Are you an incoming or prospective student with a passion for the visual and/or performing arts? Then this is the week for you! Every day we will be featuring a guest blogger, each with a unique story to share about the thriving artistic communities at UVA. Our sixth guest is Maya Kim, a third-year student studying Studio Art!
As I stepped onto Grounds for the first time as a non-Virginian, I had no idea what to expect, but I knew that the arts program was very important to me. I made an effort when visiting to see the Arts Grounds, taking an arts tour from the Arts Grounds Guides organization and walking around the Fralin Museum of Art and Ruffin Hall, the home of studio art on grounds, I became incredibly excited about the opportunities to study art at UVA.
The studio art program is made up of a multitude of departments within it, from sculpture, to new media, to printmaking. Each department has a space in the building where students take their classes and end up working during their time outside of class. The building feels like a creative tornado in the best way; there is always someone there doing something that puts you in awe.
I spend a lot of my time in the painting and printmaking studios as well as the Fralin Museum of Art where I am a docent and am about to start an internship in the Education department. A large chunk of my world is made up of art in different ways. The art history program has expanded my knowledge of the world as well as my ability to be a good artist. Friends of mine have found other artistic outlets as well. Many friends work on V Magazine or the Scratch Zine. Others are in the Art Club or do graphics for the Cavalier Daily. And of course many take advantage of the studio art program itself, along with its 24 hour access to the building which proved vital for many points of my life at UVA.
But, what I think is most important to say about the art program is not in the lists of clubs or the accolades of graduates, but in the daily routine that exists in classes and late nights working and the way that all makes you a better artist. I know it has done so for me.
In obvious ways, I became a better artist from practicing. In Drawing I, we would have a model come in and have to draw pose after pose, each lasting only ten seconds as a way to drill proportions into our heads. We learned abstraction from taking a daily object and cutting it up and creating a pattern from the pieces. But while I am thankful for the skill I gained, some of my fondest memories from Drawing I were in the snack breaks and late nights where I made some of my closest friends, who are incredibly influential to my work and my life. In the work, we were able to teach each other.
I took Drawing II in the Summer. The class was small, and the days were hot, but I still am in touch with people from that class since we spent every day together, working hard on our drawings and taking breaks to get bagels from Bodo’s. I think that taking this class helped me learn how to take feelings of meditation into my work. I would come in at 7 PM and leave around midnight, just taken by my love for being completely invested in the creation of something. I felt that in the time that I was allowed to be alone in the art studio, drawing a glimpse of my mornings or an animal that I felt represented me (an ant, by the way), I felt that I had found purpose in what I studied.
I next took Introduction to Oil Painting. This was the medium I was itching to take since it had been my longtime favorite from my time in high school. This class gave me some of the hardest critiques I had received in my time as an artist. And yet, I look back and am grateful for advice that now I believe was necessary to hear. I had built up an image of myself in my head that said I had to be a good artist. I didn’t realize until that class that I had suffocated myself by putting the pressure on my art being good. I didn’t even know what that meant. I can’t count how many paintings never ended up in my final portfolio, got painted over, or sanded down to the board. In looking for my art to be meaningful and appealing to the eye, I stunted the process of just creating art. By the end of that semester, I spent many Friday and Saturday nights in the art studio just painting. I can’t remember how many pieces I ended up with, but by learning how to paint and repaint and sand down (over and over again), the work that came out of that semester had some of the favorites that I’ve created.
The most recent class I took was Introduction to Lithography and Relief Printmaking. This class was cut short by COVID, but I was able to finish the class out virtually and I am quite happy with how everything turned out despite the sudden change that occurred midway through the semester. Everything from the previous classes was still true: I made great friends, worked hard and often, and learned a lot about the artistic process. The funny thing about taking this class during a pandemic is that I believe that it softened the shocking transition that had to happen. I had to leave grounds within a week to suddenly go home to California where I had only lived for a couple years and had to leave all my friends behind. But, despite the change in place, I still had art to make and work to do. So I made do. I made prints with linoleum and ink that I could use at home without chemicals and felt excited every week to see what my friends’ progress was over our class Zoom calls. I write this now, 6 months or so into quarantine and can say confidently that I do not know what I would do without art.
Thanks to the studio art program, I have new friends and a space (physical and virtual) to create and make sense of the senseless seeming world. I am not sure what it will be like to be back and taking classes this fall, and in many ways I don’t feel the need to stress over things I have little control over. What I do know, is that my life is richer for having this program: the Friday nights ordering takeout to the studio and working late, the friends made with all the critiques and coffee breaks, the professors who have given me invaluable knowledge, and most of all, allowing me to have a place at this university to study what I love. I am immeasurably grateful for that.
An unfinished lithograph from Maya's Introduction to Lithography and Relief Printmaking class. Maya wasn't able to finish this piece in the spring due to the COVID-19 outbreak, but hopes to when she returns to Charlottesville.
Blog by Maya Kim, a third-year student at the University of Virginia. Contact her at mek4sgt@virginia.edu with any questions or curiosities about studio art at UVA!
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