From a metal whistle ring to animal rights posters, a variety of works on display in Chambers provide insight into what art majors in the graphic design and metals departments are creating.

The Graphic Design and Metals Exhibit being shown in the Chambers Gallery, found on the second floor of Chambers Building, includes pieces of art created by junior, senior and graduate art majors. Works in both parts of the exhibit were chosen by faculty members in each department, and put up by Cindi Morrison, the director of the School of Visual Arts galleries.

"Themes and media were varied enough that its a nice overview of what has been going on in those departments," Morrison said.

Lanny Sommese, the head of the graphic design department, and graphic design faculty members Jack Simmen and Kristin Breslin chose the exhibited works for that portion of the show. The works include stationery, magazine covers, book jackets, posters, logos, newsletters, and visual sequences, all created from a variety of media and graphic techniques.

The works include stationery, magazine covers, book jackets, posters, log The works in the Metals Exhibit were chosen by associate professor of art Leslie Leupp, and represent works ranging from jewelry to hand purses created by introductory to advanced level metal arts classes. The pieces are fashioned from both non-metal and metal materials, including copper, brass, aluminum, steel, nickel, sterling and plastic.

Michele Bowmaster (senior-administration of justice), who was touring the exhibit, said that the metals portion of the exhibit is "really unique." She said she found the rings especially interesting.

Some of the pieces in the Graphic Design Exhibit deal with specific issues. For instance, senior Jennifer Quick's endangered whale poster portrays the image of a whale within a red circle, on a white background. This represents a Japanese flag, and the Japanese role in the extinction of the whale, said Larry Wentzel (senior, graphic design).

Wentzel's piece in the show is a cover for "Print," a student graphic design magazine, which is published once a year. He used pen and ink, and colored pencil to draw the image of three ships sailing off a map, and ran it through a photostat machine to create the final image. The photostat machine enlarges and reduces black and white images but does not pick up the grain of the paper as a Xerox machine would, he said.

Wentzel described various techniques of graphic design used in the The Graphic Design and Metals Exhibit. Regular art techniques such as pen and ink, charcoal, painting, water color, and acrylics are used to create the initial images, and are altered to their final form in variety of ways, Wentzel said.

One of these is xerography, a process used to enlarge or reduce black and white images, but is usually used only for layout work. Another is the photostat machine.

Silk screening is used for color. The pieces in the exhibit which use this method were made with an oil lacquer base ink. A new method being integrated into the department uses a water base lacquer which is easier to clean up and dries faster, Wentzel said.

The graphic design department uses computerized typography for the Alumni Newsletter. Mixed media, which is the combination of any two techniques, is also used, as well as photographics, which works with the alteration of a negative, he said.

Robert Laible, a graduate student in metal arts and whose students have pieces in the show, talked about the basic techniques used by students in the metals part of the exhibit.

Laible said the metal pieces were constructed by the use of various soldering techniques, and riveting, a process used on metal and non-metal materials. Another common technique is hollow construction, which is the building of a volumetric form such as a box. Laible said some advanced students in the exhibit used aluminum anodizing, an electrical process for dying and coloring aluminum.

The Graphic Design and Metals Exhibit is free and open to the public from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. It is running from March 5 to April 6.