Art Nights

 

Two nights a week (and whenever else she says so) my life belongs to Anne Pearce. 

Anne is the main art teacher at Rockhurst, and a woman I owe HUGE thanks to for making my art history minor possible.  As I mentioned in my previous post (http://allisonbody.blogspot.com/2013/01/polka-dots-and-my-career-so-as-it-turns.html), I am doing an art internship/independent study this semester that will count as the final hours of upper level credit for the art history minor I have been putting together for the past few years (Rockhurst does not at this moment offer an art history minor).  My semester with Anne will consist of me curating a “virtual show,” the Rockhurst Festival of Student Achievement, and a show of Rockhurst students’ art downtown.

I don’t know anything about curating, and Anne is teaching me how to curate much like my dad taught me how to swim: by throwing me off the diving board.  On Tuesdays and Thursdays I attend Anne’s independent study night class, which consists of a handful of actual student artists and me.  Since a major part of my job will involve picking students’ art for these shows, Anne briefly introduced me to the class, then gave me the warm and gentle directive “Go talk to them.” 

Maybe I am easily intimidated, but being told to go around the room and talk to some of the most artistic people at Rockhurst about I-don’t-know-what while they are intensely working is not something I do on an average day, in particular because I would not think that most artists at work would want to be interrupted by some curator wannabe toting around her laptop and trying not to ask stupid questions. 

But I should have known better, because that was probably the most interesting class period I’ve ever experienced.  Just like I would love to talk about any writing projects I am working on, these students were more than happy to talk to me about their art, giving me more than just the basic information and telling me about their motivations and inspirations. 

Their art was all over the board: one girl was very good at drawing individual hairs on animals so she was doing a series of cat drawings; one guy was painting cliffs in Ireland and he and I had a lively conversation about how much we loved the place; another girl was thinking about being a biological illustrator and doing a flip book of anatomical drawings of birds.  I think my favorite of the night was a guy who animatedly told me about his plan to make a connection between the Chinese signs of the Zodiac and embarrassing human behavior—I was hooked and can’t wait to see the result. 

I like seeing people in their element and watching them light up about something that means a lot to them.  I think I’m going to enjoy this curating thing…

 

 

My friend Matt is not an art student either, but so desperately wanted to hang around all the cool people in the room that he offered to be a model.  Be careful what you wish for...