Art Club Emerging! Read the Hawk's Herald Interview with Miranda Smith

Update: The Art Club now has a Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/RWU-Art-Club/




Sitting in one of the many conference halls of Global Heritage Hall, creativity flowed through the air as art was the main topic of discussion. The Hawks' Herald sat down with Miranda Smith, a senior visual arts major at Roger Wil­liamsUniversity. We met to talk about the new art club, called The Art Club, which she has started on campus.

TheHawks' Herald: Why did you want to start The Art Club?

Miranda Smith: As a visual arts major, I feel that there's really a lack of art on campus and you don't really get the feeling of the artistic community, so we really want to find a way, through this art club, to bring that presence to campus.

HH: What kind of art is it go­ing to contain and what's it all about?

MS: Well what we're going to do is [we really want to] have joint events with groups on campus for the students. I've been talking with the President of the Musician's Guild, Ryan Treppedi, and we really want to join together to put on a stu­dent art show as well as concert. So we want to do that and just have discussions and share work with each other so that we can foster creativity.

HH: That's very cool. The whole joint club thing is very interesting.

MS: Yeah, I really want to join with other groups too, like Writer's Anonymous and Dance Club and see what we can do together. We want to create a creative community.

HH: So other than activities with other clubs, do you have anything else planned for the rest of the semester or year?

MS: Well we're still in our be­ginning stages of starting up the club. We actually aren't having our first meeting until Monday (September 26) [But] what I want to do and what I'm work­ing with my board members to do is to create a logo contest so that people could submit ideas for a logo for The Art Club and then the winner will become the official logo. So that's one of our ideas. And then we also want to show movies, like art related movies. I was thinking Exit Through the Gift Shop would be a really good one. And then in the future, when we get funding, we want to have spon­sored events where we would go the museums and other creative places.

HH: Why should people join The Art Club?

MS: A lot of people I've talked to about it just feel like com­ing to college, they kind of lose their creative and artistic urge to create and they kind of get lost in all the academics. And for those who aren't visual arts majors, they don't really have that much opportunity so this

will be a great way to really get back into it and let you imagi­nation run wild.

Already 23 people are signed up for The Art Club and Mi­randa and the other board members are hoping for a big turnout for this new and excit­ing club.

Miranda Smith and her sculpture, Spring 2011

http://www.hawksherald.com

Did You Read the Herald?

In case you missed it, this past week's Hawk's Herald carried an editorial by Alexandra Artiano on the Visual Arts at RWU.  Alexandra is a Creative writing major, a VARTS Minor and a damn good painter.  She is also very truthful and brave to point out in the Herald what is obvious - that the Arts have not been a priority at RWU and that the University is all the poorer for not adequately supporting, and indeed, celebrating the Visual Arts on campus - specifically, the work of the students who find their way into the round building as Majors, Minors, Core Concentrators and those who seek a VARTS class to augment their Liberal Arts or Professional School study.


Alexandra has provided the text of her editorial so that I may share it with you here.  I encourage you to respond, contact Alex or write to the paper to make your views known.


Go Alex!

Editorial on the Visual Arts Department
Hawk's Herald
Alexandra Artiano

February 10, 2011

Contact Alexandra

I feel The Visual Arts Department is something that has been greatly overlooked at Roger Williams University. When talking about all the strengths this school has to offer the list usually goes: beautiful campus, great cafeteria, Architecture Department, Marine Sciences, and we offer a lot of majors too.

It’s hard to really see where the Visual Arts fit in with our community logistically. Where I believe it should be is at an equal level with the top things that we offer, along with the other overlooked majors. The Arts are not only an important part of any community but also an essential part of a Liberal Arts community. Student art is a visual expression of what we as a student body are feeling and are interested in. This is something that can attract new students and invigorate existing ones. Right now, that huge source of student power and student interest is not being fully utilized and the solution to that is a permanent on-campus gallery space for the Visual Arts. The school has just this year purchased an off-campus warehouse that is shared between the seniors of the Visual Arts Department and the School of Engineering. While this is a step in the right direction, it is also limiting in the fact that all of that great work and influence is getting pushed out of the day-to-day at RWU.

What we need is a new art building. Even as a Visual Arts minor, the studio space in the architecture building makes my mouth water and my blood boil of jealousy. Aren’t Visual Arts students just as deserving? One of the problems is that the largest portion of students in the Visual Arts Department are minors. But if there was studio space and a better on-campus presence that would change and we would be able to have the art community that any liberal arts university should have. When talking with Stephen White, Dean of SAAHP, I learned that the administration’s feeling is not much different than the students’; mostly they too believe the Visual Arts is an important part of our community. The fact is though that it has been a long uphill battle. “There’s attempts underway for a fair amount of time to heighten the arts” White said. While this is true, the lack of progress one student sees in the four years of enrollment can be discouraging. When it comes to admission White said that “Something that occurs here, kind of, is the university projects itself in general and so people can’t quite see the specifics of art from the outside very clearly, which I think could be better”.

This problem of getting people who are not directly involved with the arts excited and more importantly-supportive, is something every artist and artist community faces. “Some of the issue is somehow not regularly having a culture of displaying our work, thats not to fault people in the program necessarily but I think we could show ourselves a little more”. On the positive side it seems that students and faculty are united in wanting expansion and growth in the arts here at RWU. “There are more opportunities than had been there before and so part of the issue now is making sure everybody knows about them”. Fighting to keep a positive perspective inside the department is essential to getting this expansion and growth. But simply as White said, “There needs to be a regular place to display student work, a secure place, one of the problems with all the venues other than the library is that people might not feel that their work will be safe”.

While there isn’t a stable place to display art, the VisualArts department doeshave two showings scheduled this semester. From April 15-20, there will be student awards at the off campus warehouse, 255 Franklin St. From May18-21 there will be the Visual Arts Senior Show at the gallery in the School of Architecture.

What is the University’s responsibility to the arts? I think they should be actively working to keep each major here at an equal playing field. But that doesn’t seem to be the direction the university is heading in. White recognizes this in saying “We’re constrained in some way, particularly at the lower levels... somehow in the evolution ofthe university I think it is surprising in some ways that some of the things that are the core humanities, the core liberal art, english, history, art, art history are some what undersubscribed at Roger Williams and somehow I think its just been the culture that the more professional majors the, ones that seem a little more career oriented somehow have become more prominent”

Even if a major has less than 100 people enrolled it is no less entitled to and no less deserving of the full attention and support of the university. This school should do all in its power to ensure that every major gives the students equal opportunity for success, because after all isn’t that what college is all about?