Blogger | Choosing A School

By Suzanne Lenz,
Vice President of Development, New Hampshire Institute of Art

Joel Gill, chairperson for the Foundations Department at New Hampshire Institute of Art, Manchester, N.H., knows that successful artists don’t follow rules, they break them. “The word foundation is a metaphor for the building blocks that all students need. It gives students a core understanding for the rules of art making so they can break them more effectively.”

What is a Foundations program?
At some art colleges, the Foundations program is content driven — heavy on promoting ideas with less emphasis on technical expertise. At the Institute, the Foundations program builds necessary skills and visual perception to ensure professional success in an otherwise very competitive environment.

Gill’s goal is to instill a strong work ethic in his freshman students while giving them the technical skills that will help their artwork stand out from that of other artists. “The important thing that we try to teach our students is that art is not magic. It is hard work. The difference between most artists and non-artists is not some sort of born or inherited ability, but the amount of time spent drawing or painting. By the time most people get to art school they have been drawing in sketchbooks and on notes in class for hours and hours.”

The Foundations program is the core for freshman academic studies, giving students the opportunity to explore a variety of materials and concepts as they prepare for their concentration. During the Foundation year, all freshman students develop knowledge and language through art making that will propel them forward through their college experience. Essential classes in color theory, 2D and 3D design, drawing, writing and history are explored. Drawing I and II teaches a student how to see; 2D and 3D design teaches a student the theory behind making art; and materials and processes gives a student an introduction to a variety of mediums.

According to Gill, the most successful and famous artists think and create outside of the box—take Impressionism, Dadaism and Abstract Expressionism. Gill says that even Jackson Pollock, the consummate abstract expressionist, had to go through a process of learning the rules before he could break them. “He knew how to draw. His teacher was Thomas Hart Benton, who painted naturalistic figural art. In his sketchbooks, he copied the paintings of El Greco.”

As a renowned abstract expressionist, Pollock broke three conventions — space, representation and technique. “By playing with light, shade, space, value and application, Pollock challenges the way we see things.”

Regardless of whether a student is interested in concentrating in a specific area, he or she must take all the required foundations courses. For example, a ceramics student must take Drawing I and II to learn how to see. Gill believes that an artist can’t just be passionate and be great. “You need to know how it works so you can better impact people and push their emotional buttons,” he says. Young artists are in competition with all their classmates so we try to instill that work ethic in all of our students from day one by telling them that they must be prepared to be entrepreneurs and work hard.” ■

At New Hampshire Institute of Art, the Foundation Year courses are broken down over two semesters. First semester, in the fall, is Foundation Drawing I, 2D Design or 3D Design, Color Theory or Material Processes, Math and English Composition I. The second semester, in the spring, is Foundation Drawing II, 2D or 3D Design, Color Theory or Material Processes, Introductory Studio Class and English Composition II.

Mission
The Foundations Program at the New Hampshire Institute of Art embraces the necessary experiences critical to building language and skills for our upper level classes. The program fosters the building of necessary skills and heightened visual perception imperative for aesthetic problem resolution. The program serves as a preface to concepts that function as underpinnings for a creative life in art. Through the specific courses in the program many materials and concepts are explored and specific skills are generated. These courses expose the student to skills and concepts necessary for their area of concentration.

Department Goals
• To foster students with an understanding of the history and visual language of art.
• To support students in the passage to higher education.
• To supply facilities and equipment that encourage students to acquire and rehearse skills essential for drawing, color exploration and two and three dimensional design.
• To enable students to select an area of art making to specialize within.

Objectives
• Develop the knowledge and language to discuss concepts and critique art projects.
• Develop technical skills that can be applied to advanced study in concentration.
• Develop the confidence to fully utilize advanced college classes.
• Develop the skill to foster and clarify concepts so that they can be explored through the art making process.
• Develop the skills necessary to commence research and utilize a broad range of art making materials.

The success of Lesley University’s groundbreaking Expressive Therapies program is a living example that taking strength from conflict and “doing the unthinkable” can lead to great things.

That was the message the founders of the program embraced during a one-day conference at Lesley where they enabled professionals to unlock their personal creativity to help lead others in more imaginative and constructive ways.

Using music, drawing and other artistic media, Lesley Professor Shaun McNiff and Dr. Paolo Knill led 102 participants in a series of activities and discussions as part of “Liberating Creativity” a conference held on Aug. 26.

“We did things here that are unthinkable,” said McNiff, who established Lesley’s arts therapy program in the1970s. “To be a 26-year-old kid and start a graduate program, one where all the arts were integrated? No one did that anywhere, truly.”

McNiff and Knill challenged the leaders at the conference to take risks, let go of inhibitions, accept vulnerability and witness and support others. 

“As artists, we know when we make a painting we are getting into a relationship with that painting,” said Knill, Professor Emeritus at Lesley and a founding faculty member of Lesley’s integrated arts graduate programs. “And similarly, when we lead as artists or when we lead an organization, we have to notice where it wants to go and follow it – and that makes it very different.”

McNiff and Knill hailed the supportiveness of the therapeutic learner community, and frequently drew on their experiences as pioneers in the field of Expressive Therapies.

“It evolves – a new organization, a new painting, a new dance,” Knill said. “And new doesn’t mean the old one is bad. It means it’s a life. It liberates itself from us as leaders.”

Other Lesley University faculty who facilitated the conference included Vivien Marcow Speiser, Division Director of National, International and Collaborative Programs in Lesley’s Graduate School of Arts and Social Sciences (GSASS), and Mitchell Kossak, Division Director of Expressive Therapies at GSASS.

“I know wherever I go, this work is expanding,” said Kossak. “The numbers of people who want to do this work is probably at its real growth point right now.”

“We have come full circle since our beginnings in 1974,” added Marcow Speiser, “and we continue to play a pioneering role in the generation of arts-based initiatives that aid the common good.”

The conference, held on Lesley’s Brattle Campus in Washburn Hall, was offered by the Continuing Education Program at GSASS in conjunction with the Graduate Certificate Program in Creativity, Leadership and Social Change.

Paolo Knill advised, “When we lead as artists or when we lead an organization, we have to notice where it wants to go and follow it.”

Lesley University is a trailblazer in the field of Expressive Therapies. One of the largest, most influential of its kind, Lesley’s Expressive Therapies program connects the arts, theory and clinical training to teach students to engage others in the healing process through the therapeutic use of the arts.

Shaun McNiff has authored many books including Trust the Process, Art as Medicine, Art Heals, Art-Based Research, and his recent Integrating the Arts in Therapy. He has received numerous honors and awards for his work including the Honorary Life Member Award of the American Art Therapy Association, and he was appointed as the first University Professor at Lesley in 2002. Recently he helped initiate Lesley’s program in Advanced Graduate Studies in Creativity, Imagination, and Leadership.

Paolo Knill is Provost of the European Graduate School and he teaches and performs internationally. He founded the International Network of Expressive Arts Therapy Training Centers and the ISIS European training institutes, and has worked to extend psychotherapy beyond traditional clinical boundaries into the realms of expression and art.

Art Therapy
Serving others through the Creative Process
The major in Art Therapy is designed for students interested in using art to further the well-being of others. In addition to art therapy courses, the program includes minors in visual art and psychology. Students are prepared for entry level positions in various human services settings, such as mental health clinics, hospitals, child care programs, schools, and community organizations. The major is designed to meet the requirements for a professional master’s degree program in Art Therapy and/or Expressive Therapies.

Students who demonstrate a high level of maturity and academic potential are eligible to apply for the Dual Degree Program: BA/MA in Art Therapy.

The professional major in Art Therapy is designed for students interested in using art modalities in working with adults and children in a variety of settings. It prepares studentsfor entry-level positions in a number of human services settings, such as social service agencies, childcare programs or specialized school programs, and other community settings. It is also designed to prepare students for entry into a professional Master’s degree program in Art Therapy and/or Expressive Art Therapies. This major combines pre-professional courses in the human services with substantial coursework in psychology and an Art minor. Students
will complete over 400 hours in the field.

Post Baccalaureate Option
Master of Arts/Expressive Therapies
AIB BFA students who successfully complete their program, and who have taken
certain prerequisite courses in art therapy and psychology, may apply to Lesley
University’s Master of Art in Expressive Therapies program. If accepted they proceed to two years of graduate study that enables them to be licensed as art/expressive therapists.

The Dual Degree Program in Art Therapy is an honors program designed for exceptional students. The integrated B.S./M.A. program is developed for Lesley University students who are interested in accelerating their educational
experience in a program combining the curriculum of the undergraduate art
therapy major and a graduate program in Art Therapy and Mental Health Counseling.

The program is designed for students who demonstrate a high level of maturity
and academic potential. Essentially an honors program, the integrated program
demands that students be able to achieve the academic rigor of graduate education
by the time they reach their junior year of traditional undergraduate study. Students in this accelerated program must be able to achieve a level of introspection and cultural awareness necessary to engage in clinical work at a relatively young chronological age. Qualified students apply in the fall of their junior year and must be accepted for admission into the Expressive Therapies Division, Graduate School of Arts and Social Sciences. This deadline may be altered for students who transfer to Lesley University. ■

By Anne Shulock,
Communications Specialist, San Francisco Art Institute

In art school, there is no single way to approach your education. Art is messy—not just in the splatter-painted-clothes sense, but in the way that artists must grapple with form, content, and concepts to arrive at meaning. At the San Francisco Art Institute, students embrace an interdisciplinary, experimental approach to contemporary art, taking many paths to and within the school. Here are some SFAI stories.

Melanie Piech
BFA Sculpture
For many people, being a partner in a major law firm would be a fulfilling professional achievement. But after 13 years of practicing law, Melanie Piech had a different thought: that her career choice had been a mistake.
In her childhood, Melanie was surrounded by hands-on work: her father spent 10 years remodeling the family home, doing everything from woodworking and tiling to plumbing and electrical work. Despite a similar knack for building, Melanie became an attorney—but the urge to create didn’t go away. After taking time off work to raise a child, Melanie decided to pursue her true passion for sculpture, furniture, and art.

In choosing a school for this second act, she was drawn to the “funkiness” of the San Francisco Art Institute, as well as the emphasis on ideas. Says Melanie, “[Professors] really push you to go to the next level, a more conceptual level, and to figure out not just what you want to build, but what is it within you that you’re trying to express.”

At SFAI, Melanie has made ambitious sculptures such as an oversized redwood chair that resembles an exoskeleton, and a chair with welded 7-foot wheels that turn independently, allowing the sitter to maneuver and perform. She has also studied computer-aided design, using Vectorworks to model a fountain that a local housing complex has asked her to build for its courtyard.

Art school has proven to be a far cry from her structured former profession. “Here, it’s pretty wide open and you have to forge your own path,” says Melanie. “My experiences at SFAI have given me ammunition to figure out where I’m going.” And along the way she’s achieved not just artistic but personal growth. “When I was a lawyer, I always felt like I was pretending to be somebody else. Now I just feel a lot more comfortable in my skin.”

Djavan Santos
BFA Design and Technology
“Before coming to SFAI, I had a narrow view of what I understood art to be,” says Djavan Santos, who, like many kids, grew up drawing and painting. But in his first semester, he took the course Intro to Digital Sound. “That really opened my eyes to what art couldbe and the broad spectrum of what other artists in the world were doing,” he says. “I felt really drawn to experiment with new technologies and the intersection of art and technology.”

In 2009, SFAI received a grant for the development of a digital platform to facilitate new media collaborations between institutions in San Francisco and Paris, and Djavan, now a Design and Technology major, has participated in the resulting projects. “It’s really interesting to me what role technology plays in our social lives and in connecting geographies,” says Djavan. “What do geographic borders mean in the age of the Internet? What does it mean for someone to be in Paris and someone to be in San Francisco if I see you on my computer screen and we can make work together?”

Djavan further explored these questions in Hamburg, Germany, where during summer 2011 he participated in the HFBK Art School Alliance, a prestigious study abroad program in which seven students from renowned institutions around the world live and work together. The Alliance aligned perfectly with his interest in cross-cultural art and the appealing risk of collaboration: “You can sort of jump in this pool with other people and see what happens.”

That willingness to try new things has been a big part of Djavan’s SFAI experience. “You don’t need to know exactly what you want to do before you come here,” he says. “There are a lot of pathways for you to take, and the teachers and staff will really help you find out what’s best for you.”

Kimia Kline
MFA Painting
An education at the San Francisco Art Institute is based on rigorous studio practice and coursework—but what happens outside the classroom is also a vital part of the experience. “Here, you’re really encouraged to make connections with artists and with faculty, and fostering those relationships is almost as important as academics,” says Kimia Kline, a figurative painter whose work takes on notions of femininity, sexuality, and idealized beauty. “[There is a] sense of energy and camaraderie that exists, both in terms of the undergraduate and the graduate program, and then the way that those two programs intermingle.”

Building on that spirit of collaboration, students frequently exhibit together, both on and off campus. In 2010, Kimia participated in a show at San Francisco’s Treehouse Gallery called Meet Me in the Middle, featuring the work of female Iranian and Israeli artists from SFAI. The show explored how, in a time when political rhetoric and generalizations dominate global discourse, artists’ personal narratives can offer new perspectives on inter-cultural conversations.

And there are more inter-cultural experiences to come: immediately after graduating last spring Kimia moved to Chennai, India. “I’m really excited to see how India affects my work—the colors, the aesthetics there,” she says. She has already tried painting with beet juice to capture the ubiquitous hot pink of the country, and has also received both an artist residency for painting and design work for an advertising company.

In these new explorations, Kimia will draw on her interdisciplinary
education at SFAI. “I came in as a painter, but I’m leaving this school with so many other skills under my belt,” she says. “I’ve been able to study documentary film, I’ve learned how to use Final Cut Pro, Illustrator, Photoshop, I’ve taken a course in graphic design—so even though you may be in one department, they make it very easy for you to use these other artistic practices and bring that into your own.” ■

Thought this was a interesting overview shot with good use of color, lighting and reflection…image provided by Columbia College Hollywood.