“Journey to the Body Collective”
Added to Art Walk
Mark
Chatterley’s “Journey to the Body Collective”
officially became the newest sculpture in the campus-wide Michigan
Art Walk when it was unveiled at the Ferris Library for Information,
Technology and Education.
Twelve life-sized glazed clay human figures, which
appear to be gliding through space like a flock of birds or school
of fish, now adorn the reading room’s expansive north wall.
“Art that’s created by award-winning Michigan
artists” is how the master of ceremonies, Vice-President
of Academic Affairs Barbara Chapman, described the work that comprises
Michigan Art Walk.
Chatterley
fits both of those requirements. The “Journey to the Body
Collective” creator works out his studio in Williamston
and has received numerous national and international awards, most
recently capturing the Silver Purchase Award at the Sixth Taiwan
Golden Ceramics Awards in Taipei, Taiwan, and the Award of Distinction
at the Art Festival Beth-El in St. Petersburg, Fla.
Michigan Art Walk is a part of Ferris Renaissance,
a program to continually improve the aesthetics of the Ferris
State campus. In choosing art for the campus, committee members
consider artistic quality, originality, technical innovations
of the artist’s recent work, imagery and how the scale of
the art fits the site that has been chosen to host it.
In his remarks at the dedication, Chatterley spoke
of the ways his sculpture is a meditation upon the place of people
in the world, and particularly students as they move toward the
promise of their lives.
“In school we’re not here to stay, we’re
here to go out,” he said. “We can’t survive
on our own anymore. We all fit in someplace, it’s just discovering
where we fit in the greater human culture.”
Additional comments at the dedication came from Dean
of the Library and Chief Information Officer Richard Cochran,
Board of Trustees Immediate Past Chair R. Thomas Cook, and Professor
of Arts and Sciences John Cullen.
