Robert Truszkowski – Tenure & Promotion 2011
  • Intro
    • Intro
    • How to navigate this site
  • Letter of application
  • Research
    • Contextualization of my practice
    • Exhibitions
    • Funding and awards
    • Portfolio
    • SSHRC Research/Creation funding sought
    • CV
  • Teaching
    • Statement of teaching philosophy
    • Graduate supervision
    • Curricular and studio innovations
    • New approaches to student engagement
    • Sample syllabuses
    • Student evaluations
    • Sample signs and technical bulletins
    • Courses taught
    • Success profile: Articulate Ink
  • Administrative
    • Welcome to Print Media
    • Committee work
    • Studio and technician supervision
  • Community
  • Bio
  • Contact
  • Visual Support Materials
    • New Canadian Painting
    • Okanagan Print Triennial 2009
    • Trois-Rivières 2009
    • PrintZero Exhibition 2010
    • Traditions and Transitions 2011
    • Class Portfolio 2009
    • Class Portfolio 2010
    • Class Portfolio 2011

Service to my communities

 
 
Society memberships

Southern Graphics Council International (SGCI)

In November 2011, I was appointed to the Board of Directors for SCGI as International Member-at-large (2012-2014), by the Nominations Committee.  In a recent email, Joseph Lupo, Associate Professor at West Virginia University and current member of the SGC International Executive Board Nominations Committee, describes my role:

"Your position's main focus is how each conference deals with issues dealing with our international membership. This means some kind of panel presentation, and exhibition. You are in charge of figuring out how you want to go about dealing with this, and organizing it (contacting artists and so on). You have a budget allotted from SGCI.
The Board will also be looking for your input in general focusing on international matters, and all our organizational matters in general."


History and context of SGCI, courtesy of their website:

The SGCI is the largest print organization in North America. Its annual conference is the biggest gathering focused on the field of printmaking. Artists from all 50 U.S. states attend the conference. Regular international attendees come from Canada, South and Central America, and Europe.

In 1972 Boyd Saunders, from the University of South Carolina, invited every printmaker he knew in the South to meet at the annual convention of the Southeastern College Art Conference with the intention of forming a printmaker’s organization. (At that time, college and university printmaking programs tended to be small, isolated, and neglected.) The group that assembled in New Orleans for that meeting included Bernie Solomon, John O’Neil and Boyd Saunders. They wrote and approved by-laws and in 1973 the Southeastern Graphics Council was officially chartered by the State of South Carolina as a non-profit organization.

Boyd Saunders served as the first president from 1972 through 1974. Bernie Solomon hosted the first annual workshop conference in 1974 at his home institution of Georgia Southern College. In 1978, as the organization grew in membership, the name was changed to the Southern Graphics Council. Over the next 30 years, conferences were held in not only Southern states, but in New Jersey, Illinois, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Membership to the SGC also expanded, and now has a national and international membership. In 2010, the name was changed again to its current SGC International.


I also maintain memberships in:

ARPRIM - Regroupement pour la promotion de l'art imprimé
CAA - College Art Association


Local community engagement

Cathedral Village Arts Festival
For the past two years, I have been organizing Printmaking in the Streets, as part of the Cathedral Village Arts Festival.  With student and alumni volunteers, I have erected a portable Printmaking studio, complete with etching press and sundries, to perform feats of printing on 13th Avenue in Regina, during the annual street fair.  Part performance, part community outreach and engagement, this project has permitted me to educate, entertain, and even recruit potential students to the Department of Visual Arts.  In addition to the day-long street fair event, this year I served on the 2011 Planning Committee for the Festival.  To see pictures, click here.

Articulate Ink
I have acted as mentor and consultant to the members of Regina's (new and only) artist-run Printmaking centre.  For complete information on how my teaching and community engagement cross over, see the Student Success Profile page, here.

Other activities
I have, on many occasions, given artist lectures locally and nationally, served on juries for art competition, and donated artwork for fundraising at artist-run-centres and Printmaking programmes across Canada. 

Notably, I was the sole visual artist jury member for the 2010 Saskatchewan Lung Association 100th Anniversary Art Contest, and have adjudicated the Student Photo Contest for the Aboriginal Student Centre at the University of Regina in 2009, and the URSU Student Art Poster Contest in 2008.

Recent lectures have been given at: LeBoldus Highschool in 2011 (senior art class – as invited guest of Sarina Paluck and Kyle Rask for their Arts Education programme at the University of Regina), the MacKenzie Art Gallery in 2008 (for the MacKenzie Volunteers), the studio of artist Joe Fafard in 2009 (for Mr. Fafard and others including artists Russ Yuristy and Wilf Perrault – this talk coincided with a day of printing at Mr. Fafard's newly established print studio where I offered my expertise and consultation therein), the University of Saskatchewan Department of Art in 2011 (senior Printmaking studio class), among others. 


Robert Truszkowski - Department of Visual Arts - Faculty of Fine Arts - University of Regina