Awards & RecognitionFaculty member recognized for dedication to students

Student overcomes technical difficulties to place in competition

2008 Bagley College of Engineering Student Hall of Fame Inductees

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Special Podcast Release    Nash Street
Walk up to any newsstand on country music row in Nashville and you will see headlines that read “Nash Street named ‘THE BEST NEW ACT IN COUNTRY MUSIC.’” The upbeat blue grass/country band is made-up of Mississippi State students. Daniel Hare, an aerospace engineering major and the lead bass player tells the story of their experience playing at the Ryman Auditorium, home of the Grand Ole Opry, and how this small town band is making it big in the genre of country music.
Click here to listen.

Engineers operate with a certain level of creativity. Expressed through their ability to see beyond the obvious and approach problems in a new manner, this side of their personalities feeds their ingenuity and leads to inventive solutions. Often, this desire to create also leads engineers to venture out of the structured creativity of engineering in order to find a more free form of expression. For Dr. David Lawrence, director of the Raspet Flight Lab, this alternate avenue of expressiveness comes in the form of brush strokes and sculpture.

“I can’t remember a time from my childhood when I wasn’t drawing, and I have continued to develop my visual sense and ideas as an adult,” Lawrence said. “It’s kind of strange. If I am relaxed within, ideas just come and turn into a painting. Many times, I just start with a general thought and it builds from there. With art, you don’t have a developed process like in engineering.”

To Lawrence, overcoming a lack of process can be difficult. His training and experience in engineering often weigh heavily on his thoughts, leading him to try to establish order in his non-objective, or modern, art. While his past may keep him from becoming an artist in the traditional sense, it certainly doesn’t make his work any less impressive. In fact, his projects were recently the subject of an art show at Mississippi State giving him the opportunity to not only share his pieces, but show visitors how engineering experience can lead to artistic expression.

“I think there is something subconscious that is manifesting itself in my art. Due to my left-brain, engineering training, my mind wants everything to be rigid and regimented,” Lawrence explained. “Looking at my art there is a clear division in a lot of pieces. It almost represents the balance of my scientific and artistic sides. A lot of my work is very hard line, crisp, and seems almost geometric in nature, because a part of me says that is the way it needs to be.”

His show featured sculptures, such as his "Circles of Life," as well as canvas paintings. While he puts the same passion and time into each project, he is exceptionally proud of his canvases, though not for the reasons one might expect. It’s his ability to stretch a canvas that he believes shines through in his work.

“If I say anything about my art it’s that I think my canvas stretch is superb. That ability definitely comes from the precision I developed being an engineer,” Lawrence noted with a laugh. “It’s nice to have found a hobby that can merge my need for creative expression with my engineer’s mindset. I don’t think anyone should take life for granted. Everyone should take the time to figure out what it is that truly makes them happy and find time to enjoy it.”