Fall 2025 Series Lineup
The Creative Professionals Lecture Series invites a broad range of interdisciplinary practitioners including artists, designers, curators, educators and historians to engage with the campus and local communities. The Watkins College of Art is committed to inviting diverse and innovative voices that propel the transformative power of art and design forward. In addition to public lectures, students benefit from personal engagement with speakers through class visits and studio critiques.
This lecture series is FREE and open to the public.
Sep 08 | AI in Design: Tools, Trends, and Best Practices
This event will be held in the Leu Center for the Visual Arts (Room 120) beginning at 5:00 PM.
Join Executive Vice President of Creative at Lewis Communications Robert Froedge and CEO of Snapshot Mark Scrivner as they share how artificial intelligence is shaping their day-to-day creative design workflows. Drawing from their professional experience, they will explore how designers are integrating AI into the design process—balancing innovation with intentionality. Through case studies and critical reflection, they will consider the evolving role of the designer in an increasingly automated landscape.
This event is moderated by Watkins College of Art Professor of Design Dale Addy.
Oct 06 | Constructing (a) Place in Time
This event will be held in the Leu Center for the Visual Arts (Room 120) beginning at 5:00 PM.
McLean Fahnestock is an Artist, Professor of Art, and Chair of the Department of Art + Design at Austin Peay State University. During this lecture, she will share insights from her multidisciplinary art practice, which investigates how time and sequence shape our understanding of history, place, identity, and how desire works within them all. Through works that incorporate video, sound, and archival imagery, Fahnestock explores repetition, duration, and the reordering of moments to create layered visual narratives. In this lecture, she will discuss the conceptual foundations of her work and how temporal structures serve as both subject and method in her creative process.
This event is moderated by Watkins College of Art Department Chair and Professor of Fine Art Thomas Sturgill.
Oct 20 | Radical Living and Growing an Art Practice Outside of the Existing Paradigms
This event will be held in the Leu Center for the Visual Arts (Room 120) beginning at 5:00 PM.
Benjy Russell shares insights from his self-taught, multi-disciplinary practice, which spans photography, ecological land art, sculpture, set design, and video. Rooted in his identity as a citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and shaped by his upbringing on the Chickasaw Reservation, Russell’s work challenges dominant artistic and cultural frameworks by centering Indigenous knowledge, community engagement, and radical modes of living. In this lecture, he will reflect on how his creative practice resists conventional paradigms, blending activism and art-making to envision more liberated ways of being and creating.
This event is moderated by Watkins College of Art Professor of Photography Christine Rogers.
Nov 03 | Sparking Nashville’s Bright Future of Animation
This event will be held in the Jack C. Massey Center (1890 Theater – 1st Floor) beginning at 5:00 PM.
Chris Sonnenburg (2025-26 Belmont Animator in Residence) is the Owner & Chief Creative Director of EMBERSCOPE STUDIOS. In this talk, he will share insights from his career in animation, exploring the craft of longform storytelling, the role of emotional truth in character development, and the collaborative process behind animated productions. Drawing from both television and feature film experience, Sonnenburg offers a behind-the-scenes look at creativity and leadership in the animation industry.
This event is moderated by Belmont University Chief Creative Officer Rick Rekedal.
The Creative Professionals Lecture Series is presented by the Watkins College of Art at Belmont University and made possible through grant funding provided by the Tennessee Arts Commission.
