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.

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).”

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.

Visit the Pierpont Commons Wall Gallery located just outside of the Commons Cafe to see this beautiful exhibit featuring framed photography of nature in North America.

​Photographs by Artists: Sue and Dick Rigterink

Artist Statement: These images communicate the diversity, characteristics, habitats, behavior, and beauty of the plants and animals with whom we share the earth. Rather than simply looking, we hope you will pause, observe and really see. By stopping movement, the patterns and grace of those around us are there for us to learn from, enjoy and protect.

The exhibit will be displayed until Friday, September 28th.

All pieces in the exhibit are for sale. Please contact the Center for Campus Involvement (uminvolvement@umich.edu) if you are interested in purchasing art from this exhibit.

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.

Visit the Michigan Union Art Lounge to see this art exhibit featuring landscape oil on canvas paintings from some of the most beautiful places in Michigan.

Exhibit: “Beautiful Michigan” - Landscape Paintings, Oil on Canvas

Artist: Anil Dhir

Artist Statement: For a painter, Michigan offers one of the most beautiful landscapes, whether here in Ann Arbor, up-north or anywhere else. These paintings are my attempt to capture some of the Michigan beauty. I believe that a great painting is a like a beautifully composed piece of music. My wish is to create a painting with a simple aim of honestly capturing the very essence of what I saw, and be able to make the viewer feel what I felt. (To read the full artist statement, please visit campusinvolvement.umich.edu, it is also posted with the exhibit.)

The exhibit will be displayed until Friday, October 5th.

All pieces in the exhibit are for sale. Please contact the Center for Campus Involvement (uminvolvement@umich.edu) if you are interested in purchasing art from this exhibit.

Please note: The Center for Campus Involvement (CCI) provides opportunities for student and professional artists to display work suitable for a general audience. CCI hosting an artist’s work does not mean we endorse the artist’s point of view; we recognize the free speech rights of our exhibitors.

Each week, writers will bring in typed copies of their short stories, plays, poems, novels, essays, or freelance magazine articles. Fellow writers will offer friendly and appreciative criticism on all aspects of writing. Participants are asked to provide copies of their essays to share with the group. For 23 years, Joy Rome was a Senior Lecturer in Communication Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.

Class continues Fridays, 10:00 a.m. - 12:00 noon September 7 - August 30 at TSRC.

Presenting research by Architecture and Urban Planning students on water and the built environment in Asian megacities. Friday, September 14, 2012 12:00 pm - 12:30 pm 1644 SSWB/International Institute Exhibit open through October 12, 2012

Learn features of specific databases to run more sophisticated and focused searches. Decrease the time spent wading through results and avoid the frustration of not finding the information you need.

All sessions are free, but registration is required.

Featuring 2012-13 EIHS Residency Research Fellows Jennifer Hart (History, Wayne State University), John McCurdy (History, Eastern Michigan University), Todd Meyers (Medical Anthropology, Wayne State University), Tracy Neumann (History, Wayne State University), Ellen Wurtzel (History, Oberlin College). Chaired by EIHS Director Hitomi Tonomura (History).

Closed Sundays and Mondays

The speaker will discuss her work with the Walters Art Museum’s Curator of Ancient Art on Egypt’s Mysterious Book of the Faiyum, an upcoming exhibition built around an ancient Egyptian text on papyrus. Some of the objects in the show have lost parts of their authentic selves to the ravages of time and the antiquities trade, but reconstructions offer opportunities to see the objects in new ways. Topics to be addressed include how curators determine which part of an object’s story represents its most authentic self, how museums display multiple authenticities, and whether authentic objects are necessary for authentic experiences.

The Center for Bioethics and Social Sciences in Medicine (CBSSM) sponsors a biweekly seminar series focusing on a variety of topics related to bioethics and social science research. Visit the website for more information at www.cbssm.org and the CBSSM facebook page.

Dr. Charles Bosk of the University of Pennsylvania will give a presentation

The group will survey modern art, stressing its historical contexts, with slide lectures and discussion. Reading materials will be suggested and sometimes distributed. The class will be given by Roger Green, Ph.D., a former art critic for Booth Newspapers, who is now teaching art history at EMU.

No class 11/23

The group will look at the roots of the American musical and follow its development to the current time, starting with the European influence, continuing with American Yiddish theater, vaudeville and the African-American contribution. The second section will cover the musical up to about 1930and the last section will cover the mid-twentieth century until today. Please go to the OLLI website for more details. Barbara Mackey, PhD in Theater History, has taught musical theater.

Researched and organized by a team of Ph.D. candidates in the School of Architecture at Princeton University led by Professor Beatriz Colomina. The team included: Craig Buckley, Anthony Fontenot, Urtzi Grau, Lisa Hsieh, Alicia Imperiale, Lydia Kallipoliti, Olympia Kazi, Daniel Lopez-Perez, and Irene Sunwoo.

This exhibition tracks the critical function of independent architectural publications that were the engine of an intensely creative period of experimental architectural practice in the 1960s and 1970s. Known as "little magazines," the periodicals that proliferated during this period appeared in response to the political, social and artistic changes of the time. The show includes manifestoes, pamphlets, building instruction manuals, and a survey of magazine covers as well as professional magazines, complemented by interviews with editors and designers of these publications.

Generous support for this exhibition was given by The Guido A. Binda Lecture and Exhibition Fund

Open Friday - Sunday

Dr. Paulina Jaramillo Assistant Research Professor, Department of Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University

Executive Director, RenewElec Project

Previous life cycle assessment (LCA) studies using limited system boundaries have attempted to quantify the benefit of offsetting coal use. However, these studies do not consider the operations of the power grid and how changes to the operations of individual power plants will affect the system. In this study, simplified economic dispatch models (representing existing power plants in a given region) and historical load data are used to determine how natural gas and coal utilization will change short-term in response to changes in natural gas prices and the retirement of coal power plants. The associated changes in fuel mix, life cycle GHG emissions, and sulfur and nitrogen oxides are reported. Results indicate that the change in air emissions are lower than suggested by life cycle assessment studies. In addition, while net reductions of SO2 and NOx occur in the systems analyzed, some counties will likely see increases in the damage costs associated with these emissions. This study shows that traditional life cycle studies overestimate the benefits of fuel switching and that incorporating the operations of energy systems is needed to properly capture these benefits.

Workshop designed to help students understand how to effectively tell their story through their resume.

The group will read and discuss this book by Jon Butler, Grant Wacker and Randall Palmer, three eminent historians of religion. It traces religious development in the United States from colonization up to the 21st century. While Americans have experienced massive cultural changes, secularization and exposure to a variety of beliefs, most have remained incurably religious. Facilitated by John Cameron.

William “Bill” McKibben is America’s preeminent environmentalist, author, and journalist. In 2010, the Boston Globe referred to McKibben as “probably the nation’s leading environmentalist” and Time magazine described him as “the world’s best green journalist.”

This presentation is free, open to the public and co-sponsored by the following U-M partners: Graham Institute, Interdisciplinary Committee on Organizational Studies (ICOS), School of Natural Resources and Environment (SNRE), Department of Organizational Studies and the Barger Leadership Institute.

Book signing to follow

Department of Musicology Distinguished Lecture Series. The rejected finale of Beethoven’s op. 30/1, reborn as the finale to op. 47, not only bears the imprint of its original surroundings but also shaped the composition of the first two movements of op. 47. The finale is, so to speak, the transmitter of structural “DNA” from a sonata at the threshold of Beethoven’s “heroic” style to a sonata exemplifying that style. Much was at stake in Beethoven’s endeavor, for his current symphonic project was the Eroica, for which the finale was essentially in place in the form of the Variations op. 35.

Harray Akagi of H&R Orchids in Hawaii discusses the culture of this Brazilian native, as well as the breeding of various orchids at H&R Nusrseries. Also tonight: show & tell, raffle, and supplies for sale. Presented by Ann Arbor Orchid Society

Take a break from the busy pace of college life and gather with other new students at St. Mary Student Parish for a home-cooked meal, followed by an evening of conversation and reflection.

Please RSVP by Sept. 12 to Abby Braun aabraun@umich.edu

CJS's Fall Film Series of 2012 features silent films by Yasujiro Ozu with professional benshi (narrator), Ichiro Kataoka, performing theatrical narration at each screening. Most films will also include a live music accompaniment.

This year's Fall Film Series will kick off with a one-night special screening at the Michigan Theater for the film, "I Was Born, But..." (Otona no miru ehon - Umarete wa mita). In addition to the main feature, Roscoe Arbuckle's 1918 slapstick silent film, "The Cook," will also be screened.

LIVE Music: Performance by Little Bang Theory and organ performance by Stephen Warner.

Admission Charged for Opening Event. Subsequent films in the series are free and open to the public.

One MFA student of fiction and one of poetry, each introduced by a peer, will read their work. The Mark Webster Reading Series presents emerging writers in a warm and relaxed setting. We encourage you to bring your friends—a Webster reading makes for an enjoyable and enlightening Friday evening.

MTango is a student organization dedicated to spreading the joy of Argentine tango in the University of Michigan community and beyond. We pride ourselves in providing outstanding teachers at affordable prices, and we look for instructors who are not only excellent dancers and experienced teachers but are also articulate and personable people. We also host social dance parties and share our talents through performances. MTango offers a popular intensive beginner's series in Argentine tango (no partner or experience required), as well as classes for more advanced dancers. It's a great way to meet people, listen to awesome music, relax, share a few dances, and have lots of fun!

Please arrive 15 minutes before the first class starts to complete sign in for the series.

Welcome to UMix! UMix Late Night is a series of fun, late night activities and events for University of Michigan students between 10pm – 2am most Friday nights throughout the school year. UMix provides opportunities for students to have fun, gain programming experience,and to interact responsibly. UMix offers a variety of programs such as arts and crafts, live entertainment recreational sports, movies, dances, and many other social events catering to the interests of a diverse student population. Free food is always served at midnight!

We're excited to kickoff a new school year! Stop by to pick up giveaways, explore the entertainment options, and mark your calendars for future events.