixed media, fourth place for pastel, and an honorable mention for drawing at the 2005 Kentucky State Fair.
She exhibited a pastel in an invitational exhibit at Kentucky Visions 2004 at the Kentucky Governor's Mansion. Cundiff also exhibits work at These Precious Things, a gallery in Lebanon, Ky.
Cundiff was an arts consultant for Collaborative for Teaching and Learning, Different Ways of Knowing Program in Kentucky founded by Galef Institute, Los Angeles, Calif., providing teacher in-service training workshops in various locations such as Louisville, Lexington, Central Kentucky, Northern Kentucky and Eastern Kentucky from 1994 to 2000.
Cundiff had a pastel and watercolor mixed media piece purchased by the Kentucky State Fair for the 50th year that a purchase award for the art exhibit was done. Her piece was of tobacco leaves, and it hangs in one of the administrative offices at the state fair grounds.
Cundiff also had a pastel piece in the Kentucky Governor's Mansion for the Invitational Kentucky Vision Exhibit. Cundiff said she was invited because she had had pieces accepted in several of the juried KY Vision shows.
She was a visual arts instructor for the Institute for Arts in Education sponsored by the Kentucky Center for Arts, University of Louisville and the Kentucky Department of Education from 1989 through 1999. The program is a two-week hands-on graduate seminar for adults in the arts.
She is a former member of the Visual Arts Task Force Committee for the Kentucky Department of Education.
Cundiff has served as a juror for Lincoln Days Art Exhibits, Kentucky State Fair Arts and Crafts Exhibition and for the Kentucky Watercolor Society Show “Totally Transparent” at Lindsey Wilson College. She was invited to participate in the Invitational Juried Alumni Exhibition at Murray State University in 1997 and exhibited a lithograph at the Invitational Alumni Juried Exhibit at Dairy Barn in Athens, Ohio, in 1998 in conjunction with the 200th anniversary of lithography by the Southern Graphics Council Conference meeting at Ohio University.
Cumberland College purchased one of two pieces submitted by Cundiff for the Invitational Exhibit of monotypes by faculty of the Appalachian College Association at Cumberland College in 1998.
She exhibited a pastel at the Invitational Juried Exhibit “A Kentucky Visions: 1998,” sponsored by the Kentucky Arts Council, both at the governor's mansion and the Kentucky Center for Rural Development in Somerset, Ky.
Cundiff's work, along with the work of 20 other visual artists, was juried for acceptance into a pilot program to exhibit and market visual art in “Kentucky Crafted: The Market, 1999” in Louisville.
As a member of the state-wide Visual Arts Task Force, she participated with five other art teachers and Dr. Patricia Hartanowicz with the Professional Standards Board in taping a live KET one-hour program.
She was selected as one of six artists from the Institute for Arts for planning, writing and appearing in four 90-minute 1998-99 Professional Development Programs for KET.
Cundiff is married to Scotty W. Hedgespeth, who is self-employed and lives in Finley, Ky.
Campbellsville University is a private, comprehensive institution located in South Central Kentucky. Founded in 1906, Campbellsville University is affiliated with the Kentucky Baptist Convention and has an enrollment of 2,601 students who represent 93 Kentucky counties, 27 states and 31 foreign nations. Listed in U.S.News & World Report's 2009 “America's Best Colleges,” CU is ranked 22nd in “Best Baccalaureate Colleges” in the South for the second consecutive year. CU has been ranked 16 consecutive years with U.S.News & World Report. The university has also been named to America's Best Christian Colleges®. Campbellsville University is located 82 miles southwest of Lexington, Ky., and 80 miles southeast of Louisville, Ky. Dr. Michael V. Carter is in his tenth year as president.