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Barstow Artists and Speakers
Through the Barstow Endowment, we bring world-recognized artists and thinkers to our campus for lectures, workshops and residencies.
Midland architect Stephen L. Barstow (1941–1992), donated his estate and endowment to the CMU Department of Art & Design upon his death. His generosity has provided students with invaluable exposure to practicing contemporary artists from a variety of disciplines. His contribution continues to fund student Art and Design scholarships, the Barstow Artist-in-Residence Program, the Barstow Lecture Series, and Barstow Artist Workshops.
Artist-in-Residence
Each year The Barstow Artist-in-Residence Program provides a residence, studio and university resources to a professional working artist. As the artist-in-residence dedicates time to their studio practice and research, they also engage directly with you through mentorship, individual workshops, studio visits and exhibition opportunities.
To learn more about our current Artist-in-Residence and the AIR program, or to view a list of past AIR recipients, watch this space for updates.
Lecture series
The Barstow Endowment brings in nationally and internationally recognized artists who speak about their diverse fields of research.
The goal of the lecture series is to expose our students to a broad range of approaches to creating, thinking, and talking about art and design. Nationally and internationally renowned artists, designers, and art historians visit the campus of CMU to speak and engage with our students, faculty, and community. In addition to giving a lecture, the visiting artists also participate in critique sessions and portfolio reviews with students in our programs, giving the students the opportunity to receive valuable feedback on their work from an experienced, practicing artist. All lectures are free and open to the public.
Past Barstow Lecture Series participants have included Stefan Sagmeister, Shana Parke Harrison, Eduardo Kac, Pedro Meyer, Sandy Skoglund and many others. For a complete list of past speakers, click below.
Artist workshops
The Barstow Workshop Series emphasizes demonstrations and exhibitions conducted on a regular basis throughout each semester, each of which are open to the public. Workshop artists include designers, photographers, painters, sculptors, art historians,
printmakers and interdisciplinary artists.
Artists are chosen by the faculty based on student input, and the events work to enhance the theories and techniques being taught in studio courses.
Past Barstow workshop leaders have included: Jeremiah Britton, The Beehive Design Collective, Robin Schwartzman, Cassie Hester, Thomas Allen, Mark Menjivar, Michele Champagne, Kenneth Fitzgerald, Stephanie Milanowski, Douglas R. Ewart
Current Artist-in-Residence
Bio/Statement
Martin Venezky is an artist, photographer, and designer exploring relationships between objects, form, drawing, and the image. His work shifts scale from intimate gatherings of discarded objects to expansive wall-sized installations.
In 2001, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art honored Venezky with a solo exhibition, and in 2005, his monograph It Is Beautiful...Then Gone was published by Princeton Architectural Press.
Venezky has an undergraduate degree in Visual Studies from Dartmouth College. In 2024, Venezky completed a second MFA in Photography at Cranbrook Academy of Art, thirty years after receiving his first MFA in Graphic Design from the same institution.
He has taught at RISD and CalArts and, for more than thirty years, at California College of the Arts in San Francisco, where he is currently Professor Emeritus in the MFA Design Program. His work is in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Denver Art Museum, Cranbrook Art Museum, and San Francisco’s Letterform Archive.
Venezky continues to lecture, offer workshops, and display his work to a wide international audience. Recently, he was awarded residencies at Halsnøy, Norway, and the University of Arkansas Fort Smith, both of which resulted in exhibitions of work made on site.
