Faculty & Staff
Steve Cole, Associate Professor
B.S. Ball State University
M.A. Ball State University
M.F.A. Florida State University
scole@bsc.edu
A work of art completes itself when the viewer is an active participant. My hope is that the audience of my work will interact on several levels. My intention is to connect ideally with our primal need for play.
James Emmette Neel, Assistant Professor
B.F.A., Birmingham-Southern College
M.F.A., University of Alabama
jneel@bsc.edu
Personal Web Site: www.jimneel.com
"This decent into himself will, at the same time, be a decent into his region. It will be a decent through the darkness of the familiar into a world where, like the blind man cured in the Gospels, he sees men as if they were trees, but walking." Flannery O' Connor
Jim Neel's sculpture, drawings and photography have appeared in regional and national exhibitions that include Winston-Salem's Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, the New Orleans Contemporary Arts Center, the Montgomery Museum of Art, and the Alexandria Museum of Art as well as academic galleries at Memphis State University, Mississippi State University, the University of Montevallo and the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Working as a freelance photojournalist covering the wars in Central America and life and death among the Serpent Handling Holiness of Appalacia, his work has appeared nationally and internationally in over thirty newspapers, magazines and hard cover publications that include the Los Angeles Times Magazine, the Memphis Commercial Appeal, the Birmingham News and Post Herald, Oxford American magazine, Esquire magazine and Dennis Covington's Salvation on Sandmountain, L'Eglise aux Serpents, and Redneck Riviera.
Kevin Shook, Assistant Professor
Printmaking and Digital Imagery
Office: Doris Wainwright Kennedy Art center and Azar Studios
226-4929
Masters of Fine Art University of Delaware 2004
Bachelors of Fine Art Mary Schiller Myers School of Art University of Akron 2002
Kathleen Spies, Assistant Professor of Art History
B.A. St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minnesota
M.A. Indiana University, Bloomington
Ph.D. Indiana University, Bloomington
kspies@panther.bsc.edu
Kathleen Spies is a specialist in American art from 1850-1950, and teaches upper-level courses in 19th and 20th century European and American art, as well as the art surveys. She is particularly interested in issues of gender,race, class, and nationality, and how “high” art interacts with popular culture. She has published on Thomas Eakins’s portraits and nervous illness in the 19th century, and on the burlesque paintings and prints of urban realist Reginald Marsh. Prior to teaching at Birmingham-Southern, Dr. Spies was a fellow at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. Her current research involves images of female performers and popular entertainment during the 1920s and 1930s.
Pamela Venz, Assistant Professor
B.A. University of Alabama at Birmingham
M.F.A. Ohio State University
pvenz@bsc.edu
Coming to photography from a strong three-dimensional background, my photographic work covers a wide range of images and technical approaches. The subtle connection is a recurring interest in the emotional aspect of visual contradiction, containment and human relationships. Through my explorations, I hope to connect with the universal nature of human experience.
Cooper Bud Spivey, Instructor
Painting, Drawing, Design
Office: Old Phillips Science Annex
226-4930
Masters of Art Education The University of Alabama at Birmingham 1991
Bachelors of Fine Art The University of Alabama at Birmingham 1987
Timothy Smith, Assistant Professor
Art History
Office: Old Phillips Science Annex
226-7875
Ms. Judy E. Pandelis
Manager of the College Theatre Box Office /
Secretary for the Departments of Art & Art History and Theatre & Dance
jpandeli@bsc.edu