A crowd gathered April 19 for an art dedication ceremony led by Dean Willie Reed, who began the PVM family art program eight years ago with the assistance of Professor of Medical Illustration David Williams.
The walls in Lynn Hall got a little more colorful with the installation of four new works of art created by three veterinary students in the DVM Class of 2020: Brittany Crenshaw, Andrea Hall, and Kristen Thomas. The artwork was dedicated April 19 during a ceremony led by Dean Willie Reed, who began the PVM family art program eight years ago with the assistance of Professor of Medical Illustration David Williams. Dean Reed began by sharing, “We’ve had pieces done by not only students, but also by spouses of our faculty and by staff, so it’s something that we are very proud of and I think it adds so much beauty to our building.”
Andrea Hall, of the DVM Class of 2020, created two painting installations, “Tribute to Lab Dogs” (pictured on top) and “Life-Saving Rats” (pictured next to the artist). The paintings were dedicated during a ceremony in Lynn Hall on April 19.
The dedication began with Andrea Hall, who created two pieces, both installed in the curved hallway, behind Lynn 1136, that leads to the Continuum Café. Andrea began by introducing her first piece titled, “Tribute to Lab Dogs,” an oil painting on canvas. Created as a tribute to the College’s Labrador Retrievers in the lab dog program, she painted a yellow Labrador peacefully sleeping on an aqua blanket. As stated in Andrea’s artist statement, “These dogs mean a lot to us and we owe much of our education to them. Not only do they teach us skills which we will be using for the remainder of our careers, but they are a happy face on a bad day. They are stress relief in a busy schedule. They are a warm, fuzzy hug when you need it most. We form bonds with our lab dogs that go further than educational use.”
Andrea then introduced her second piece, a painting created with oil on canvas titled, “Life-Saving Rats,” which focuses on the important role laboratory animals play in veterinary and human medicine. The painting features white rats painted over a blanket of headlines including “Replacement Heart Valves” and “Gene Therapy,” which Andrea explained are just a small portion of the research areas rats have made a contribution to in modern medicine.
Brittany Crenshaw is pictured between “Chihuahuan Desert” and “Coral Triangle,” two of the five paintings she created depicting endangered biomes and the major endangered species of each. Brittany’s painting installation is hanging in the ground floor hallway near the Veterinary Technology Program office.
Ceremony attendees then transitioned to the ground floor near the Veterinary Technology Program office for the third installation, consisting of five painted pieces created by Brittany Crenshaw. The artwork combines her two greatest passions: wildlife medicine and painting. With a unique application of spray paint to create the backgrounds, she painted five distinct endangered biomes: the Amazon, Arctic, Coral Triangle, Chihuahuan Desert, and Namibia. Her artist statements about the paintings showcase the major endangered species of each biome and the major threats to their survival. Brittany explained, “I wanted to try to show people how beautiful they are to me, so they think it’s beautiful and they’ll work harder to try and save it and think about what they’re doing every day and what our impact is on the environment to try to help these endangered species.” She added, “Something I thought was kind of cool was that each one has one threat in common that affects them all and that’s climate change.”
Veterinary student Kristen Thomas, of the DVM Class of 2020 is pictured next to her painting “Lion Pride” along with her mom who was in attendance for the art dedication April 19.
Just down the hallway, near G158, the ceremony concluded with the dedication of Kristen Thomas’s painting titled, “Lion Pride.” The vibrant large-scale painting depicts a pride of lions. In her artist statement, Kristen said, “I chose a pride of lions as my subject matter because of my admiration for lions, the family that they represent, and the strength combined that is a lion pride. That felt like a fitting contribution to our veterinary family here: a representation of a family from the animal kingdom, made up of an array of individuals from different walks of life – young cubs constantly learning, and adults watching over, guiding, and protecting – and all members surviving and thriving together.”
The full artists’ statements are displayed on plaques next to the installations. Take a moment to admire these and other artworks created by PVM family members around Lynn Hall. A special thank you to the artists and Professor of Medical Illustration David Williams for the continued success of this program!