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Goats and rabbits and sheep? Oh my!
Louisiana Christian College Artwork Professor WangLing Chou will get a number of variation on that exclamation from her college students who could discover themselves on any given day creating pottery whereas a goat nibbles on their shoelaces.
Lately, she started doing “goat ceramics,” and it’s gotten some buzz round campus. There’s goat yoga; why not goat ceramics?
“They [goats] are very therapeutic,” she stated. “They only stroll across the class, and they’re very sluggish. The scholars find it irresistible. The goats will attempt to drink from their water buckets, nibble on their pant legs. I often convey a goat in as soon as a semester if the scholars are good. Plus, animals are the most effective fashions.”
Chou’s most up-to-date work “Two Rooster Tea Pots” gained a benefit award on the 54th Annual Tom Peyton Memorial Arts Competition in Alexandria in April. Over time, she has obtained a lot recognition for her distinctive use of trash to specific her philozoic life. Her love of animals permeate every little thing she does.
Chou stated she is blissful to take part on this arts pageant recurrently, because it’s vital to the Central Louisiana neighborhood and options excellent unique works.
“I would like to have the ability to present my college students I’m nonetheless artistic,” she stated. “Apart from educating, I’m at all times creating my work. My work facilities on my love of animals.”
Fellow LCU college member Kathleen McGinty-Johnson, director of the ESL program and English teacher, stated she has beloved Chou’s paintings for a few years.
“Ling’s artwork offers new life to the issues we think about to be trash,” McGinty-Johnson stated. “What I actually love is the best way that she incorporates her love for animals and nature in her items. Her earlier work usually featured rabbits, however as she continues to develop her menagerie (sheep, cows, goats, and a horse), she more and more focuses on them as her topics.”
Chou, who’s a local of Taiwan, has taught at Louisiana Christian College for 14 years. She and her husband Matthew Stokes, an LC alumnus who teaches English at Louisiana State College – Alexandria, have 25 animals at present—a horse, donkey, calf, goat, sheep, cats and canines.
“I primarily educate inexperienced persons,” she stated. “I’m going to the fundamentals. The extra years I educate, I like the basics, the easy issues. I can see the wonder within the newbie. They can’t see it— the innocence, however the inexperienced persons’ purity is so lovely.”
Chou admits she finds magnificence in weird locations—like issues most individuals discard. “I hate trash,” she stated. “All the things must get the most effective use it will probably.”
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She seems to be for methods to reuse issues creatively. A lot of her artwork works take their kinds from recycled soda bottles.
“I take this factor, this Coke bottle, for example, that was solely used as soon as, and I ask how can I exploit it once more,” Chou stated. “I press and alter it. And instantly, I see it’s a hen. I give trash life and character.”
Her character could be seen within the surprise and pop artwork really feel of her work, and it resonates together with her college students, who usually convey her lovely rubbish, like enticing packaging that has been discarded however could be reused in artwork initiatives.
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“My college students love me a lot they carry me trash,” Chou laughs.
Jocelyn Holt, a junior studio artwork main concentrating in ceramics from Salinas, California, stated Chou’s artwork is inspiring.
“She has such a robust type that reveals by in all her work,” Holt stated. “I like how she incorporates her love for farming and her animals into her work and I aspire to do the similar someday. Ling Chou will not be solely my professor, she is sort of a mentor to me, and my life has endlessly been modified since I met her.”
One other former pupil of Chou who graduated from LCU in 2019, Michael Williams, of Pineville, stated she pushed him out of his consolation zone—a lot so that he’s now finishing his MFA at Mississippi School.
“She had me getting into juried artwork exhibitions earlier than I might have pushed myself to take action,” Williams stated. “She at all times pushed me to go additional with my artwork, by no means permitting me to settle. I knew I wished to pursue a profession in ceramics in some type after my top notch with Ling.”
LCU President Dr. Rick Brewer stated Chou’s artwork is a reminder that the Lord, additionally, can take trash, damaged and discarded objects and switch them into masterpieces.
“Chou’s work is a devoted reminder of the transformational work of the Lord who takes our brokenness and brings restoration,” Brewer stated. God majors in producing pottery from clay. This worldview is on the coronary heart of the Louisiana Christian College instructional expertise.”
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