Early in the semester, art professor Peter Charles instructed his students to place five black shapes on white paper. The shapes could not touch or overlap, and the resulting composition must take advantage of both the positive and negative space. For a student with a strong background in studio art, this was simply one more exercise in effective composition. For a student with relatively little experience, it was one of the first steps in learning what it means to organize a successful work of visual art. But for both types of students, the class interaction brought about by the exercise was invaluable.
For the 14 students in the Ignatius Seminar, “An Artist’s Perspective: The Creative Process,” putting together a piece of art meant more than putting pencil to paper — each project was part of an unforgettable experience in learning what it means to be an artist, from the conception of an idea to the current exhibition of their work in a gallery.
Offered exclusively to first-year students in the College, the course is part of a series of seminars known as Ignatius Seminars. Last semester was the first time that this particular seminar course has been a part of the series, and Charles said that it was a unique experience to teach a small group of freshmen. “You get to know each of the students that are participating,” he said, “and they get to know one another and they can form bonds that are easier to come by than in a regular class.”
Charles said that the seminar works well for freshmen in particular because their attitude is significantly different than that of returning students. It also helps that they subsequently are offered the rare opportunity to foster a relationship with a faculty member very early in their careers at Georgetown. “These people came and they were excited about coming to Georgetown to begin with, and I think that having a seminar worked exactly as the deans had hoped,” he said.
For Alex Abugov (COL ’11), who enrolled in the seminar last semester, this particular course piqued his interest both as an art student and as an incoming Hoya. “It seemed like Ignatius Seminars were something special,” he said, “and I wanted to take advantage of that extra thing that the College had to offer.” Abugov has an extensive background in art: he studied printmaking, photography, painting and sculpture at an exclusive semester-long studio art program at the Oxbow School in Napa, Calif.
Although he has taken numerous studio art courses, the curriculum of the seminar appealed to him as something new and interesting, just as it did to Ellie Warnock (COL ’11), who had not taken art classes since elementary school. “I thought the seminar would be a nice place because it was small and it’s all freshmen,” she said.
Warnock’s father, an adamant art collector, encouraged her to try an art class in college, where she would have the opportunity to explore a wider range of courses. Similarly, Lucy Obus (COL ’11), another student in the class, has had a great deal of experience with performing arts, but she didn’t have many opportunities to take a studio art class in high school and looked forward to stepping off the stage and into a studio. “I thought it would be a great surplus to all the writing, reading and arithmetic classes I took,” said Obus. “It was a class that was just for me.”
Just as the different students applied for the seminar for different reasons, they came in with a variety of expectations. “I thought it was going to be more theory as opposed to studio art,” said Elena Solli (COL ’11). But whether or not the course was what they expected, all of the students came out of the class with concrete proof of their growth as artists. “I still don’t see myself as a good ‘artist,’” said Obus, “but I see myself as being better able to translate my ideas into something physical.”
Warnock also thought that, above all, the class taught her the importance of the process of putting together a work of art. “I think I accomplished having an idea of what I wanted to do, and sticking to that idea, instead of just toying around with stuff and not really getting to an end,” she said.
According to Charles, “The purpose of the class was for them to document their creative process.”
And what they learned about the artistic process is that although it involves a lot of work and consideration, it also involves a lot of fun. “If you were having a stressful day, just going and working on your box was really nice,” Abugov said.
Throughout the semester, students kept a photographic diary of their progress. The images were put together in books that are currently on display along with each student’s cumulative project of the seminar — a three-dimensional box, the design and content of which was completely decided by each student.
Each individual box is completely unique; some are expressions of a particular sentiment, some are autobiographical and some reflect a distinct culture or aspect of society. The diversity of interests and backgrounds of the students is reflected in the variety of tones of the boxes: Preeti Krishnan’s (COL ’11) bright pink box containing dolls stands in contrast to nearby Samantha Smith’s (COL ’11) box, which contains several two-dimensional drawings of varied subject matter. Even boxes with similar themes are still clearly unique to each artist. Both Caroline Gralton and Dominique Barron lined their boxes with newspaper, but while Gralton wrote bold words on black material that stretches across the inside of the box, Barron took a grayscale image of street signs and cut it up to position it on different planes.
Keano Pavlosky (COL ’08), an economics major who is doing an independent study in sculpture came to the College Dean’s Gallery at the rear of the Bunn Intercultural Center Galleria to get ideas for her own work but was unexpectedly impressed by what each student brought to his or her own project.
“What really interested me about this whole situation,” said Pavlosky, “is the fact that in whatever major you’re doing, it’s a very linear sort of thought process. To take some of these linear interests and marry it with an entirely creative process I thought was phenomenal to see and something I really appreciated.”
Charles will return next year to teach “An Artist’s Perspective: The Creative Process” to a new troupe of freshmen. He hopes to expand the curriculum to teach students about the greater artistic experience by incorporating more field trips and professional artist guest speakers. “Information is being disseminated so much more visually now that it’s important that Georgetown students be visually educated, as well as literate in the traditional sense,” he said. In order to truly appreciate visual arts, students must experience first-hand what it means to go through an artistic process. These students have done so, and they are now able to go forward in their education with a new perspective.