Artist Candace Nicol excitedly took the stage to the applause of students, faculty and community members. Her presentation described her journey as an artist and explained her artistic process. Nicol’s presentation is one of many the Sheehan Art Gallery hopes will accompany its exhibitions in the coming months. The gallery typically shows five to six exhibitions per year.
Nicol, an artist from Las Vegas, NV, is praised for her ability to create unique works of art by fusing a variety of different art forms together. Her process brings together printmaking, painting and digital photography, combining them in ways that add to the character and depth of each piece she creates. Her exhibit, Manifestations: The Male Nude, is being showcased alongside a collection of pieces by Jedidiah Chavez entitled This Feeling will Surely Leave You in the Morning.
Nicol’s talk was something relatively new to the Sheehan gallery.
“To keep interest in the gallery we have scheduled artist talks throughout the exhibitions,” said Kynde Kiefel, Exhibitions and Collections manager of the gallery. “Every weekend or every week there is an artist talking about their work to keep people in the gallery.”
Keeping people in the gallery is a chief concern. The gallery frequently hosts students from Walla Walla University and Walla Walla Community College; however, it has a harder time attracting local residents.
“It would be nice to have a bit more of a relationship with the overall community,” admits gallery Director Dawn Forbes. “But I think we’re working towards that.”
The gallery is actively involved with the local elementary and junior high schools, giving tours of the gallery and the exhibits. Budget cuts in the public school system, however, make these visits more infrequent.
The Sheehan Gallery is also involved in a number of outreach programs to other Whitman departments, trying to draw interest from students who might otherwise not be exposed to art. The gallery tries to find pieces of art interesting to students studying subjects like history, biology and English and then displays the pieces they find in the respective departments.
As exhibitions and collections manager, this is one of Kiefel’s many roles. She is helped by about ten students, who are employed by the gallery. The students are involved in the setup of the exhibitions, basic maintenance and even food and drink prep before an opening. According to Kiefel, the gallery wouldn’t function without them.
“This year the visual culture majors are going to do research on the pieces and work with the gallery on the design and installation of an exhibition,” said Forbes. “This sort of moves the gallery towards a more experiential learning environment which is one of the things we really want to focus on.”
The Sheehan Gallery distinguishes itself from other art galleries in the way that it treats its artists.
“We try to build good relationships with our artists,” said Forbes. “It’s interesting…the relationship between curators and artists is often adversarial. Artists are often asked to give of themselves and their artwork without compensation. Respect is often missing in gallery relationships with artists. We really work to overcome that.

Last year, I think one of the highest compliments the gallery received was virtually every artist we had on campus said that this is the first time in a long time [he/she] really felt like an artist, that this is how an exhibition should be handled.”
Many of the artists that come to the Sheehan Gallery say they like interacting with the students at Whitman.

Most give workshops in their particular medium and say they are pleasantly surprised by the intelligent questions Whitman students ask.
The current exhibit closes Sep. 28, making way for exhibits by Adnan Charara and Deborah Lawrence opening Oct. 15. Both exhibits blend together different mediums, forcing the viewer to take a second look at the world.
“The gallery brings the larger world to a small place, or bigger ideas to a smaller space,” says Kiefel. “It is a place to educate, surprise, and inform the students and community as a whole–maybe even challenge in a good way.”