UAH engineering, art professors to explain cross-disciplines to Bob Jones

Correlation between engineering’s technical discipline and art’s creative thinking will be explained when University of Alabama professors visit Bob Jones High School.

Bob Jones will host UA engineering professor Dean Chuck Karr and art professors Craig Wedderspoon and Daniel Livinston on Nov. 30 at 8:30 a.m. in the audio-visual room.

The session will “introduce Bob Jones students to UA’s new program for their engineering students,” Bob Jones art teacher Robin Lakso said. “Also, our art students will hear how the arts are affecting the world.”

Lakso believes creativity and the ability to find multiple solutions to problems are “what the arts are all about. This kind of meeting of the minds validates that.”

UA has physically joined an art and an engineering building for mutual use of equipment and tools. UA College of Engineering now requires classes in the fine arts. “Jobs of the future include not only knowledge but the creative thinker and doer,” Lakso said.

Bob Jones art teachers Jenny Norton, Kate Craft and Lakso use the work of Netherlands artist Theo Janssen. “His sculptural work is amazing; however, Janssen considers himself an engineer and designs for BMW,” Lakso said.

Bob Jones engineering teachers Jeremy Raper and Jessye Gaines also show Janssen’s work. “Art teachers for the clean, beautiful lines. Engineering teachers for the motion created by beach winds, (making) these pieces of engineered artwork simply extraordinary,” Lakso said.

Janssen’s work causes the Madison teachers “to think about how we can work together through creative thought,” Lakso said.

Karr heads UA’s engineering school. With 20 years of experience, he has worked with intelligent systems, as research engineer for U.S. Bureau of Mines and has published three books.

Since 1999, Wedderspoon has been an associate professor of art and sculpture.  His public sculptures appear in Huntsville, UA’s Art quad, nationwide and abroad.

Livingston, a master potter, specializes in the ancient technique of Raku. His works appear at the Kentuck Museum in Northport.

For more information, call Lakso at 256-772-2547 or send email to rlakso@madisoncity.k12.al.us.