Viewpoint; View from the Field »
By Jeff Young, Professor of Art, Art Education »
Art Education students working in the studio. Photo by Jeff Young
For 27 years I taught in the Art Education Studio in McAlister Hall. I appreciated the large windows that looked out from the third floor down to the green spaces in front of and beside McAlister. Over the years, I know a lot of art education students felt like it was home. Prior to class, I would often enter the room to find students sitting in the window seat that overlooked the front lawn, or resting in the second-hand, more-than-gently-used couches near the windows. Over the years, the space had acquired more than its share of artistic ephemera, from a number of students’ variations on Steph’s “It Lives in the Ground” (a young child’s artwork I collected when I taught public school), to a larger-than-life hand that was part of a larger-than-life puppet created by students when Bread and Puppet Theater visited campus.
Steph’s “It Lives in the Ground” and works that it inspired. Photo by Jeff Young
This January, the Introduction to Art Education course and the Fibers course are housed in the new art education studio in the Windgate Fine and Performing Arts Center. The space hosts wonderful lighting from an amazing wall of windows, ample storage, new furniture, and pull-down electrical outlets. Students and faculty are enjoying working in the new space. And, we are looking forward to hosting the Visual Art Studio in April, the after-school art program for elementary-age students in the art education studio.
I’m looking forward to students feeling like this new studio is their home. I know I feel fortunate to be teaching in this brand, new building and this new art education space. Now, I’m just trying to decide where to display “It Lives in the Ground” and that larger-than-life-hand.
Fibers students working in the studio. Photo by Jeff Young
The Windgate Fine and Performing Arts Center is generously supported by; Windgate Foundation, UCA Foundation, University of Central Arkansas
