Contact: Kay Fike Jones
Newly renovated Stafford Hall will be featured during Super Bulldog Weekend when Mississippi State University's art department holds its first spring open house.
Now housing the Center for Visualization Arts, Stafford will be the site of an April 18 reception for university alumni and friends. The event begins at 2 p.m. in Room 100.
An hour later in the same room, Mississippi State alumnus and former Clinton resident Guy Williams will discuss his work in movie production. A digital effects supervisor at Warner Digital Studios in Los Angeles, he has worked on such feature films as "Batman Forever," "Eraser" and "Mars Attacks."
Williams, who attended the university 1989-93, was a liberal arts major whose curriculum included a heavy concentration in art and animation courses.
In addition to Stafford, the department is showcasing its other buildings during the open house: Briscoe and Freeman halls. Like Stafford, these two-story buildings originally were constructed half a century ago as residence halls. The department, which has the largest studio degree program in the state, acquired Briscoe in 1972 and Freeman 10 years later.
This year, Stafford was renovated to house the facilities for a master of fine arts degree in electronic visualization. Under its roof are classrooms in design, multimedia and graphics, a media library, graduate studios, and faculty offices.
Other open house activities include an art alumni panel discussion 9-11 a.m. on the 18th in 200 Stafford and an informal continental breakfast 8-10 a.m. on the 19th in the McComas Hall Art Gallery. McComas Hall is located on President's Circle, just behind Allen Hall.
For more information, telephone the department at (601) 325-2970.