Sixth annual digital conference attracts many despite rain

By Nancy Maingi
Staff writer

On April 5, the sixth annual Digital Art Conference was held at UNCP with a record-breaking attendance of 142 participants. The conference attracted UNCP students, professors and participants from the community and other colleges.

UNCP art professor and coordinator of the UNCP Digital Academy Margie Labadie coordinated the conference. Labadie was impressed with the attendance on the rainy day.

“I can’t believe how many people showed up, and on such an awful day, I am astounded…the event was a huge success,” she said.

This seemed to be the general consensus from many of the attendees.

Dr. Sharon Pruitt, an African art professor at ECU, said, “Your faculty is so informed. You all are doing something over here. This was extremely informative and I am excited to teach my students and faculty the things I learned…I wish more colleges could be as informed as you all are.”

The conference set out to demonstrate the value of high quality, original content developed for the visualization of ideas in teaching. Some of the world’s best image-makers participated, and a lot of artwork was on display through a digital exhibition.
Some of the artists featured were Laurie O’keefe, Lynne K. Raissback, Anne Runyon and Gail Guth.

Frank Ippolito, a renowned digital artist, presented his work as well as the work of most of these artists in a “Move Towards Time Based Illustration” segment of the conference. Ippolito presented modern technological art features such as Adobe Photoshop and After Affect, animation and motion design.

“Visual artists need to embrace where technology is going,” Ippolito urged.

Various workshops were held in several different locations throughout the campus.

They took place in Old Main, the Business building, the UC annex and Moore Hall.

Although the weather proved to be an obstacle, those who attended were able to move to the various places of the workshops.

Workshops mainly focused on informing the people present on using technology. There were workshops on GNSI: Image and Portfolio Sharing, Mac Track, Making Tracks, Creating a Multi Camera Music Video, Digital Tools and Apple: Podcasting.

Musician John Santa, along with Professor Larry Arnold, held a workshop on making tracks and digital recording. Recording technology and production techniques were the highlight of their workshop.

“There were about 15 people in attendance and they all seemed to be so fascinated,” Santa said. “We really enjoyed this. It’s very fresh and informative…it’s why I come back every year,” he added.

Santa is no stranger to the UNCP campus. He is the lead in the bluegrass band Eightwentythree that played for this conference as well as several in the past.

At 5 p.m. in Moore Hall, Santa and his band concluded the day with a live bluegrass concert. Those in attendance were pleasantly amazed at the art of bluegrass music.

Santa agreed, informing the audience that “you have no idea how much blues is in bluegrass…the first banjo came from Egypt…bluegrass roots go back to the blues.”

This relationship between the blues and bluegrass is especially evident in their song “Sitting on top of the world.” Santa, who considers himself more of a storyteller than musician, does so in many ways.

“We don’t sell CD’s, we sell books,” he jokingly said, but this is very much true. Santa, a graduate from Carolina, is the author of the book “Bluegrass is my Second Language,” a book about his love for bluegrass, his passion and motivation to tell stories to people that “allow them to leave their world and experience something different, open their eyes and hearts to something different.”

The book is special to Pembroke as it was illustrated by Pembroke graduate J.J. Love and also features stories about people who are part of the Pembroke community.

One of those is Larry Arnold, professor in the music department, and also bass player for Eightwentythree.

There is a copy available in the Mary Livermore Library for anyone wishing to explore the world of “people, relationships and bluegrass.”

Regarding the conference, Santa said, “This is one of the reasons I have a lot of passion for Pembroke.”

“It is a wonderful school with wonderful people and students. Labadie does an outstanding job every year and I am more than happy to come back here,” he continued.

The conference was a huge success this year and Labadie and Santa hope for more student participation next year. Next year’s conference is scheduled for April 4, 2009.