Art for Engineers Show Set for Advanced Manufacturing Center
Contact: Nick Houtman, Dept. of Public Affairs, 207-581-3777
ORONO– “I Engineer, Therefore I Art,” reads the slogan on Will Manion’s t-shirt. It’s more than just a clever play on the famous statement, “I think, therefore I am,” by French mathematician Rene Descartes. It expresses the theme for a new initiative that links the literal with the imaginative.
Manion is an instructor in the University of Maine Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He has teamed up with Edwin Nagy, Ph.D. candidate in engineering, and Sam Van Aken, assistant professor in the Dept. of Art, to inspire the creative impulses of engineering students.
A new group they have organized, the Engineering Art Club, will have its first public show, Art by Engineers, February 23, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. on the second flood of the new Advanced Manufacturing Center on the UMaine campus. The AMC is located just north of the Memorial Union between Shibles and Stevens halls.
The event is free and open to the public. It will feature sculptures, paintings, cement tile, computer aided design drawings and other work by engineering students, faculty members and alumni.
Refreshments will be available. An award ceremony will be held at 6:30 p.m.
“We don’t want students to leave here after four years and not understand that engineering is a creative discipline,” says Manion. “Analytical engineering skills are certainly important, but a lot of what engineers do starts with imagination.”
Faculty, alumni/ae and sponsoring company representatives will be the judges for the show. The event is part of National Engineers Week activities at UMaine.