Joey Manson has certainly left his mark on the Clemson University campus. As faculty member since 2002, he has touched the lives of thousands of students, but he has also left a visual impact on the campus itself, through public art.
Manson, a Clemson alumnus, is a principal lecturer in the Department of Art and is faculty mentor for the long-running Creative Inquiry project, “Atelier InSite: Implementation of Public Art at Clemson University.” The project started in 2012 when the Life Sciences Building was under construction. The College of Agriculture, Forestry and Life Sciences wanted to incorporate art into their new building, so they approached a group of art faculty for help with that. A CI project was created by Manson, along with Dave Detrich and Denise Detrich, to have life sciences students work alongside art students to select and install artwork. The result was “The Clemson Genus Project” by Klari Reis, 600 individualized paintings in petri dishes that now hang on the wall of the atrium of the Life Sciences Building.
Since then, Manson has continued to lead the Atelier InSite project, which has installed several other pieces across campus, such as “Illuminated Chroma Wind Trees” by Koryn Rolstad, located outside of McAlister and DesChamps halls in the Core Campus area; “Foundation” by Matthew Au and Volka Alkanoglu, located in Lee Hall III; and “All In,” located outside of the football program’s Poe Indoor Practice Facility.
“The project is really about public arts management, and we recruit students from the areas from the areas we’re working with. CI is the perfect fit for that,” Manson said.
Atelier InSite wasn’t Manson’s first experience with CI. In 2009, Manson was asked to lead a project to design and build a new lectern that would be used at Clemson’s graduation ceremonies and other special events.
“CI was getting up and running around that time, and we thought it would be the perfect way to run this class,” he said.
Students not only designed and built the lectern, but they sourced the wood from trees on campus that had been taken down. The class worked through proposals and met with officials at the Alumni Association and then President Jim Barker to present their ideas and gather feedback.
“For the students, it was a really good opportunity to experience a professional environment in which they’re designing something and they’ve got to present it to the people who will be using it,” said Manson. “They also had the added incentive of knowing that when they graduate, they will be able to walk in front of this lectern to get their diploma, and they were all able to do that.”
The lectern has been used at every graduation ceremony since 2010, including the ones held off campus in Greenville when Littlejohn Coliseum was closed for renovation.
Manson also mentors the “Contemporary Art and Practice” CI, which is taken by seniors in the BFA program. Thanks to funding the class receives from CI, students travel to galleries and museums in places such as New York, Atlanta or Washington, D.C., and look at how work is displayed and apply that experience to their own exhibitions in Lee Gallery.
Manson said CI has made Clemson a better university.
“CI offers a way for faculty and students to work together on areas of common interest, bridging the space between the University and a professional career. The experience makes students much more prepared when they’re out and about outside of the University.”
Joey Manson, principal lecturer of art and long-time Creative Inquiry mentor
He believes that being involved in CI also drives faculty members to excel.
“I think the majority of faculty who do it continue to do it because they have positive experiences with it. The positive return it brings adds up in a way that you can’t point a finger to easily,” Manson said. “It raises the bar of quality for the entire University.”
This story is part of a series focused on long-standing projects and faculty mentors who have been involved with Creative Inquiry + Undergraduate Research since nearly the beginning of the program. For more information, visit clemson.edu/ci.
