Tarble celebrates opportunities, museum education manager

Karen+Littleford%2C+a+member+of+the+advisory+board+for+the+Tarble+Arts+Center%2C+and+Tim+Abel%2C+the+museum+education+manager+for+TAC%2C+look+at+the+new+classroom+at+the+TAC+Thursday+afternoon.

Corryn Brock

Karen Littleford, a member of the advisory board for the Tarble Arts Center, and Tim Abel, the museum education manager for TAC, look at the new classroom at the TAC Thursday afternoon.

Corryn Brock, Staff Reporter

Members of the Tarble Arts Center celebrated a new classroom, upcoming events and to welcomed Tim Abel as the new museum education manager Thursday night.

The Tarble has a new classroom open for varying members of the community.

Rehema Barber, tarble director and chief curator, and English professor Jeannie Ludlow started using the classroom as part of their teaching environment.

The classroom will host workshops for kids at the end of September, and school program workshops will begin in October.

“We’re experimenting on creating a very open space for the classroom,” Abel said.

Work on the classroom began last spring before Abel started as the museum education manager. He said he cannot take full credit for the classroom; however, when he started in July, he said he “tried to spruce it up a little more.”

Abel said he is excited for the current gallery, In the Eye of the Beholder.

The gallery showcases various types of art including videos, screen printing and an exhibit the public can interact with and help create.

“We have the show for the whole semester so it’s been really great to plan out a whole cache of workshops,” Abel said.

“The workshops are geared towards finding voice or giving voice, protective building and creating a kind of community through art making.”

Grace O’Brien, junior graphic design major and student staffer at Tarble, said she is looking forward to the upcoming events.

“I’m really excited to get some more people in here,” O’Brien said.

“I know not a lot of people are aware of what’s going on at the Tarble.”

With over 30 upcoming events for the fall semester at Tarble, Barber said she is hoping for students to get involved in the events.

“I’m really stoked about all the programs that (Abel) and I have been talking about doing for this fall,” said Barber.

“We’re really happy to be able to work with Jeannie Ludlow, who’s in the English department and who’s formally the chair of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.”

Ludlow will be leading a discussion on Written on the Body, a book the two are co-teaching.

Barber teaches Women in Art and Ludlow teaches Women in Literature.

Barber said their students will be coming to Tarble often for the class.

“I’m excited to see students here,” Barber said.

Barber also said events at Tarble are almost always free for students because “they should be able to experience the power of art.”

She said Eastern students should come in because the gallery includes work from internationally renowned artists and because of the power of change it can have.

“EIU is a training ground,” Barber said. “It’s a learning ground. You should not leave this place the way you come in.”

Corryn Brock can be reached at 581-2812 or at [email protected].