{"id":220430,"date":"2024-10-24T12:52:46","date_gmt":"2024-10-24T16:52:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=220430"},"modified":"2024-10-25T08:25:58","modified_gmt":"2024-10-25T12:25:58","slug":"art-committee-assemble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2024\/10\/art-committee-assemble\/","title":{"rendered":"Art Committee, Assemble!"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the UConn Health community enjoys the first employee art show in recent memory, a second employee art show already is in the works.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s thanks to the ambition of UConn Health\u2019s art curator, Andre Rochester, and the 15-member art committee he convened this summer.<\/p>\n

\"portrait
Tamara Cardoso (left) from the office of patient experience is member of the volunteer art committee curator Andre Rochester (right) started at UConn Health in summer 2024. They’re pictured in front of some of the works on display for the employee art show running Sept. 5 through Nov. 7, 2024. (Photo provided by Andre Rochester)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been allowed to use the wall in that connector hallway [between the University Tower and the Connecticut Tower] as a gallery, so I decided to give it a mission,\u201d says Rochester, who joined UConn Heath last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It started in the spring with a collaboration with a program called Art Connection Studio, which works with individuals who have intellectual and developmental disabilities.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter seeing how well received it was, I decided that as long as I have access to this wall, I\u2019ll only show health care- or health and wellness-themed exhibits that \u2018connect\u2019 UConn\u2019s work with organizations and programs in the region through art, or set up employee art shows,\u201d Rochester says.<\/p>\n

His art committee first met in August and its first order of business was to help select the pieces to display in the employee exhibit that went up Sept. 5 and runs through Nov. 7. The next employee art show starts immediately after that, and will be on display through Dec. 19, featuring works his committee also is helping Rochester select.<\/p>\n

\"group
From left: UConn Health employees Jameson MacInnis, Irina Bezsonova, Rachael Norris, and Jo Cohen observe some of the submissions to the employee art show, running Sept. 5 through Nov. 7, 2024, along the hallway connecting UConn Health’s Connecticut Tower and University Tower. Norris and Cohen are members of UConn Health’s art committee, and Bezsonova’s work has been accepted for an exhibit. (Photo provided by Andre Rochester)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Employees can submit sample images of their original art through Oct. 29.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just continuing the tradition of having a committee of people who are interested in the arts and of course love UConn Health,\u201d Rochester says. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of good energy around this. People are interested. People are ready to hit the ground running, sharing ideas and getting involved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two of them are from the Health Sciences Library, Emily Ziemba and Jillian Silverberg.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve worked at UConn Health for about a year and a half, and I\u2019ve always seen all the art around, and always been so curious about the stories behind the art at UConn Health,\u201d says Ziemba, who\u2019s an outreach librarian. \u201cAnd when I saw the announcement for an art committee, I just wanted to join to be part of the art community here, and have a say on what\u2019s on our walls and what our community is seeing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Silverberg, an instruction librarian, has been with UConn Health for two years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI enjoy the arts,\u201d she says. \u201cI enjoy walking around and seeing what we have here. But for me, it was the opportunity for collaboration and partnerships, not just between the art community and the library, but then other opportunities that the library might help facilitate, such as the art committee and student relations, having student art profiled and featured, things like that. It\u2019s something unique that the library can offer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"two
Felicia Vezina (left), an application analyst and member of UConn Health’s art committee, speaks with artist Barb Hocker during a reception for the Hocker’s exhibit in UConn Health’s Celeste LeWitt Gallery Aug. 22, 2024. (Tina Encarnacion\/ UConn Health photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

UConn Health\u2019s art collection<\/a> has more than 2,500 pieces, including some from former staff and faculty. Rochester says he\u2019s discovered artists at UConn Health simply by having conversations at work.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was clear that this may be a great way to use art for employee engagement,\u201d Rochester says, adding that in the few days since he opened the call for submissions for the next employee exhibition, he\u2019s seen work from artists he hadn\u2019t yet met. \u201cIt\u2019s great to see that there is excitement around this. I look forward to the two solo exhibits coming after this. They are employees as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like him, some of Rochester\u2019s art committee members artists themselves, including Christine McNally, associate director of curricular affairs in the UConn School of Medicine, who\u2019s been at UConn Health for 14 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI volunteered because art\u2019s my passion,\u201d McNally says. \u201cI grew up wanting to be an artist. I do art myself, but I decided to go into education, and I feel like it\u2019s kind of integrating the passion and beauty of art into a health center, and art\u2019s very therapeutic. So I think it\u2019s a great opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rochester says high among the art committee\u2019s priorities is raising awareness.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that we have an actual art collection here is something to be noted, and it has some rather noteworthy artists in it, including the employees who are in the art show, might I add,\u201d Rochester says. \u201cJust making sure that there are people who are interested in it, people who understand that there is in fact a connection between art and health and wellness \u2014 it\u2019s something that\u2019s been going on for 45 years here at UConn Health. It\u2019s not a new thing, and I just want to expand on that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to build on the legacy that\u2019s been established.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UConn Health\u2019s art curator enlists volunteers to help raise awareness of collection and restart employee art shows<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":111,"featured_media":220427,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1711,2231,179],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2010],"class_list":["post-220430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-culture","category-health-well-being","category-uconn-health"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-14 05:30:41","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/111"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220430"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":220444,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220430\/revisions\/220444"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/220427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220430"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=220430"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=220430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}