NEWS
President Jim Doti praised Ross and Phyllis Escalette for their commitment to making art available to all members of the Chapman and Orange communities by providing the work placed inside university buildings and around campus. Before the donation, Chapman’s permanent art collection was conservatively estimated to be worth $1.4 million, Ross Escalette said. He learned of the need for such a donation because he is a Chapman trustee, and he and Phyllis Escalette wanted to help support the arts at Chapman, he said.
“When I think back to Chapman University and our own Renaissance that we are experiencing here, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it’s also a period where our collection of art has grown, prospered and affects all of us who are a part of this community,” Doti said.
Doti spoke about how university art collections embody the values of their institution and help create pride and unity among the campus.
The ongoing changes in the art department were not mentioned at the event. Ross Escalette declined to comment about the art department’s move from the College of Performing Arts to Wilkinson College of Humanities and Social Sciences because he is unaware of the details of the transition.
Ross Escalette is the chair of the newly formed Acquisitions Council which will focus on governing, expanding and maintaining Chapman’s art collection. Freshman Morgan Helmstetter, an educational studies major, is one of the Escalettes’ granddaughters.
“They do a lot of nice things for many organizations, but it is nice to hear they are doing something for a school I attend,” Helmstetter said.
But her friends don’t know she is related to them because she doesn’t share their last name, she said.
“Students here are exposed to art everyday as they are walking down the hall,” Ross Escalette said. “When I went to Tufts [University] I don’t recall having art any place there.”
Joanne Corday Kozberg, former California secretary of state and consumer services, opened the dedication ceremony by discussing the importance of public museums and how they allow the masses to view fine art. Kozberg is also a trustee of the J. Paul Getty Trust, the world’s wealthiest art institution with an estimated endowment of $4.2 billion.
“Public art, especially on a university campus, has the power to arouse our thinking and invite … intellectual life and scholarly work on a campus,” Kozberg said.
At the end of the dedication, Doti asked for the theater’s lights to be dimmed for the unveiling of one of the three newest pieces donated to the collection.
Whimsical sounding harp music played as a black curtain was drawn back and lights were brightened, revealing an abstract painting by Jason Adkins.
The piece illustrated a horizon next to white square shapes, outlined in black, that form a pattern of waves on an ocean.
Senior art major Anna Timm, who started the ‘Save Chapman Art’ movement, thought the unveiling was funny because the music sounded like the sound track from Star Wars and the painting reminded her of the icy planet Hoth, featured in the “Empire Strikes Back,” she said.
Adkins donated his paintings to Chapman because he has 40 paintings he needs to unload before his moves to Las Vegas in a month, he said.
“Coming to this campus, they are immediately going to be put up on a wall,” Adkins said.
Contact this reporter: daniel.langhorne@thepantheronline.com
