Valerie Mann has been showing her work professionally throughout the US and in Canada and Germany for 23 years. She grew up on a large family farm in Indiana, went to University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana to earn a BFA in painting, then to MSU to earn an MFA in sculpture. Now working and teaching in Ann Arbor, Mann’s use and study of tools inspired this body of work. Used every day and sometimes taken for granted, tools are indispensable in the making of art. These favorite tools are beautifully designed and well-thought out for their specific job.

Elizabeth Busey has been inspired by global travel to explore the forces that shape our world – growth, pressure, erosion and decay. Through this exploration, she highlights patterns from many disparate perspectives in order to celebrate their universality in the natural world. Her work is created by printing multiple layers of ink onto cotton rag paper, where a single linoleum block is gradually reduced with each color layer. Busey is a primarily self-taught printmaker who produces her work in Bloomington, Indiana on a press made of recycled steel.

A driving force in Monte Nagler’s artist quest is to have others see the world in a finer light and to appreciate life a little more. He has the ability to make visible what others can only sense, sharing with viewers the emotional beauty he experiences. Nagler’s photographs, which have won numerous awards, are found in many private and public collections, including the Detroit Institute of Art, the U-M Museum of Art and the Grand Rapids Art Museum. He is also a noted writer, lecturer and teacher of photography and the author of six highly successful photography books.

A driving force in Monte Nagler’s artist quest is to have others see the world in a finer light and to appreciate life a little more. He has the ability to make visible what others can only sense, sharing with viewers the emotional beauty he experiences. Nagler’s photographs, which have won numerous awards, are found in many private and public collections, including the Detroit Institute of Art, the U-M Museum of Art and the Grand Rapids Art Museum. He is also a noted writer, lecturer and teacher of photography and the author of six highly successful photography books.

By day, Jean-Marc Fontaine is a molecular biologist, and by night and weekend, he is an artist. He spent his childhood and youth in Normandy, France, and his dream of becoming a scientist grew together with his imagination and passion for oil painting and drawing. After moving to the US in 1998, Fontaine became fascinated with sculpting. This self-taught artist explores funny and familiar subjects, with close attention to details in human anatomy. Viewers will meet French, Belgian, British and American characters. Fontaine hopes that “…these cartoon characters will bring a smile to patients (children and adults, alike).”

A driving force in Monte Nagler’s artist quest is to have others see the world in a finer light and to appreciate life a little more. He has the ability to make visible what others can only sense, sharing with viewers the emotional beauty he experiences. Nagler’s photographs, which have won numerous awards, are found in many private and public collections, including the Detroit Institute of Art, the U-M Museum of Art and the Grand Rapids Art Museum. He is also a noted writer, lecturer and teacher of photography and the author of six highly successful photography books.

Elizabeth Busey has been inspired by global travel to explore the forces that shape our world – growth, pressure, erosion and decay. Through this exploration, she highlights patterns from many disparate perspectives in order to celebrate their universality in the natural world. Her work is created by printing multiple layers of ink onto cotton rag paper, where a single linoleum block is gradually reduced with each color layer. Busey is a primarily self-taught printmaker who produces her work in Bloomington, Indiana on a press made of recycled steel.

Traditional kunqu, a genre of classical Chinese theatre, comes alive in the large scale photographs of Xu, Zengquan. The viewer experiences the personalities of the characters and the spirit of the dance, opening a window into traditional Chinese culture and history. Now a local practicing engineer, Xu was born into a family of 10 brothers and sisters, in Jiangsu, China, and discovered his passion for photography in his teens. His work has been published by the Smithsonian Institution. Gifts of Art is pleased to present this exhibition in partnership with the U-M Confucius Institute.

Valerie Mann has been showing her work professionally throughout the US and in Canada and Germany for 23 years. She grew up on a large family farm in Indiana, went to University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana to earn a BFA in painting, then to MSU to earn an MFA in sculpture. Now working and teaching in Ann Arbor, Mann’s use and study of tools inspired this body of work. Used every day and sometimes taken for granted, tools are indispensable in the making of art. These favorite tools are beautifully designed and well-thought out for their specific job.

Darryl Baird is Associate Professor of Art at U-M Flint in graphic design and photography. This body of photographic work is a series of highly magnified plant sections offered as homage to natural life cycles and the inherent potential for beauty in mature forms. These images are a means to explore the cycles of all living things and a way to find understanding through the process. For this series, Baird used antique lenses and the now discontinued Polaroid Positive/Negative 55 film. His work is included in the collections of the Detroit Institute of Art, Museum of Fine Art in Houston, Texas and U-M Museum of Art in Ann Arbor.

This year, Gifts of Art celebrates the 25th anniversary of the Employee Art Exhibition! This eagerly anticipated annual event showcases the exceptional talent and creativity of the people who work at the University of Michigan Health System, and for the first time this year, family members too! There are ribbon awards for Best in Category and Best in Show, and a People's Choice award will be determined by the votes of visitors to the exhibit. Winners will be announced at the Artist Reception and Award Ceremony on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2012 from 11:45 a.m.-1:00 p.m. in the exhibition gallery, which will be hosted by Dr. Ora H. Pescovitz, Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs.

The exhibit "Translating Homer: from Papyri to Alexander Pope" includes papyri and early printed books illustrating how the Iliad and the Odyssey, two epic poems originally composed in the oral tradition, were first written down, edited, and eventually translated into the main European languages. This journey of transmission and interpretation throughout the centuries ends with the first editions of Alexander Pope’s renderings of the poems.

Visitors to the exhibit will hear a series of readings from the poems in the original Greek and in several other languages, including Latin, English, Dutch, and Spanish.

The exhibit is part of the LSA Fall 2012 theme semester, Translation.

Incoming students are able to take the Strong Interest Inventory (SII) and come to The Career Center for an 1.5 hour interpretation. In this career interest workshop students will be able to identify majors, classes, and student organizations at Michigan that will help in the exploration of their personal and academic interests.

Students must register ahead of time and take the SII before attending the workshop. For information and to register please follow this link: http://sitemaker.umich.edu/careercenter/major_decisions__discovering_your_path_at_michigan&config=eY5X8D58FMgxneCRigHKJM

This sessions is for students who have registered and taken the SII

Closed Sundays and Mondays

This hands-on session is your chance to experiment with CTools, where instructors can distribute course materials online to registered students, maintain an online calendar of activities, manage electronic chats and discussion boards, handle electronic assignments, and more. Participants will learn the basic skills and procedures necessary to build and manage a website. Participants must have a uniqname and Kerberos password to do any hands-on work, and also need to feel comfortable using a browser (like Internet Explorer or Firefox). No experience with HTML is necessary.

All sessions are free, but registration is required.

This hands-on workshop will introduce participants to Google Sites as a tool for building websites.

Together, we will:

create a website using a predefined template, create web pages of different types, add and edit content, incorporate media, link content together, learn to manage our site, and share our site with others.

Content will be covered during the first 90-minutes of the workshop. The last 30 minutes will be reserved for working independently in a supportive environment with consultants and other participants available to help you think through building your website and answer questions.

Participants are strongly encouraged to bring their own content (text, images, etc.) to make this time as productive as possible.

Please note that the session level is for beginners; no prior knowledge of Google Sites is needed. Some prior experience with building websites is helpful but not necessary.

All sessions are free, but registration is required.