Thorp to speak at Arts Council event

Augusta University Art Department Chair Scott Thorp will be speaking at ICONIC, the second gallery exhibition at the Community Gallery of Augusta. The show, juried by Thorp, will have an opening reception from 5-9 p.m. Friday, Dec. 4, at 600 Broad Street, and run through the month of December.

Thorp will also be discussing his selections at a Gallery Talk as part of the December ASPIRATIONS series at the gallery on Dec. 9.

Thorp, who was named chair of the art department earlier this year, previously worked at the Savannah College of Art and Design as a professor and as design coordinator for the school of foundation studies. Before that, he lived and worked for a decade as an exhibiting artist in the Mid-Atlantic region of the U.S.

In addition to his artistic credits, though, he’s also a writer and a contributing editor for Art Pulse, a nationally-acclaimed art magazine. (Click here to read his latest interview with Native American artist Edward Heap of Birds.)

But by far one of the most interesting things about the art department’s newest chair is his definition of creativity.

We sat down with Thorp recently to get to the heart of his unique definition and to discuss whether creativity is an in-born gift or a truly teachable skill. The answer might surprise you.