Painting

Today Molly and I went and harassed some painting majors at 9:30 in the morning. Honestly I think we were a little surprised there were any upperclassmen who had morning classes, having assumed that they would all have been smart enough to avoid them. But I guess someone had to take the early bird courses, and then again, we are in 8:45 double Fridays, so...

We talked to this cute Asian girl Joan for a good hour before we had to leave and get ready for class, so while we unfortunately didn't get to talk to any faculty, we at least got a fair amount out of our conversation with her. Plus, she's one of Val's past students, so she knew exactly what we were up to, snooping around the arts building before noon, haha.

She first took us on a mini-tour of the department, including the etching studio (which required a combination to enter - fancy). The first thing I learned was that as a painting/print making major, you don't have to do both (though you can if you want) - you can focus in on one or the other. She gave us a brief breakdown of a couple different styles of print making she was involved in (as a primarily print making student) at the time.

She also gave us a mini overview of what our sophomore year might include, including: intermediate drawing, intermediate painting, maybe a printmaking course, a class on concept and issues, plus an elective class (either in or outside our major, I think - she wasn't too clear).

According to her (and another anonymous student), the painting department is extremely diverse and allows for huge flexibility. Basically once you've been giving an assignment, you can communicate it in any way that you want - it's all about your intent and the dialect/conversation sparked. They also told us that assignments become progressively more broad, such as the topic of "home" and conveying what that means to you.

We actually plucked both these students out of their Merits class, which they later told us was like an honors class for painting/print making. You can only do two semesters of it out of your six in your major, and they were both doing one of theirs as first semester juniors. So while I could do merits first semester sophomore year, I would probably want to wait for junior or senior year, just because sophomore year would be more of a test the waters deal, I think. The major perk of merits is having your own space 100% of the time - you don't have to clean for other classes, just leave all your junk where you want, which sounds BEAUTIFUL. I hate sharing, sorry guys.

Joan also talked about basic, intermediate, and advanced painting - three semesters beginning sophomore year and ending first semester junior year. Neither Molly or I really thought to ask what came next, and I'm not sure they would have known, as they were both 1st semester juniors anyway.

When asked about jobs and such, Joan suggested definitely getting an internship, and talked about her own at Studio 1, 2 (she liked them because of the in person element when getting the job). Right now she's just doing the whole cleaning and assisting with installments and such, but she loves it because of the fact that she can work both sides of the art world, the gallery aspect and the artist aspect. She also talked about the possibilities of residencies, which I've been dreaming of attending for years (my teacher junior and senior year talked about ones she'd been to all the time, so much envy). We asked about grad school and she said she definitely wanted to after a few years out in the art field, and that she wanted to go somewhere other than VCU (a good place to start, but too safe to go to grad school here).

The most important part of your major is building a community of like minded individuals, so that you can keep each other in the loop, giving heads up about shows, grants, whatever.

The painting professors are apparently all really chill and get really close with their students (her advisor actually has little parties at the end of semesters or something).

She said that, in hindsight, she really did learn a lot from VCU, the biggest thing being that she needed to step it up. Apparently she didn't always put in her best effort and her teachers could see right through her half-ass attempts. She also said that the classes in painting are at the same general times as our AFO classes, so that wont ever be a huge problem in terms of transition or adjusting.

Joan said she didn't really spend a lot of time outside of class on her paintings during the week because of her internship and stuff, but she did a lot of work on the weekends, and all time spent on projects kind of varied from piece to piece, so it was difficult for her to say how much time she spent in and outside of the studio working (though most professors will say a minimum of 6 hours a week outside of class). This seems pretty reasonable considering I feel like AFO students spent like all spare hours working on projects now.

OH, one of my favorite perks was that after AFO year, we can scan into the fine arts building at ANY TIME, not just before midnight! Heeeell yea.

And, while I'm not a huge partier anyway, she said that by now she's really stopped partying and focusing mostly on her classes and majors, which is comforting to know just because I don't want to constantly be surrounded by party art kids all through undergrad.

I loved that we'll actually be in close contact with our advisors like we are now, mostly because they'll be our teachers.

We also asked her about apartments and such after AFO, and she said she loved where she lived over on Clay street because the houses get pretty big, it's quiet, and it's close to the studios.