THE ART of CRITIQUE: the BACKBONE of an ARTS EDUCATION LEADERSHIP TEAM from LAURA FREID LAURA FREID President PRESIDENT
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WINTER + SPRING 2018 THE ART OF CRITIQUE: THE BACKBONE OF AN ARTS EDUCATION LEADERSHIP TEAM FROM LAURA FREID LAURA FREID President PRESIDENT ELIZABETH ELICKER IAN ANDERSON JULIE D'ANDREA Dear Students, Alumni, Family, and Friends, Executive Vice President Vice President of Academic Aff airs Vice President of Development Being a newcomer to the vibrant community here at Maine and Dean of the College College of Art, I have had the privilege of seeing the College with fresh eyes and experiencing the New Student Orientation with the Class of 2021. EDITORIAL BOARD Do you remember your fi rst days at college? Try to picture yourself at this year’s Orientation. You would be deciding whether to take A Field Guide to the New World, which ANNIE WADLEIGH RAFFI DER SIMONIAN CLAUDE CASWELL explores ideas and solutions for the changing environment, Assistant Director of Development Director of Marketing Associate Professor, or to get hands-on experience with Slow Fashion: Fibers, and Communications Academic Studies Fashion, and the Farm to gain insights into the textile and fashion industry. Perhaps you would choose Species of DESIGN PHOTOGRAPHY Spaces and learn about the characteristics of the spaces we inhabit and how our senses aff ect our experiences BRITTANY MARTIN KYLE DUBAY ’18 with them. Maybe you would be selected for the Honors Graphic Designer section, which looks at Portland’s urban landscape using Walter Benjamin’s Arcades Project as a guide. In each case, you would be learning about Portland and the ways that artists bring concepts and experiences to life. Being BOARD OF TRUSTEES a student at MECA today is an exhilarating and empowering experience, one that we will attempt to share with you through Brian Wilk ’95, Chair Deborah H. Dluhy John R. Powers ’95 Cynthia Thompson this publication. Dan Poteet, Vice Chair Edward Friedman ’08 Deborah Spring Reed Kathryn Yates This issue focuses on “the art of critique” as the backbone Jane G. Briggs Meredith Koerner P ’16 Susan A. Rogers Paula Zeitlin of an arts college education. Critique is a very useful way Daniel N. Crewe Margaret Morfi t Susan Schraft, MD to sharpen our “ways of looking” and at its best encourages conversation and the creative exchange of ideas. EMERITUS TRUSTEES It is that creative exchange of ideas that drew me to MECA, and it is what I hope to continue exploring with each of you. Whether we are artists or arts appreciators, we all depend Joan L. Amory Ronald Buford Betsy Evans Hunt, Hon. DFA ’13 Candace Pilk Karu, Hon. DFA ’13 on art to help us refl ect on and shape our lives, and we share a commitment to providing artists with the education they need to succeed. My hope is that together we can build a sustainable future MAINE COLLEGE OF ART 522 Congress St., Portland, ME 04101 1.800.639.4808 [email protected] meca.edu that honors the past while educating the artists and designers of tomorrow. Thank you in advance for your precious time and for your interest in helping us create the MECA of the future. 2 Feature: 11 Arts in Portland 25 Lifelong Learning 4 Interview 12 The Next Level 26 Alumni News + Classnotes 2 6 Community Matters 14 Out and About 31 Life after MECA 8 Faculty Corner 16 Annual Report of Giving 6 CONTENTS 10 Spotlight 24 Development News 8 Photo by Nicole Wolf, Courtesy of Old Port Magazine, Maine Media Collective, LLC. Cover: Rosie Allard '14 (right), Instructor in MECA's Textile & Fashion Design Program, with a Pre-College student. 2 FEATURE My later BFA clique included a cacophony of opinionated, but same level of constructive criticism you learn in art school. There’s a lovingly spiteful and shrewdly droll, 90’s-generation comrades. Their reason why most critiques seem simply to be a series of questions. shade-fi lled tutelage formulated a personal adeptness towards verbal What is the meaning behind that particular decision? How do you sparring that proved most useful when I was pitted against a visiting interpret what you’re looking at? It’s survival training for making sense guest critic. In previous years, my heart pounded before a critique of our contemporary world. For most, critique questions can seem to THE CRUCIBLE OF CRITIQUE: as I lay my work out for wolves. Around junior or senior year, that be trivial and to ask the obvious. What’s really going on are mental heart pounding came at the eruption of battle. My work became more gymnastics in observation and interpretation, stripping away the independent and was bolstered by an increased profi ciency in commonplace in order to survey the substantive core. For me, the MICRO THOUGHTS AND WISHFUL BEGINNINGS technical aptitude and conceptual research, compared to previous fun part is that there’s often no answer there, only more questions. assignment-driven projects. Critiques changed at this period as well, Perhaps young artists feel the need to fi nd answers to all the directed towards content and interpretation rather than earlier artistic questions heaved their way. I suggest that maybe the best answer exercises in form, color, and skill. is simply another, more informed question. Something that leads you I had emerged from an all-nighter fi nishing a deeply personal piece to something else. The best part of art-making is the exploration of that was diffi cult to talk about, characteristic of any student on the ideas and the incredible tangents you fi nd along the way. I didn’t verge of fi nding themselves. While I can’t recall the critic's name, I become an artist to remain resistant to a world of diff ering ideas and vividly remember the scene: the subbasement of Pratt Institute, aka experiences. If the blood and tears of art school critique taught me “the dungeon”—a dank 30-foot-square cinder block room with only one anything, it was to question everything and absorb as much as possible. hanging incandescent bulb. Twelve or so of my classmates and a handful of professors all fi led in and took their places along the wall, awaiting the match to begin. The guest critic for the day was a writer from one of New York’s art publications—and this was not my fi rst encounter with him. Commencing without much fanfare, people Artists are uniquely positioned to stand shuffl ed around the installation, some sat and whispered to each other off in the corner, and the white noise of crit assessment reverberated in front of society and culture, absorbing around the room. “So what the hell am I supposed to do with this?” like-minded and divergent opinions in The critic broke the silence and sucked all the air from the room. Our academic squabble volleyed sharp opinions and obscure references order to formulate the work we produce. back and forth, along with several utterances of “he doesn’t get it” from both sides. Twenty minutes later, still visibly shaking and with fully dilated pupils, we concluded with a handshake. I felt as if I’d just gone several rounds with Sugar Ray Leonard and was in dire need The subject of art critique may not always be enjoyable, especially to of a Nat Sherman Black & Gold, or maybe two. young artists. Nonetheless, it keenly generates the skill set to question Speaking later with a trusted professor, I expressed how I felt ways of thinking and expand creative territory. Artists are uniquely the whole ordeal had gone horribly awry and that I wanted to positioned to stand in front of society and culture, absorbing both give up making that type of personal work. Remember, criticism like-minded and divergent opinions in order to formulate the work By Kyle Patnaude, Visiting Assistant Professor of Metalsmithing & Jewelry of personal work at this stage in any art career is all too often seen we produce. In a world where everyone in the comments section is as a personal attack. This professor was my closest confi dant and a veritable Rhodes scholar with an answer for everything, the best extraction from the art critique experience is the ability to say, “I “Most people don’t see what’s going on around everything holy that I never actually had this professor, regardless of still is to this day. She immediately shot me a fl ummoxed stare and don’t know. Let’s think about it.” whether this scenario ever, in fact, occurred—but I certainly heard stories. quickly admonished my defeatism. I had felt beaten to a pulp and them. That’s my principal message to writers: For publicly ousted as a charlatan. She told me the only reason it felt so The art critique is a microcosm of an artist’s life. Think of your practice God’s sake, keep your eyes open. Notice what’s My 18-year-old self was veritably terrifi ed into hellish motivation for merciless was because there was signifi cance in the work. Had the in the studio as you being the guest critic of society, culture, and what going on around you.” – William S. Burroughs approval and perfection upon hearing such tales. Like all early-stage installation been ineff ectual, the dialogue would have devolved into it means to be human. What is art but standing in front of something artists, we yearn for some sense of validation that our creative pursuits tedious niceties and we would have uneventfully moved on. We and proclaiming thoughts and opinions, things you notice and share only fi ght when we believe in something. I realized then and there I could not think of a more suitable introduction to the topic of art are of merit.