The first-floor lobby of Blanchard Hall was converted into an art gallery this spring. The Blanchard Gallery’s inaugural installment, an exhibit titled “The Second Line: The Art of Social Justice,” features the narrative artwork of Steve Prince and will be on display through January 2017. Installed at the request of the President’s Art Commission on April 7, gallery co-directors Greg Halvorsen Schreck, associate professor of art, and Dr. Shawn Okpebholo, associate professor of music, co-hosted an opening ceremony and two-day live drawing by Prince in the gallery this April (pictured above). 

“The goal and mission of the Blanchard Gallery is to celebrate African-American culture and church experience,” Professor Schreck says. “We thought Prince’s installment was a perfect inaugural show because social justice is a big part of his work, and he is one of the premiere African-American artists in Christendom. His work fits the College’s mission, and we want to honor our abolitionist origins.”