Sculpting a New Relationship
Missouri State’s arts programs have become very attractive to Taiwanese artists seeking local mentors.
Photo by Edward Biamonte
Visiting Taiwanese artist Chen Chih-Chieh (a.k.a. Jay) with some of his work. Jay's clay sculptures are often organic, whimsical creatures.
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The sharp sound of a metal hammer hitting a piece of copper is annoying to most people, but not to Chen Yi, a Taiwanese artist currently living in Springfield and studying in Missouri State’s graduate program. Yi finds the sound soothing. Forming the metal is a kind of meditation. This is a private and personal journey for him, so he works at night when most people are sleeping. He comes home in the morning, when his roommate is leaving for work, pleased with another night’s accomplishments.Chen Chih-Chieh (or “Jay,” as he’s known) prefers to work during the day. Outgoing and friendly, Jay loves being around people as he creates his sculptures of clay. He spends his days working in Missouri State’s ceramics studio, where he can be around other students and professors. Jay’s work is organic. Instead of forming the clay to his personal whims, he works with it to tell the story of the organic nature of the material—all the while mixing in humor and fantasy. Some of his recent work looks positively sci-fi. Rather than create functional pieces, Jay prefers to push the medium to new horizons.
Yi and Jay are just the current crop of Taiwanese students who’ve crossed the Pacific and half the continent to study art in Springfield. In 1999, five then–Southwest Missouri State art professors, including Keith Ekstam, traveled to Tainan National University of the Arts (TNNUA), located near Taiwan’s southern coast. They were among the first groups of visiting artists to the new university, which had only been established by the Taiwanese government in 1996. That visit planted the seed of an exchange program between Tainan and Missouri State. Tainan’s grad students were in awe of the American art profs. “We felt like we were rock stars,” Ekstam recalls. He kept in touch with Taiwanese ceramics professor Chan’ Ching-Yuan once he returned to Springfield. Three years later, the first Taiwanese graduate student arrived in Springfield. The idea was to introduce students to another culture, allow them to work in a new setting and help them expand their skills.
The program was such a success, for both students and professors, that Ekstam arranged for another student visit in 2005. In the spring of 2007, Jay arrived to study here. He’s 28 years old and will graduate from TNNUA next year. “Everything [here] is fresh to me,” he says. With the support of his parents, Jay has been fortunate enough to leave his studies and have this international opportunity. It also helps him polish his English skills. Currently, Missouri State graduate student Bruce Albes is studying and working in Taiwan, so the program benefits students on both sides of the world.
Sarah Perkins, head of the metal arts program at Missouri State, is also fortunate to have a Taiwanese student studying here for the spring semester. In 2000, Perkins met professor Meiing Hsu at a show in Chicago. Shortly after that meeting, Meiing invited Perkins to teach a workshop in Tainan. Following the two-week workshop, Perkins traveled to suburban Taipei, near the Taiwanese capital, to give a lecture at Fu Jen Catholic University. Chen Yi, then an undergraduate student, heard the lecture and was enthralled by Perkins’s work. Throughout the years, Perkins and Meiing discussed a student exchange possibility, but many of the students didn’t have the funds to travel abroad. Thanks to an anonymous donation, Meiing was able to offer the opportunity to four graduate students. She had several talented students who wanted to study in America, so she gave them the choice of attending Missouri State or the University of Iowa. Despite Missouri State’s lack of a graduate metals program, Yi chose to study here. He’d receive no credit hours, but he wanted to work with Perkins because he was so impressed by her work. What he does here will go toward his thesis, and his work was featured in last month’s Sculpture Objects and Functional Art exposition in New York. Missouri State graduate Lauren Abrams will be attending school in Taiwan next year.
