[110]‘HOUSING CRUNCH’ COMES TO MTSU’s TODD GALLERY OCT. 6-17

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Sept. 23, 2008
EDITORIAL CONTACT: Lisa L. Rollins, 615-898-2919, or lrollins@mtsu.edu

‘HOUSING CRUNCH’ COMES TO MTSU’s TODD GALLERY OCT. 6-17
Upcoming Exhibit by Collaborating Artists Features Free, Open Public Reception

(MURFREESBORO)—“Pulled Resources,” a sculptural collaborative composed of artists Dan DeZarn and Thomas H. Sturgill, will be on display Oct. 6-17 at MTSU’s Todd Gallery.
The artmakers’ upcoming exhibition, titled “Housing Crunch,” will feature a free and open reception for DeZarn and Sturgill from 6 to 8 p.m. on its opening day, Oct. 6, in the gallery’s lobby.
Regarding the artists—who first met in 2001 as students at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville—Eric V. Snyder, gallery curator, said, “The two have worked together on a number of projects and proposals, exhibiting in Kentucky, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee.”
After meeting, Sturgill and DeZarn reportedly discovered many shared conceptual similarities in each other’s work. Thus, by 2003 the two began collaborating produce large-scale works artworks under the “Pulled Resources” moniker.
“By working together in this way, they quickly found that they could construct impressively large, labor -intensive projects in relatively short periods of time and with fairly modest budgets,” Snyder explained.
With a shared interest in exploring the concerns of contemporary human culture, the artists, in the past, have focused on material usage, commodity, nature and people, or more importantly, how these ideas intersect, he added.
“We are building a full-scale structure based on the floor plan of a typical suburban home in the confines of the space in Todd Hall’s art gallery,” Sturgill explained. “The structure will be composed of dimensional lumber made by the artists from salvaged cardboard boxes.
“The end result,” he continued, “will be a structure that is too big for its allotted space (that is) made with a material more typically associated with vagrant structures, rather than traditional permanent homes.”
DeZarn received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from North Kentucky University and his Master of Fine Arts from the UT. He currently resides in Geneseo, N.Y., where he serves as assistant professor at the State University of New York at Geneseo.
Nashville resident Sturgill received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from UT and his Master of Fine Arts at Carnegie Mellon University. He currently serves as an assistant art professor at MTSU.
• GALLERY HOURS: Located on the first floor of MTSU’s Todd Building, the Todd Gallery is open 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. weekdays and closed on all state holidays. Admission is always free and exhibits are open to the public.
For more information regarding the current exhibit, please contact Snyder at 615-898-5653 or via e-mail at esnyder@mstu.edu.
•ATTENTION, MEDIA: To request interviews with the artists or jpegs of some of the artists’ works, please contact Lisa L. Rollins, 615-898-2919, or via e-