Passing the torch

The ways teachers can inspire students will be on display beginning Friday in a show opening at the Untitled Gallery, an exhibit the organizer views as a kind of passing of the torch.

"Pedagogue," opening Friday in downtown Cape Girardeau, will include work by Dr. Edwin Smith, who retired from Southeast Missouri State University at the end of 2006 after 34 years at the university and 45 years of teaching art. Also included will be sculptures by Robert Friedrich III, an art teacher at Central High School since 1996 who learned under Smith at Southeast. The show also will include work by Matt Miller, the art teacher at Scott City who studied with Smith and got to know Friedrich while student teaching at Cape Girardeau Central High School.

The other artists are Southeast students Carson Majors, Nathan Pierce and Stu Hao, all of whom studied with Smith. The fourth Southeast student, Douglas Simmons, was one of Friedrich's students at Central High School.

A reception for the artists will be held from 5 to 10 p.m. Friday at the gallery at 116 N. Main St. The gallery and show will be open from noon to 5 p.m. Saturdays through March 1.

Majors, a senior art student at Southeast, organized the show as a kind of passing of the torch. Both Friedrich and Smith were his teachers. Friedrich was a brand new art teacher in 1996 when Majors was a senior at Central High School. "He was the first person who treated me like an artist, not like a student," Majors said.

At the time Majors' hair reached to the middle of his back, but after graduating he joined the military just as Friedrich had out of high school. They stayed in touch.

After finishing his service in the Marines, Majors enrolled at Southeast. At a sculpture show Friedrich and Miller had together in 2003 at the H&H Building in Cape Girardeau, Friedrich suggested to Majors that he talk to Smith about becoming his adviser. Of Friedrich, Majors said, "He led me back to art." Of Smith he said, "He was a teacher but an artist first. He allowed me to do pretty much whatever I wanted to do."

Majors said students teach each other as well. "There is much each person can do to be a teacher. There is inspiration and leading by example. Showing somebody how to do something by doing it yourself."

Smith and Friedrich both said they are honored to be included in the show. "I'm more tickled as a teacher to see students who have gotten so involved in their art as well as exhibiting," Friedrich said.

Nathan Pierce co-managers the gallery with Tim Vollink. He was majoring in graphic design until taking a sculpture class from Smith. "I changed my major, and I've been carving wood the last year and a half," Pierce said.

Pierce is a finish carpenter who has a natural affinity for working with wood and building things. He said Smith's projects were all hands-on, that he taught students "to do what you enjoy doing and you will find a way to make a living at it."

Pierce said the gallery was designed to show student work and isn't making money. It is providing students with exhibit space that didn't exist when Friedrich was a Southeast student.

"Every month we have to turn people down because we have too much artwork down there," Pierce said.