Robinson Wood Utilization Center donates mahogany to UK School of Art and Visual Studies students

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Nov. 27,  2024) — To strengthen transdisciplinary connections and improve students’ educational experience, the University of Kentucky Robinson Wood Utilization Center donated 300 board feet of mahogany for students in the UK College of Fine Arts School of Art and Visual Studies (SA/VS).

While visiting the Wood Utilization Center, Rae Goodwin, SA/VS professor and associate dean of research/creative activities, and Daniel Wilson, Robinson Center director and east region extension director, discussed partnership opportunities.

Goodwin told Wilson about the Foundations program for SA/VS students, which includes a woodworking project. The students, about 80 per semester, have always been responsible for sourcing their own wood for the class, which has continually become more expensive over the years.

Thanks to UK’s Wood Utilization Center, this fall’s students completed their projects with high-quality wood, free of charge.

‘A fantastic hardwood’

Part of the Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment and located at Robinson Center in Breathitt County, Kentucky, the Wood Utilization Center serves its region and the wood manufacturing industry through research, extension and teaching.

“The amount of things you use that have wood in them is amazing,” said John Marcum, technician at the Wood Utilization Center. “Everything from Post-It notes, which have wood sugars in them to make them sticky, all the way to countertop material, wood cabinets, wood flooring — it’s in every bit of life.”

While the Wood Utilization Center often works with domestic hardwoods grown and harvested in Kentucky, mahogany grows in a tropical region closer to the equator, and the donated lumber was purchased, not processed, by the center.

Marcum said mahogany is a high-end, strong wood, with “excellent workability.”

Its tropical origins give it unique qualities, said Paul Masterson, SA/VS woodshop coordinator. Mahogany is water and weather resistant, so it’s often used for outdoor products, like ships. Unlike other outdoor woods, mahogany has “a really beautiful grain,” he said.

“Mahogany is a fantastic hardwood,” Masterson said. “Having access to something of this quality is a real gift for them.”

Many students in the Foundations program have never worked with wood, so this project allows them to learn not only about woodworking but also about the forestry industry. Partnering with the Wood Utilization Center emphasizes the importance of the natural materials that grow here in Kentucky.

“For these students to learn about the value of the wood industry to the state of Kentucky is an invaluable lesson,” Wilson said.

Building sanctuary 

When digital media design freshman Brooke Hartman learned she would be using mahogany for her Foundations class project, she thought of the popular line from “The Hunger Games” film, when character Effie Trinket gasps, “That is mahogany!”

“As soon as [Goodwin] said mahogany, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, Effie would love this,’” Hartman said.

That was pretty much all Hartman knew about mahogany, and as a photographer, she hadn’t worked with wood or other sculpture materials used in Goodwin’s 3D Foundations class this fall.

The professors of the four sections of the Foundations class agree on certain guidelines for the woodworking project, but each can set a specific assignment.

“We have always had a wood project because Kentucky is definitely known for woodworking, and we want them to know the heritage of this place,” Goodwin said.

Goodwin’s assignment for her students: Focused on the theme “sanctuary,” create any kind of box that has four sides and incorporate a mixed media element.

“It can go in lots of different directions, which is a goal for me as a professor in an art and design class,” Goodwin said. “I really want my students to investigate their own ideas, to have their own voice aesthetically and conceptually.” 

Students presented their finished product to Goodwin and their classmates. No two boxes looked the same, ranging from an anatomically correct heart inside a cube frame to a compartmentalized shelf to hold crystals.

For Hartman, sanctuary means “people and my connections with others.” She built a 3D frame, then added a vase from her mom with dried flowers from her loved ones. She glued dried petals onto a ribbon and draped it over the box.

“It’s representative of how even though relationships with others are tough a lot of the time, at the end of the day, those people are my sanctuary, and that’s where I go when I need comfort,” Hartman said.

Hartman said her project “wouldn’t look the same at all” if she hadn’t been able to work with mahogany.

“They did a really good job of explaining how cool mahogany is,” Hartman said. “We were so lucky that we were able to use it.”

The donated mahogany allowed everyone to work with the same quality of material, Goodwin said, creating an “egalitarian” environment for students to succeed. She said SA/VS is very grateful to the Wood Utilization Center.

“Inter-college collaborations are dynamic and necessary,” Goodwin said. “I think they are for the betterment of all of our students and certainly for the Commonwealth as a whole.”

To learn more about the Robinson Wood Utilization Center, visit https://robinson-center.ca.uky.edu/robinson-wood-utilization-center. To learn more about the UK School of Art and Visual Studies, visit https://finearts.uky.edu/savs.