Art Students Exhibit the Outcomes of their Summer Internships with the Ogallala Commons at Garden & Arts Center
Avery Bonnette, undergraduate student in Studio Art, and Yashua Batista-Milk, undergraduate student in Graphic Design, joined Carol Flueckiger, associate professor of Art, at the Art, Environment, & Sustainability Art Exhibition at the Lubbock Garden & Arts Center, Saturday, September 9, 2023. Bonnette and Batista-Milk are School of Art's inaugrual summer interns with the Ogallala Commons based in Nazareth, Texas.The Garden & Arts exhibition served as a Harvesting Ceremony for the first internship launch between Ogallala Commons and TTU School of Art. Bonnette presented a quilt and Batista-Milk crafted a series of postcards for the exhibition which runs through September.
This internship with Ogallala Commons developed out of Carol FLuekiger's course Art, Environment, Sustainability. After seeing Flueckiger present her course at a conference, Ogallala Commons, a 501(c)3 nonprofit education and leadership organization that reinvigorates the Ogallala Aquifer commonwealth to build vibrant Great Plains communities, invited Flueckiger to organize an artist internship with the organization. The High Plains-Ogallala Aquifer extends west into the Rocky Mountains region, and east to the river-braided prairies. The Ogallala Aquifer is a groundwater commonwealth that unifies all human and natural communities living in a region spread over more than 176,000 square miles, in eight different Great Plains states.
Conducted in June during Summer I, the internship involved site trips throughout the South Plains gaining awareness of the ecosystems, playa lakes, and Ogallala Aquifer. Field study began in Nazarath, and ventured into Silverton, Quitique, Turkey, and included a site visit to The Tap in Shallowwater. Their internships were supported with fellowships from the School of Art. The students simultaneously enrolled in Independent Study class hours with Associate Professor Carol Flueckiger. Outcomes for the internship included attending an overnight orientation, making two self-guided field trips in the Panhandle, making work about the experience, installing artwork in an exhibition, and delivering an artist's talk.
Flueckiger's Art, Environment, Sustainability summer field courses are included in a recent Southwest Contemporary article titled "Intervention and Interconnection: How Should Artists Work With(in) Environment?" by Natalie Hegert.