Features Reporter
Photos by Nick Weems
A tetrad is a group or set of four.
In biology, a tetrad is usually a group of cells produced though cell division. For CMU’s graduating artists this year, it meant the four of them and their respective work, as TETRAD was the name given to their final show as college fine arts students.
Held in an industrial building in downtown Grand Junction on Friday, April 4, TETRAD was a showcase of painting, printmaking and mixed media.
“The students have to develop a solid body of work,” Heather Patterson, professor of the Senior Seminar class, said. “They have to hang the show, get donations and develop a resume and business cards. The end result is the professional show.”
In one part of the makeshift gallery at 501 Colorado Ave., musician Corey Wright provided entertainment while, in the main room, the artists talked to anyone who attended the event, answering questions and chatting with old friends and fellow artists from the university.
“I really had to budget my time. I had four months to do eight or nine projects,” Salina Kirk, one of the graduating artists, said.
Each of the four artists brought a different style of art to the tetrad.
“I’m a river guide during the summer and spend more than sixty days in Cataract Canyon,” Meril Wallace, another graduating artist, said. “[My art] is based around topographical maps and the patterns they make.”
Wallace’s pieces—generally acrylic layering on wood—are easily the largest in the gallery. The medium is “a natural transition,” he said.
According to Wallace, his technique allows him start on the next layer minutes after the one before. The pieces are abstract, but easily show the topographical influence.
(Meril Wallace says his art is largely influenced by geography and topographical maps.)
Depicting what he calls the “human narrative part,” Kirk Shiflett’s pieces are quite contemporary. In essence, his art shows the struggle between nature and humanity.
“I used to create traditional wildlife art, the photograph-like setting,” Shiflett said.“When I started school, Heather and [professor] Alison [Harris] said that it was boring.”
One of Shiflett’s pieces shows a caribou suspended over burning tar sands that are slowly ruining the animals’ habitat in Canada.
“Sometimes I see something, and it will spark an idea. Other times it is recent, new news,” Shiflett said.
The show was a large success for the tetrad, with a few pieces sold and over 500 people making their way in and out of the gallery over a span of four hours, from 6-10 p.m. Free wine for those over 21 was provided by Garrett Estate while Bin 707 served up several platters of its famous food.
Friday night’s success is just the beginning for the graduating seniors.
“I have nothing, right now. I want to travel, do a mission trip, and keep painting. Enter shows in Denver and around town,” Kirk said.
Shiflett also plans to enter pieces in shows and continue painting, but he also wants to open an art supply store in the Delta area.
(Brevin Currier was the lone printmaker at the TETRAD show, and is in the process of applying to graduate schools to study architecture.)
Brevin Currier, who was the lone printmaker at the show, is beginning the application process for graduate school, where he wants to study architecture.
“This has been a good journey for me, but I find practical stuff fulfilling,” said Currier, whose pieces consist of exposing photographs of wood to photosensitive aluminum plates.
“I’ll have the creative skills from an art degree to bring to architecture,” Currier said.
Just as in biology, the tetrad will now part ways, but its members will continue to grow individually.
jkirk@mavs.coloradomesa.edu
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