While music and other art events are not yet happening on campus, you can still do some arty things. Go see horses (the sculptured kind) at Vet Med or read a book, or just read stories about books, below. Also, don't miss the UC Davis Arts Blog's ongoing art synopsis for some air-conditioned options to view art on campus. Exhibits are on view at both the Manetti Shrem Museum and the Gorman Museum right now. 

See Butterfield horse sculptures at Veterinary Medicine

Effort to bring another to campus

John Pascoe, executive associate dean emeritus of the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, said he has always wanted to bring more art to the school, having seen the positive effect of public art at land-grant veterinary schools across the country. Over his more than 40 years at UC Davis, the now-retired Pascoe led the school’s efforts to collaborate with artists to acquire works, especially those depicting animals. A large collection of those works is permanently installed at the school. 

Now, a nearly 7-foot steel sculpture of a horse, coincidentally named John, stands on a platform at the school’s Multi-Purpose Teaching Building in a large bay window looking toward the school’s William R. Pritchard Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital. John was created by internationally renowned sculptor Deborah Butterfield ’71, M.F.A. ’73, known for her horse depictions crafted from found objects such as metal and wood. 

On loan to the school from the UC Davis Fine Arts Collection, John was one of the horses in the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art’s 2024 exhibition, “Deborah Butterfield: P.S. These are not horses.” John stood in the museum’s front window at the museum’s opening in 2016 — and at various times since — before it was moved to a longer-term location at the School of Veterinary Medicine in fall 2024. 

“The human-animal bond is ingrained into the fabric of our school,” said Pascoe. “The school had the perfect place for it, and we’re grateful to the UC Davis Fine Arts Collection for the loan of this magnificent artwork to be on display.”  

Raising money for Bow Tie 

Now the School of Veterinary Medicine is raising funds to purchase and install Bow Tie, another horse sculpted by Butterfield. The cast bronze sculpture is now on view outdoors near the entrance to the Manetti Shrem Museum on Old Davis Road while on loan to UC Davis from Butterfield. The school aims to purchase Bow Tie and then permanently install the sculpture outdoors, where it would be seen from several buildings and greet visitors to the hospital and clinics. 

Amanda Price, Veterinary Medicine, compiled this piece. 

Read the full story in UC Davis Magazine. 

UC Davis Music students take in chamber music experience 

UC Davis Department of Music undergraduate student Zoe Plateau and music alumni Annamarie Bosco, Andrew Hudson, Larry Lozares, Avery Snyder, Ben Saetern, Natalie Laurie, Katie Gorden, Asa Stern, Laura Zhang and Oscar Santamaria were participants in this year’s CALCAP Chamber Music Workshop held at California State University, Sacramento. 

The goal of the two-week event is to provide each musician with a diverse and enjoyable chamber music experience. Each day, participants are assigned to a new group and piece. Following intensive rehearsal and coaching, the group performs a portion of the work at an afternoon or evening concert.

Gorden, Saetern, Laurie and Zhang were interns and Bosco and Plateau were scholars who received full fees scholarships. The interns participated as regular musicians  preparing and giving five performances during the week in addition to performing other administrative duties. In addition, Gorden, Saetern and Zhang gave presentations on topics related to their studies at UC Davis. 

“As a CalCap intern, I gained experience in networking, sight-reading, performing, stage management, music administration, and library maintenance,” said Gorden. “In addition to improving my professional skills, CalCap provided me with a fun opportunity to play with different musicians of all ages.”

“My first year with CALCAP was a very special experience, it was so nice to meet so many passionate and supportive musicians,” said Zhang. “I hope I can come back next year to continue to learn new music and make connections!”

Read the full story here by Michael G. French, College of Letters and Science. See photo below. 

Find art-themed books by faculty and staff

The College of Letters and Science is celebrating art and art history spanning centuries from ancient and medieval times around the world through to modern-day California.

Walk through an illustrated manual of what goes into designing an exhibition space, sift through catalogs featuring faculty artwork, or get inspired as L&S scholars dig deep into those who’ve influenced our thoughts about art to this day. 

See the collection here. 

Embracing confusion and alienation in poetry with Cindy Ok

UC Davis poet discusses writing her new book Ward Toward

There is a tension in Ward Toward, the debut poetry collection of Cindy Juyoung Ok. (Yale University Press). The tension is a sort of unending internal conflict between wanting to be known and also unknown, visible and invisible, recognized and inconspicuous, a blurry face representing not anything and also everything — a world of intense feeling, or intense feelings of numbness. 

"I've always been drawn to poetry. It's a medium in which alienation is very normal and fragmentation is very generative, so it's an estranging form in many ways," said Ok, and assistant professor of English at UC Davis. 

"I think what I find most curious about it — and always have — is the sense that the confusions and frustrations within poetry only create more confusions and frustrations.”  

Throughout Ward Toward, Ok explores themes of depression, hospitalization, the physical body, memory and intergenerational trauma, childhood, longing and loss, violence, dreams, grief, identity, occupation and belonging. She plays with shape, form and unconventional line breaks while also pulling language from text messages and emails from her Korean parents, therapy notes, and wisdom from grandparents, governments and bartenders.  

That experimentation with form and source material is making waves in the poetry world.  

Ward Toward was published by Yale University Press after Ok was named winner of the 2023 Yale Younger Poets Prize, America’s longest-running poetry award.This year, Ward Toward won the Balcones Prize for Poetry and silver for poetry in the Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California’s California Book Awards. It has also been a finalist for the Ohio Book Awards, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize (poetry category) and The National Book Critics Circle Awards’ John Leonard Prize. 

Instead of describing the work herself, Ok is more interested in other people’s impressions and descriptions. There’s no shortage of that as Ward Toward continues to be considered for book awards throughout the country. 

The physics teacher takes a year off

Before she was teaching poetry and creative writing, Ok was a high school science teacher and debate coach.  

"Those roles were really hilarious times of my life because teenagers are very funny and when they love you and you love them, they're even funnier,” Ok said.  

She was in her 20s and it was a time in her life when staying late after school and working on the weekends wasn’t a big deal.  

“It was such a wonderful job because the students are at such a formative moment and you're spending a lot of time with them,” Ok said. “I witnessed so much life happening, and I knew so many students closely and followed them for years.”  

Despite enjoying the work, she eventually was ready to take a break. She felt she had little time to read for pleasure or do any writing herself.   

“I couldn't hear my own voice and I certainly couldn't think in paragraphs and that really concerned me,” Ok said.  

Having saved for most of her career, Ok took a makeshift sabbatical from her full-time job, turning to a freelance year with a plan to return to teaching the following fall. Instead, she ended up in writing residencies, getting fellowships and teaching opportunities, not in science but creative writing.  

Eventually, she decided to get an M.F.A. and, along the way, her individual poems started to form the basis of a larger work. The praise for that work, as well as the job opportunities continued, leading to the publication of her first collection in April 2024 and starting at UC Davis that same fall.  

Ok has also worked in translation from Korean to English, and is the translator of The Hell of That Star by Kim Hyesoon, forthcoming with Wesleyan University Press.

See the original story by Maria Sestito, College of Letters and Science, here. 

Looking for more? Find a faculty interview with Cindy Ok on the Department of English's website and her book listing, Ward Toward, on the L&S Magazine Bookshelf.

Art Spark is all the buzz this summer

Buzz on over this month to check out a special edition of Art Spark inspired by the Manetti Shrem exhibitions
Art Spark, through Aug. 31, Saturdays and Sundays, 1–4 p.m.

Art Spark resumed on Saturday, Aug. 9 in the museum’s Carol and Gerry Parker Art Studio on Saturdays and Sundays. This month, sculpt like a bee and create unique structures with wax and other natural materials inspired by the art of Garnett Puett.