C-N Professor’s Work included in McGhee-Tyson Airport Exhibit

“Paper Airplane” is a digital photograph by C-N art professor Julie Rabun included in McGhee Tyson’s “Arts in the Airport” exhibition. Though ensconced beyond the airport’s TSA security gate, the display will be seen by some 650,000 travelers through Knoxville between June and October.

Carson-Newman art professor Julie Rabun’s “Paper Airplane” is featured in a McGhee-Tyson exhibition that celebrates air travel while highlighting the creativity of East Tennesseans. It’s the third consecutive year a member of C-N’s art faculty has been included in the prestigious showcase.

“Arts in the Airport: 75 Years of Making Memories in Aviation” features work from more than 40 artists across East Tennessee. Designed as a competition, the show affords regional artists the chance to display 2- and 3-dimensional artwork work in one of East Tennessee’s most trafficked sites. While members of the nonflying public will not see the exhibit, some 650,000 travelers will pass through the halls on the way to and from gates between the display’s June opening and mid-October.

“This spring’s entries to the Arts in the Airport program were exciting because of the strong response to the theme of flight and the airport in celebration of their 75th anniversary,” said juror Dorothy Habel, who directs the University of Tennessee’s School of Art. “The range and the quality of the works submitted were outstanding.”

Metropolitan Knoxville Airport Authority chair Howard Vogel, said the collection will edify McGhee Tyson travelers who “pass through our doors en route to changing their lives, and this new exhibition is reminiscent of those life-altering moments.”

Rabun, who joined C-N’s faculty in 2002, leads the art department’s graphic design emphasis. A professional architect who turned her attention to other forms of design, she is an active illustrator, fine art artist, and designer. She has collaborated as an illustrator for five published books, including Revival of the Fittest: Classic Typfaces in the Digital Age. She holds a BFA in Art and BA in Architecture from the Rhode Island School of Design; she earned the MFA in visual communications from Virginia Commonwealth University.

A gallery of images is available online through the programs and services section of the Arts and Culture Alliance’s website (www.knoxalliance.com).