Drawing Professor Polly Ewens-Caster has been appointed the first Jane Shaw Knox Chair of Drawing for her exemplary credentials in artistic and teaching excellence.
The Jane Shaw Knox Chair of Drawing was created to recognize David and Dedi Knox’s 19 years of service to the Board of Trustees and significant philanthropic support of the college, and to honor David Knox’s mother.
Knox said he was inspired to create the position by MIAD’s established and long-standing tradition of excellence in drawing, which was his mother’s artistic expertise.
“The creation of this named chair honors my mother’s great appreciation for the arts and love of drawing, which contributed to my own understanding of drawing as a vital core skill in the education of artists,” he said at a reception in April.
“Polly Ewens-Caster is the ethos of the college,” said Provost David Martin. “She is a model teacher who has the ability to see into every student and to pull their unique gift out of them without them even knowing. She not only has left a unique imprint on every student, but her thinking and teaching permeate the curriculum.”
Ewens-Caster, a faculty member for more than 30 years who exhibits regionally and nationally, is one of a handful of artists who have undertaken the study of Human Anatomy as a science and then translated that knowledge into visual language that enriches and deepens her students’ figurative experience.
Thanking the Knoxes and Board of Trustees for being “the backbone of the college and making dreams a reality,” Ewens-Caster said, “Jane Shaw Knox will be walking with me as I continue to live this dream.”
