Monthly Art Mixers

Mitchell White 

Mitchell White is a native of Livingston, Tennessee. He earned his BS in Art Education at Tennessee Technological University, with a focus in painting. He is an art instructor at Cookeville High School in Cookeville, Tennessee, where he also serves as the chairman of the department of fine arts.

Dr. Carol Ventura

Dr. Carol Ventura was the art historian at Tennessee Technological University from 1994 until 2021. She is still actively involved in the arts as Professor Emerita. Carol has also taught ceramics, photography, printmaking, silversmithing, enameling, basketry, tapestry crochet, and weaving. She worked with a weaving cooperative in Guatemala as a Peace Corps volunteer from 1976-80 and later wrote a bilingual book about backstrap weaving. Carol also authored three books about tapestry crochet, another Guatemalan craft.

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Carol’s scholarly papers and articles have been published in both refereed journals and the popular press. Her studio background adds an extra dimension to her teaching and writing because she understands how crafts and art are made. Carol has presented papers at international conferences and her award-winning ceramics, fiber art, glass, jewelry, and photographs have been included in over a hundred exhibitions. Carol’s web page at CarolVentura.com features craftspeople and artists she has met around the world.

Leah Looper

Leah Looper is a fine arts teacher at Cookeville High School in Cookeville, Tennessee. She was a recipient of the Nichols Freshman Art Scholarship and the Bacchanal Scholarships at TTU and graduated with a BFA in Art Education, concentrating in painting and ceramics. At Cookeville High School she enjoys teaching the fundamentals of the elements and principles of art & design as well as the honors ceramics course.

Perry Johnson

Perry Johnson is a figurative realist painter with a focus on material and process. His lineage traces back to other makers, mostly of mischief, but also of traditional hand crafts of his native Appalachia. Born in Southwest Virginia, he soon shamed his family by taking an interest in painting over music. While painting remains a first language, the poor soul, blessed with curiosity, also took to printmaking, programming, and many a devil’s dalliance.

 

Johnson studied at Virginia Intermont College, earning a BFA in Printmaking. His MFA is from East Tennessee State University. Beginning in graduate school, Perry worked as a programmer, first for the web and then moved to application and database development. He has been teaching since 1999, starting as adjunct faculty at Southwest Virginia Community College where he had enrolled while also in the 8th grade. His first tenure-track post was for another alma mater, Virginia Intermont College, where he taught until the school closed. Again breaking from his chaotic kith and kin, Perry and his wife Nicole reside in the manner of upstanding citizenry. Perry is now Associate Professor of Painting and related courses at Tennessee Tech University.

Dr. Bevin Butler

Bevin Butler is the Assistant Professor of Art History at Tennessee Tech University.  She received her PhD in Art History, Theory & Criticism from Arizona State University in 2021.  Her dissertation, titled, “Crafting Agency in Needle and Thread: "Nuns' Work" and Textile Production in Late Medieval Monasteries,” critically interrogates the historic associations of textiles with femininity, the historiography regarding nuns' contributions to the arts in the Middle Ages, and the ways in which embroideries and tapestries produced by nuns subverted traditional church hierarchies. 

Bevin is interested in critical theories related to gender in art and the history of categories such as craft, decorative or applied art, and fine art.  She teaches a variety of art history courses that engage students to see how developing an understanding of art and art history is essential to building empathy, applying critical thinking, and exercising visual literacy.