By Erik Squire
Education Major
The Beacon set out to learn about one of our fine departments on campus, The Art Program. Art is one of the greatest things that humans create. It has been around for ages, on cave walls, created with innumerable mediums, and on unimaginable surfaces. Artwork has touched the soul, caused outrage, and stirred emotions. To learn a bit about what SMCC is doing to progress art in this 21st century, we interviewed a couple art students as well as the former Art Department Chair, Jeff Badger.
The Art Program just celebrated their ten year anniversary. When SMCC changed from SMTC they started with an artisan residence program. This means there was one artist and one studio on campus for five consecutive years, and over this period that person developed courses and purchased equipment to develop the Art Department. Over the course of time the Art Program built itself in increments. One year they had a photographer, then a painter, then a print maker, etc. And each of those people wrote courses. By the end of the artisan residence program they had enough courses to develop a degree program that would be equivalent to that of the first two years of a foundations program at an art school or university program. With that, the Art Department was able to start. They got their curriculum and started developing articulations with other colleges (such as Maine college of Art, Leslie University College of Art and Design, and Saint Joseph’s). They’ve also had students transfer to many other art schools, such as the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, as an example.
Samantha Pratt is taking her second art course. She did Drawing 1 last semester and now she’s in Drawing 2. She says her art is more of a hobby; she’s not particularly interested in pursuing it as a career. She simply enjoys creating it, so she exclaims, “it’s a perfect elective!” I joked that I could tell she took it seriously because she had a bit of charcoal on her face.
Sam (as she likes to be called) explained that when she’s out of college she’ll still continue to draw for recreation, and that it’s nice how she’s learning different methods because now she knows how to work differently. In her words: Chuck (Charles Ott, Art Professor) really helped last semester. I always drew a certain way, and he helped me draw in different ways so it’s great how they can open up your eyes to all the different kinds of methods. Not even just drawing, but you also see things differently. I’m excited to see what I’ll learn this semester. I would just encourage people who haven’t had an interest in art before, to just try it out, you know, as one of their electives. It’s great that we have the department because it’s something that students can do that is a different kind of work, like, it’s not writing papers.
The Beacon also spoke with Krista Kelly, a second year Art major, and she will be working as an art curator through SMCC this semester. The dictionary defines an art curator as such: In contemporary art, the title curator is given to a person who selects and often interprets works of art. In addition to selecting works, the curator often is responsible for writing labels, catalog essays, and other supporting content for the exhibition. As Kelly explains, art curating is vast but, specifically, a curator might work for a museum, or work for certain artists displaying their work, or work hanging art in a gallery. Kelly is a great example of SMCC’s art students who are doing great things.
Last but not least, The Beacon sat down with Jeff Badger, and asked him to talk about the Art Department and some of the exciting things they’re working on.
Jeff was the Art Department Chair for five years, and this year Virginia Rose will be taking his place as Chair.
Jeff states that he feels as though the Art Department is filling a unique niche in the Maine arts community that students can come to for a strong, affordable foundations program. If the students succeed at that then they can go elsewhere and really focus on their own media, and their own specific medium, or career track from there.
The Art program has been around for ten years now and it has grown quite a bit. They have a new sculpture studio, six buildings on campus where they host art classes, and then there are also courses in Brunswick and satellite sites (such as Portland Pottery and Windham high school). There are over a thousand students taking our classes every semester. Often most of the art programs are liberal studies programs, so it’s largely focused on transferring. One of the department’s capstone courses is the portfolio seminar, and that’s something that Jeff teaches. It’s a professional skills class where students develop their resume, their artist statement, their portfolios, and things of that nature. As Jeff says, “we do our best to tailor that class, just like our program, toward a variety of interests.”
One of the noteworthy endeavors of the Art Program is their very first trip to Barcelona over the spring. It’s a four-credit course in the art and architecture of Barcelona, Spain. The students will be meeting a few times on campus and then over spring break they’ll head to Barcelona for seven days. While there, the group will be doing a variety of themed days, for example, Miro and Picasso who were both tied to Barcelona, and the students will witness their artwork from the 20th century. They will also visit the architecture of Antoni Gaudi, as well as take a trip to Figueres where the Salvador Dali museum is located.
The group will be taking two day trips; in the morning they will start with a lecture, Jeff will have local artists and art historians coming to do lectures, as well as myself. In the afternoon the students will be going out and looking at what they have just learned about. Jeff feels that this is really great because “you can learn about art history in a classroom and you’ll talk about architecture art and then you look at slides. In this case we’re going to talk about it and then go and see the real thing.”
Jeff happily explained that: Barcelona is a really amazing city in terms of being a crossroads of Europe. You see everything from Roman Ruins to Modern Architecture. It’s an interesting thing. I’m really looking forward to it. I went to Barcelona myself when I was in college and I have not been back there yet. But I’ve been reading a whole lot about it and it’s great. We’re running it through CIEE, which is a local organization and they are assisting with all the logistics. It’s going to be really great. If it works we’ll try to do it again.
Jeff Badger also puts together a monthly Art Lunch Box, and it’s the last Thursday of every month. He’s trying to book speakers who will have a cross departmental appeal. For example, he had Mauricio Handler, who did Marine Biology and was a Marine Biologist natural photographer. Jeff feels that it was a great crossover with Marine science, Communications and New Media (because Mr. Handler also does film), and then also Art of course.
Another interesting feature about the Art Department is that at the end of every spring semester, SMCC’s Art seniors have an art exhibition. It’s going to be at Three Fish Gallery in April, and it’s part of the student’s graduation requirement. There are nine students finishing the program this semester so they will all be exhibiting their work, and Jeff says he’s looking forward to that too.
Finally, Jeff left off the interview with something for those who believe they don’t have the “talent” to be an artist: Some people may have more (artful) ability than others starting off, but what it really comes down to is work; working at understanding the concepts and putting in the time in the studio to develop those skills. Anybody who comes into my class – and I will say this about any of the other instructors – if you come in and put in the time and the effort, you will improve (from where ever it is that you start from).