Scott Artist Series
The Scott Artist Series supports the exchange of ideas among artists from multiple disciplines, various places, and diverse backgrounds. Inspirational speakers and artists are invited to the CSU campus to share creative and innovative ideas aimed at broadening the horizons of art students. Guests artists in the series are art influencers who have national and international exposure. Their involvement with our community is critical to the long-term impact that art has on society.
Alumni Shaesby Scott (’97, Art), and his wife, Catherine Scott (’98, History) established the Scott Artist Series fund. To find out more about our upcoming visiting artists, please head to our events page.
Upcoming Artists
Ron Rael
March 4, 2025
Professor Ronald Rael is the Eva Li Memorial Chair in Architecture in the Department of Architecture in the College of Environmental Design, and is also a member of the art faculty in the Department of Art Practice at the University of California Berkeley. His past leadership roles have included serving as Department Chair, Director of the Masters of Architecture, and Director of the Masters of Advanced Architectural Design programs.
He is distinguished as being both a Bakar and Hellman Fellow, and directs the printFARM Laboratory (print Facility for Architecture, Research and Materials). His research interests connect indigenous and traditional material practices to contemporary technologies and issues and he is considered to be a design activist, author, and thought leader within the topics of additive manufacturing, borderwall studies, and earthen architecture.
Past Artists
Susie Ganch
March 19-21, 2024
Susie Ganch is a trained metalsmith and jeweler, currently working as a site-specific installation artist who incorporates throwaway materials such as plastic bags and disposable coffee cups lids. Her work offers a pointed commentary on the effects of human culture and consumption on the environment.
Ganch’s art exemplifies a belief in a circular economy that operates like a natural ecosystem, promoting the use of existing and finite resources sparingly and expanding recycling exponentially. The idea put forth is that if we use less, use things longer, and recycle as much as possible, we can eventually eliminate trash by not creating it.
Nicholas Galanin
January 24, 2023
Nicholas Galanin, a Lingít/Unangax̂ multi-disciplinary artist whose work is rooted in his perspective as an Indigenous man, was on campus in February 2023 to participate in the mural unveiling at CSU’s Visual Arts Building (at the northwest corner closest to Canvas Stadium) followed by an artist talk.
Galanin’s visit was a collaboration with the Engaged Art Walk by the Hatton Gallery.
Rowland Ricketts
February 28th to March 1st, 2022
Rowland Ricketts is a contemporary fiber artist whose practice is both broad and expansive and also incredibly specific. His artwork takes many forms – from installation art to objects of daily use for the home – but many of the ideas are rooted in traditional indigo dye techniques that Ricketts learned while an apprentice in Japan.
During his three-day visit, Ricketts taught a hands-on workshop and gave a public lecture. The natural dye and block printing workshop was held the Clara Hatton Gallery. You can see more about the workshop on the event page and on our YouTube.
Magdalene Odundo
February 12 & 13, 2021
Dame Magdalene Odundo D.B.E. is a Kenyan-born British studio potter, best known for her hand-built ceramics. Her vessels are made with a traditional coiling technique, without the use a potter’s wheel, hand-burnished, and left unglazed. With simple curves and color variations, her works convey the depths of connection between humans, earth, clay and vessels. Her virtual visit to CSU, in collaboration with the Gregory Allicar Museum, included an artist lecture, a Q&A with student-submitted questions, and a panel talk with Douglas Dawson, collector and gallerist, Dr. Suellen Melzer, professor of Soil Science in conversation with Dr. David Riep, associate professor of Art History, and Del Harrow, associate professor of Art. The talks were recorded and can be viewed on our YouTube Page.
Karyn Olivier
October 7-10, 2019
Karyn Olivier creates monuments, memorials, and visual art installations that intersect and collapse multiple histories and memories with present-day narratives. Her work considers the representation of conflicting narratives in parks and civic sites and the reinterpretation of neglected public spaces. Through the discrete placement, rearrangement, embellishment, and replication of everyday objects in various sites, Olivier tries to shift our experience of the familiar. While at CSU, Olivier led workshops and discussions with undergraduate and graduate students and gave a lecture at the Iris and Michael Smith Alumni Center.
Sonya Clark
October 28-30, 2018
Sonya Clark is a fiber artist known for using a variety of materials including human hair and combs to address race, culture, class, and history. While at CSU, she interacted with students at different places on their educational path, allowing for interesting and applicable conversations to take place in smaller groups and within a scope of the students’ current experience. Additionally, Clark gave a standing room only presentation at the Alumni Center.
Michael Jones McKean
February 25-28, 2018
Michael Jones McKean’s work explores the nature of objects in relation to folklore, technology, anthropology, and mysticism. While at CSU, McKean gave a public lecture on his own work and creative research. He spoke with student groups and individually with selected advanced, post-baccalaureate and graduate students. He also shared a few meals with students, giving them a unique opportunity for dialogue with a professional artist.
Matt Wedel
October 24-26, 2017
Matt Wedel’s work models the familiar, such as vegetation, minerals, and animals, in clay and enters the realm of mythological creation stories. While at CSU, Wedel gave a demonstration and public lecture on his work and creative research. He also met individually with advanced, post-baccalaureate and graduate students.
Motoko Furuhashi
April 10-14, 2017
Motoko Furuhashi is an interdisciplinary artist who uses specific sites as her medium to expand on the conceptual meaning and purpose of the object and play with the audience’s understanding of place. While at CSU, Furuhashi worked with collaborative student groups to create site-specific installations throughout the Visual Arts building that highlighted, amplified, or interfered with the commonly understood uses of those spaces.