School of Art Newsletter Fall 07 vol. 2 issue 1

School of Art Assistant Director Appointed to Faculty

Martina Shenal, Assistant Director of the School of Art, has been appointed to a faculty tenure track position for the School of Art photography program. Shenal, who began her Assistant Directorship in 2005, will now balance her time between overseeing graduate and undergraduate programs and operations and conducting instruction and research.

Shenal assumed her new duties in August 2007. This past semester she taught an introductory course in black and white photography and plans to teach a color photography course next fall. In the short term, she will be teaching one course a year and, administratively, working toward the transition of the School’s graduate students into their new building. The Visual Arts Graduate Research Laboratory will be ready to house students in the fall of 2009. The new facilities for graduate students are important, as they will “help facilitate an easier interaction between students, faculty, and our visiting artists and scholars”.

Shenal earned an MFA in Photography from Arizona State University, and a BFA in Photography from The Ohio State University. For six years Shenal served as Department Head and Assistant Professor of Art in Photography at the Memphis College of Art, as well as the Interim Graduate Coordinator and Interim Gallery Director. Prior teaching experience includes positions at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass Village, CO; Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ; Arizona State University West Campus, Phoenix, AZ; and Mesa Community College, Mesa, AZ.

For her professional work Shenal has received numerous grants and fellowships including Professional Development Grants from the Arizona Commission on the Arts in 2005 and 1998; the Walter Knestrick Visual Art Fellowship from the Tennessee Arts Commission in 2002; Faculty Development and Travel Grants from the Memphis College of Art in 2003, 2000, 1999 and 1998; and a WESTAF/NEA Regional Fellowship for Visual Artists in New Genres in 1996. In 2003 she received a curator’s nomination for the Biennale Internazionale Dell’ Arte Contemporanea in Florence, Italy. Solo and two-person exhibitions of her work have been held at the UC Berkeley Extension Gallery in San Francisco, Studio LoDo/Phoenix Center for Contemporary Art in Phoenix, Second Floor Contemporary in Memphis, Tower Fine Art Gallery SUNY-Brockport, NY, and the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art in Arizona.