Dr. Christian Conrad
conradmerz@yahoo.com

EDUCATION
PhD Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX. 2010
M.F.A, Radford University, Radford, VA. 2005
B.F.A., Webster University, St. Louis, MO. 1998

DISSERTATION TOPIC
A Personal Examination of Nomadic Studio Practice
Over the course of 2009, I decided to work with the United States one-cent piece, more commonly known as the penny, in a series of artistic pieces. Each piece examined a particular aspect of how I believe the penny interacts with the general populace. The first artistic piece focused on my interaction with my surroundings: for over a year, I recorded every penny I found in my local town of Lubbock, Texas, along with both the side (heads or tails) facing up and the day on which the penny was found. The second artistic piece was an installation where I deposited over a thousand pennies on the ground in a public location and, for one week, witnessed the interactions between the site and its large number of pennies. The final pieces involved using the found coins from the first artistic piece in a series of more traditional artistic works. The first of these works was a photographic documentation of those coins with obscured dates of mint; this series of photographs showed the interaction of the pennies with their environment. The second work involved the pennies with readable dates, which I arranged chronologically in a column, reflecting the decay of the object as time progressed.

TEACHING AND RESOURCE POSITIONS
Lecturer (Full Tme), Texas Tech University, 2013-Present
Art History Lecture Series, Texas Tech University Museum Association, 2011-Present

COURSES TAUGHT
Art History Survey One (13 sections, enrollment 45)
This course teaches Prehistoric art through the Pre-renaissance period and is required for art majors.
Art Appreciation (12 sections, enrollment 50-200)
This course is designed for non-art majors and covers fundamental concepts found in the formal elements of art, media practice, and art history.