March 2, 2021
MACOMB, MOLINE, IL – For Western Illinois University Art Professor Bruce Walters, a 37-year career teaching in higher education has been accentuated by the personal artwork he s created, in a wide variety of mediums, and that he has shown in more than 100 exhibitions across the country.
As Walters prepares to retire from teaching in May, an exhibit of part of his inspired work, titled What the Hand Dare Seize the Fire? is on display at the University Art Gallery through Friday, April 2. The title of the current exhibit is taken from a 227-year-old poem, The Tyger, by William Blake. The first drawings in this exhibition are drawn from the poem s first stanzas, he said. Where the poem follows with a series of questions on the nature of God, I shifted my attention to who seized the fire. I answer first with Prometheus, who dared to seize the fire from the gods of Olympus. Science and technology are the progeny of this gift to humanity.