A docent for the community

USF's St. Petersburg campus now has a full-time art historian. Her goal: teach students how appreciating art can help them understand where they live.

By BRANDY STARK
© St. Petersburg Times
published January 6, 2002

[Times photo: Michael Rondou] Assistant professor Sheramy Bundrick is the first full-time teacher of art history on USF’s St. Petersburg campus. She says she first got interested in ancient art in sixth grade when she saw Raiders of the Lost Ark.

ST. PETERSBURG -- With several art museums, scores of galleries and an ever-growing population of artists, there's no lack of art in the area. But only with the recent expansion of the University of South Florida in St. Petersburg has the campus had a full-time art historian on the faculty.

Sheramy Bundrick, a specialist in Greek and Roman art, is among the 42 new full-time faculty members added to handle the growth of the undergraduate program that has almost doubled the number of faculty on the campus, from 56 last year to 98 this year.

Bundrick, 30, received her doctorate from Emory University in 1998. After two years as an assistant curator at the Michael C. Carlos Museum in Atlanta, she spent nine months on a fellowship researching Greek pottery at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. She is writing a book about the musical imagery in 5th century B.C.E. Athenian art.

Bundrick "is someone who can relate to the art community, art historians and art educators," said USF-St. Petersburg vice president Bill Heller. "She will be our resident expert and help guide us as we develop our programming."

For many college students forced to sit through interminable slide shows and haul around hefty textbooks, art history has a pretty dry reputation. But Bundrick doesn't see it that way. She got interested in ancient art in a decidedly nonacademic setting: the local movie theater. As a sixth-grader, she saw the archaeological adventure flick Raiders of the Lost Ark and was hooked on antiquities.

"I was really intrigued by that movie and started to read more about mythology. As a young adult, I ended up at Emory University, which is where I had my first experience with an art history course. I knew I had found my niche, so I stuck with it."

Her niche ranges far beyond the ancient world. This spring, the assistant professor will be teaching about art from the Renaissance to the present. "I've taught Greek and Roman art, and hope to be concentrating on other ancient art courses in the future," she said.

The fine arts program at USF-St. Petersburg is growing, but Bundrick knows most of her students aren't there to become art historians. So her goal is to help students develop the skills to help them enjoy art in all its forms.

"I want my students to be able to go into a museum and look at a painting and appreciate it, understand it and have something to say about it. I hope to pass on a sense of chronology in art, how a sense of history enriches the understanding of art."

She also intends to show how appreciating art can help one understand the local community.

"Coming here from out of state, I feel the freshness of the city, and how it is being revitalized. In terms of art, there's so much here for me to work with in my teaching, including the Tampa Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Art and the Dali in St. Petersburg, and the Ringling Museum in Sarasota."

Bundrick also sees art history as an exciting way to train the mind.

"Many people have a view that art history is an academic extra, and that's not true. Studying art history helps to train the mind to look at things differently," she said.

"For example, people deal with buildings and architecture every day, but they don't analyze it. Why is the door located where it is? What is the significance of the windows? This subject really teaches the mind to question and explore everyday surroundings in order to understand subtle statements about society."

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