Head of the art department auctions off ponytail for the new recital hall
Although he is now known for his latest haircut stunt, this professor has made himself famous for years with his award-winning pottery art.
Art department head and ceramics professor John Neely agreed to cut his ponytail off and donate it as a start to the art guild’s annual Halloween auction, if the guild raised the money to buy a $500 seat in the coming recital hall.
Neely had been growing the ponytail since his last sabbatical leave in 1992, he said.
He did this as a thank you to the two sisters, Kathryn Caine Wanlass and Manon Caine Russell, who have provided the funding for the new world-class recital hall.
A gift of $500 to $5,000 can provide a seat for the hall, and reserve the contributor a ticket to the dedication festivities scheduled for Fall 2005. Also, there will be a nameplate permanently engraved with the contributor’s name on the seat, also.
“I think it was for a very good cause. I am so thankful for these two sisters. On a USU professor’s salary, you can’t do much in a monetary way to contribute, but as a gesture of something I was able to do, I was glad to be able to do it,” Neely said.
Neely said he challenged both the ceramics guild and the art guild to buy a seat as a way to say thank you to Wanlass and Russell. Both guilds were successful.
Neely has been teaching at USU since 1984. This is his second year as the art department head and he continues to teach one ceramic class. He also acts as one of the major advisors for all ceramics majors and graduate students.
“There are about 18 to 20 students with whom I am in very close, daily contact,” Neely said.
Rose-Angeli Ringor, a ceramics graduate student who started at USU this fall, said Neely was one of the reasons she picked this program.
“In the ceramics community, [Neely] is very well known and respected. He has built a strong program here at USU and he has a wide variety of knowledge and experience on the subject,” she said.
After receiving his bachelor’s of fine arts degree at Alfred University in Alfred, New York, Neely completed his masters of fine arts at Ohio University. He lived in Japan for about 10 years before moving to Logan, he said.
Neely said he was attracted to the arts, partly because of his background. His mother was a painter and his father and grandfather were architects. However, he said, he was interested in the utilitarian concept of ceramics.
“I was very interested in the way in which we can make our immediate human environment better,” Neely said.
“Neely puts a large emphasis on the use of functional pottery. He has a lot of experience, expertise and knowledge on the utilitarian process, how it is handled and its purpose,” Ryan Vanhoy, an undergraduate student in the one-year ceramic program.
Vanhoy added, “We have been able to have some visiting artists come, and John has been a big part of that. I have not been able to take a class from him directly, but I look forward to it.”
Neely is married and has one daughter, who is currently a sophomore in food science at the University of Minnesota. His wife teaches Japanese here at USU.
Currently, Neely is working on a rather new organization at USU called the School of the Arts, which is the embodiment of the cooperation between the various art disciplines, Neely said.
These disciplines, including visual arts, theater, the art museum, music and creative writing, are working together more and more as a collaborative unit, Neely said.
He added, “The new recital hall is emblematic, too. It’s like the first step in the School of the Arts. It is a symbol of the collaboration because all of the disciplines, not just music, will benefit from the addition of this new venue.”
The recital hall has been on the “fast track”, Neely said, as it has only been in the work for about a year, and is set to be finished as soon as possible.
Neely has a saying that he uses to relate pottery to life:
“It has been said of death and taxes, but it is true of plumbing and lunch. Of all the great problems of this world, indeed, of the imponderables of the next, none are more compelling than plumbing and lunch. The great issues of pottery are no exception: most of it boils down to plumbing and lunch.”
Neely ellaborated, saying,”Coffee cups, plates, mugs and jugs- that all deals with food. And the other important, familiar ceramic item that everyone has in their house is the toilet – the plumbing.”
“That phrase resonates for me, because of the pottery connection, that’s what makes it meaningful,” Neely said. “It works on other levels too, when you make your livelihood, that’s also lunch. The plumbing is how you route things through life,” he added.
For more information on the new recital hall, the art guild, the School of the Arts or John Neely contact the art department or visit www.art.usu.edu.
–amking@cc.usu.edu