Clarke Area Arts Council features first student artist

The Clarke Area Arts Council will feature its first student artist, Tacy Cummings, in the month of January at the CAAC art wall at Lakeside Hotel and Casino.

Cummings is a Graceland student and her artist reception will be 2-4 p.m. Jan . 5 in the Lakeside Events Entrance lobby. She will be showcasing a variety of work.

"I'll have silkscreens, lino-cuts and sculpture work," said Cummings.

Lino-cuts are made from a piece of linoleum, the artist will then draw an image on the linoleum and carve away at the negative space. That process will create a stamp that can have ink rolled over and then stamp on nearly any material.

Silkscreen are a much more detailed process where an artist takes a screen made of silk, covers the screen in emulsion, which blocks any light from coming through the screen. An image is then burned onto the screen using the same technology used in tanning beds. After washing the screen the artist can then pull ink through the space that was burned, creating an image on nearly any material.

"They're kind of two different sides of the same coin," said Cummings. "Just a different kind of print making."

Cummings will graduate with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with a concentration in K-12 education in December 2020 after student teaching. Of all the different mediums of art the Cummings has been exposed to at Graceland University the three that she will present at her artist reception are her favorite.

"I feel like I've kind of hit my stride with the lino-cuts, silkscreens and sculpture," said Cummings. "I'm decent at the drawing and painting but it's always been kind of forced for me because it is so tedious... a good drawing can take 14 hours to get done whereas this stuff is a little quicker so you get results quicker and I like that."

Cummings wants aspiring artists and anyone who has a vague interest in art to understand that there is more than just drawing and painting. Her experience as a high school art student didn't expose her to the multiple mediums within art and her goal is to help other artists find their place as well.

"I'm going to continue to make art and do some residencies and purpose different things to galleries," said Cummings. "I'd prefer to teach high school just because of the types of art you can do and maybe change the thought process about art."