My love/hate relationship with the art department

BY JONAS MOODY

I tried for three semesters to get into a photography class. I know I'm not an art major. I haven't constructed a darkroom in my parent's basement. And during my interview for intro photography, I chose not to dissolve my soul and spoon feed it to my professor. Nor did I catalogue the reasons why, from the moment I laid eyes on my mom's Polaroid 660, the end all and be all of my life would be photography. Is it just me or should the $30,000-plus tuition we pay entitle us to an introductory class in any field?

KIRA RYSKINA/YH This past year, the art department was moved into a newly-refurbished building on Chapel Street.

I finally got wise, registered for the 8:30 a.m. class and lied on my application, claiming the ambitious art major as my intended program of study. So began my love/hate affair with the Yale undergraduate art department.

After the rigorous application process (for the intro courses, mind you) many come into the art department expecting a program of study like that of an art institute. And it does have the feel of an art institute, since its professors aren't so much members of Yale University as they are of the art department. This is true not only for photography, but most fields in the art department. The bulk of professors and lecturers live in New York City and commute several times a week. While the department is not closely tied to the rest of the University, it is well integrated with the Yale Graduate School of Art. This relationship brings rich benefits to the undergraduate programs. All TAs are students from the prestigious graduate program, which, year after year, continues to introduce some of the brightest and most exciting new work into the art world. Graduate student critiques are open to other students and most art classes take time to explore the graduate students' projects. These provide the undergrads with a chance to question the artists' means of work, their intentions, the problems they encounter, and any other matters the students want to discuss. In many of the concentrations it is the TA who proctors the studio time, so he or she is the most influential in the actual development of the undergraduates' work.

The art department is not like an institute in that the longest class it offers is a brief two hours. The lack of "craftwork" also detracts from the department's feeling as an art institute. There are no programs for ceramics, glasswork, jewelry making, bookbinding, paper and textile craft, or industrial design. However, there are makeshift craft spaces in some of the colleges (e.g., Pierson's Glass Studio or Jonathan Edwards' Printing Press). Moreover, in the programs Yale does offer—photography, sculpture, painting, drawing, film, and graphic design—there is very little emphasis on technique. Students are encouraged to explore these facets of their art independently. While there is class time scheduled for the studio in the presence of the professor, this time is mostly spent commenting on the student's conceptual capacities as an artist and not on technique or process. Although I believe students would benefit from greater training in the craft of their art, time is limited and almost all of it is spent giving feedback on the artists' concepts. This feedback, generally in the form of a group critique, is of the highest quality.

If the art department is not experiencing a faculty shortage and if a class is made up of fairly thoughtful and expressive students, then the critiques may become one of the most valuable experiences a Yale art student can have. Faculty members and TAs are articulate and honest in their statements and well-versed in their fields. They might be entirely aloof, overworked, and completely inaccessible out of class, but for two hours, burgeoning artists will have some of the most useful interactions of their careers.

Despite last year's relocation and restructuring of the department in its very own building on Chapel Street, after years of sharing space with the architecture department, art students are still art students: almost as brooding as philosophy majors, almost as dramatic as theater majors, almost as pedantic as English majors, but still somehow able to integrate their individual artistic creativity into a liberal education.

Back to After Hours...