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As a child, I remember the joy of waking up on a cold Monday morning and realizing I could spend the day at home. Looking back, though I knew it was Presidents’ Day, I did not think much of it, aside from my gratitude for the day off.  As a political science major, I reflect on my youthful lack of awareness with curiosity, but in retrospect, it is no surprise that the holiday was not on my radar. I never actually learned about the origins or significance of Presidents’ Day in school, and as such, I didn’t give much thought...

Magdalena Abakanowicz (Polish, 1930-2017)The Group of Ten, 2011Bronze63.5 x 74 x 96 in.Gift of the Artist; Pat and B.D. Rodgers; Linda and George Kelly, parents of Win Kelly, Class of 2002, and Madeline Kelly, Class of 2008; Katherine Belk-Cook; and Virginia Newell, Class of 1978 There's an uncanniness to Abakanowicz's bronze figures, arranged in a battalion-like configuration between Chambers and Union. The uneven spacing and varying heights of the figures communicate the individual and collective experience of being in a crowd, and their scarred surface textures allude to the texture of tree bark. Abakanowicz's The Group of Ten was installed...

Rachel Perry (American, b. 1962)Lost in My Life (Chiral Lines 3), 2016Digital pigment60.25 x 40.75 in.Gift of John Andrew MacMahon '95 It took me a few moments to recognize what was happening in this photograph – amidst the colorful, vibrating lines is a person, blending into the background and hiding their face with a piece of the abstract pattern of their environment. As it turns out, this hidden figure is not just anyone, but the artist herself, and the lines draw directly from her own life. Artist Rachel Perry is best known for her manipulation of everyday items to comment on...

Ignatius Palmer (American, 1904-1992)Deer, 1978Watercolor on paper8.5 x 11.5 inGift of Carol Quillen, 18th President of Davidson College, and George McLendon While working a shift in the Galleries' offices where I returned some art to the storage racks, my eyes were drawn to a specific piece. Two blue-tinted mule deer, identifiable by their black-tipped tails and gray muzzles, gallivant through a fragmented environment reminiscent of early Safavid paintings. Deer are my favorite animal, and to see them depicted in such natural movement yet beautifully stylized really pleased my soul. The colors, cool yet bright, remind of a landscape just after...