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The following feature story appeared in the campus publication MOSAIC in May, 1997. Although some courses, students, and faculty members referenced in the story may have changed, it still provides a full and accurate picture of the Studio Arts Department. For current course information and a faculty listing we encourage you to visit the department's homepage.
Studio Arts
Learning about creative problem-solving with paint brushes and printing plates
How do you make one color look like two different colors? How do you make two different colors look the same? These are some of the problems posed by Visiting Assistant Professor of Fine Arts and Acting Director of Studio Arts Robert C. Morris in his classes on color. Jennifer Sumergrade '97 took Morris' course as a first-year student, and now she calls the course "the best thing I've ever done." The course, after all, made her realize she wanted to be a studio arts major. And there was something else she hadn't expected: that studio arts classes are as much about creative problem-solving as about the fundamentals of color and design, as much about developing skills with critical thinking tools as with paint brushes and printing plates.
In Trinity's studio arts program, a distinguished faculty of accomplished artists offers instruction in drawing, painting, sculpture, and printmaking. Students may also choose to pursue independent study options in such areas as welding or book arts. The curriculum has recently been expanded to include an architectural focus, which can launch students into a career in architecture, and a series of photography courses, which will be added to the offerings this fall. Through the studio arts program, a small number of majors and hundreds of other students each year learn to use the tools and materials that professional artists use.
Thinking visually, thinking divergently
Associate Professor of Fine Arts and Director of Studio Arts Robert J. Kirschbaum says that as a visually based discipline studio arts is somewhat unique among other, language- based disciplines in the liberal arts setting. "We emphasize the notion that we are engaged in the practice of art as opposed to the study of it," he says. On the other hand, the process of making art, asking questions about it, and engaging in criticism of it helps students to develop what he calls an "inner voice" or an "interior dialectic," very much the same critical-thinking goal of other disciplines."
"I talk a lot to my students about thinking divergently and how critical that is to the creative process," says Assistant Professor of Fine Arts Patricia Tillman. For Tillman, a sculptor, this means avoiding the obvious, logical path toward problem-solving and instead "allowing your mind to travel down any path with the hope of coming up with the unexpected solution to the problem." She notes that thinking divergently applies not only to assignments in her classes but also to any problem-solving situation.
Jocelyn A. Schneider '99 says that her studio arts experiences are teaching her to see things with an eye toward analogy. "I'm learning how to look at materials and how not to view things in their literal form," she says.
The interdisciplinary advantage
Since having something to say is an important part of being a practicing artist, studio arts professors expect students to take concepts from other courses and disciplines and work with them on the visual level in the studio. "You can learn how to draw or how to sculpt in terms of techniques," says Tillman. "But now that you have the tools, what are you going to communicate?"
Jocelyn Schneider says that learning studio arts at a liberal arts college where sciences and humanities flourish is "the best way to do it" for other reasons as well. Students benefit from interdisciplinary classes such as the chemistry department's "Science in Art" course, which addresses the chemical composition of pigment and the preservation of art, and the psychology department's "Psychology of Art," which includes an exploration of perception.
Shane Gauthier '97 is an engineering major who created his own interdisciplinary minor in artistic applications for engineering and design. "It's basically combining sculpture and architecture," he says. Not committed to a specific career path, Gauthier has thoughts of becoming an architect, house builder, or wood craftsman ("What it boils down to is building things with my hands," he declares). He realizes that the engineering background and the hands-on studio arts experience together give him the best possible training.
Campuswide, the studio arts program participates in a variety of interdisciplinary endeavors, from bringing artists from different cultures to campus to teaming up with the religion department and the Austin Arts Center to sponsor the production of sacred art forms of the world.
Professional experiences
For many seniors, the thesis completed in their final semester is the culmination of their learning as an undergraduate. For studio arts majors, the project also becomes a professional experience in the form of a solo exhibit at the Zion Gallery, Trinity's student-run gallery a stone's throw from campus. The Zion has something of the aspect of an East Village gallery, and it offers students a unique "real-life" opportunity, according to Tillman. "Students get the experience of doing a body of thematically related work and actually designing the exhibit so that it looks good in the space," she explains.
Senior studio arts majors not only coordinate their own shows at the Zion but also schedule other activities there. The space has been used to exhibit artwork by children from a local elementary school and by adult artists in the community. This year seniors Sumergrade and Jessica M. Lopes presented a show of artwork from this fall's studio arts courses.
"It's a great experience," says Sumergrade about the responsibilities of curating the Zion. Her own show earlier this spring featured a series of prints, six-inch squares that depicted a progression of color and line.
Sumergrade says that other hands-on, experiential learning opportunities include internships. She has had two, one with an interior design firm in London when she was abroad as a junior, and the other this year with Kathleen Coville Marr Interiors, a firm in West Hartford. Upon graduation she will take a position at Cullman and Cravis, a large interior design firm in New York City, but Sumergrade notes that her preparation in studio arts does not limit her in any way. "If I want to go to business school I still can," she says.
As Kirschbaum observes, "Only a small fraction of studio arts majors end up living off their art, but studio arts majors are equipped for whatever they do."
-- Leslie Virostek