Jim Arendt, associate professor of visual arts and director of the Rebecca Randall Bryan Art Gallery, has been recognized for his artwork by multiple organizations across the U.S.

Arendt has a unique art style which stems from where he is from and how he was raised. He grew up on a farm just outside of Flint, Mich., in the early 1980s and saw, first hand, radical shifts in the economy as the industrial and agrarian economies disappeared from the area. Flint, the birthplace of General Motors, heavily relied on the industrial economy and when jobs at General Motors were outsourced to different regions and countries, the rural areas of Flint felt an immediate impact. As Arendt saw this growing up, it left a lasting impression, which is reflected in his art today.

“The resulting impact on the lives of the people I grew up with has left an indelible mark on my outlook, and on our relationship with work as a concept, as I seek to make sense of the narrative that unfolded,” said Arendt.

Before coming to Coastal Carolina University in 2011, Arendt earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Kendall College of Art and Design. He received his Master of Fine Arts in art studio at the University of South Carolina. Following graduate school, he was an adjunct instructor at USC until 2008. After his time at USC, Arendt had a brief stint in Orangeburg at South Carolina State University, where he acted as a curator and instructor until coming to CCU. When he arrived at CCU, he began his work and became an associate professor of visual arts and the director of the Rebecca Randall Bryan Art Gallery.

Along with being a professor and director of the art gallery, Arendt has competed and judged in many solo and group art exhibitions. Most recently, Arendt competed in the Fiberart International exhibition. Fiberart is an exhibition hosted in Pittsburgh, Pa., and is open to submissions from artists who have created some sort of art using textiles. Arendt received first place on his piece, “Cat: Free Will Ain’t Cheap.” This piece was created with donated denim and was inspired by how Arendt grew up. He says that its concept is to “work with the materials at hand,” and this “make-do” attitude is something that was common while he was growing up outside of Flint.

Art was a part of Arendt’s life even when he was young. Arendt and his family were living through the farm crisis of the 1980s, and he has memories of his father sitting at a sewing machine patching up his Wrangler jeans after work.

“He was making do,” said Arendt. “A concept of thrift and pragmatism that dictates you to work with the materials at hand.”

He kept this in the back of his mind until his early twenties when he decided he wanted to work with denim as a way to create art. He believes that using a material like denim is much closer to the truth of people’s lives than something such as oil paint.

“My artwork grows out of the need for me to understand how values that I know to be good struggle to find a foothold in the workplace, society and the world at large,” said Arendt.

According to Arendt, economic structures surround people in an invisible web design to extract work from us at the lowest cost to the system.

“For instance, more than 56 percent of faculty members at Coastal are not tenure track, meaning they operate without the security of predictable employment,” said Arendt. “My motivation is to make these invisible systems evident, tangible and personal.”

Arendt has taught a number of different classes at CCU, from entry-level courses to upper-level illustration and figure structuring classes. He has also instructed UNIV 110: First Year Experience, where he has helped new students at CCU make the transition to the Conway campus life.

Arendt has been recognized by many different art organizations throughout his career. In the past few years, he has won “best in show” at “Intertwined: Contemporary Southeastern Fiber Art” in Duluth, Ga. and earned second place in “Art of Labor” at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles. His next two solo exhibitions will take place at the Dairy Arts Center in Boulder, Colo., this year and at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, next year.

“I’ve garnered more praise and awards than I deserve,” said Arendt. “That has allowed me to share my ideas about our relationship to labor, the importance of making, and the metaphoric language of materials with audiences across this country and around the world.”

Arendt loves the opportunity to share his artwork with the world. He says he enjoys displaying his artwork in front of new people so that he can find others who resonate with his work.

“My favorite audience are elementary school students who are bussed to museums and are encountering a living artist,” said Arendt. “They are my jam.”

To see and learn more about Arendt’s artwork, visit jimarendt.com.

Facebook page: @JimArendt.Art