As most of you know, I was not accepted into the MFA program at BSU. In their rejection letter, it said I could apply again next year. I don't know if I will do that or not, but if I did I had a few questions. I emailed the program director and asked if I had to get new letters, transcripts, etc. or just resubmit a portfolio. I also asked if she could give me any specifics on why I was rejected. She didn't give me specifics but basically said to work on the portfolio. She also said if I was interested in seeing what was going on in their program, they were having critiques and defenses of thesis of current students on Tuesday (this past one) and I could come.
I decided I would go as sometimes I'm very curious. She had told me the time and directions of where it was. Tuesday morning I drove over to campus and found the building (they had converted an old office depot into a fine arts building). I wandered into the building. There were quite a few people milling around. Nobody stopped me or asked me anything. I wandered back to the studios and looked in. Some people must have wondered who I was, but nobody asked. I did talk to one person I knew because she is doing an internship at the art museum (and she is also in the graduate program). She asked me what I was doing there and I just said I came to observe. There was one other person there who I knew because she had taught a class at the art museum once.
I have to say that when I walked in, it was like entering another world. I was trespassing on someone else's reality. I can't really describe it, but I knew I wasn't part of this "world". I was able to stay for the first student's explanation of his works and the question period of his defense of his thesis. It was interesting for me, being someone not involved in the process, to observe the faculty and how the artist responded to questions. Sometimes I thought the faculty got a little too picky about terminology and other times I thought they had legitimate questions. They were concerned about the motivation for the work and what historical art periods or artists was this student "grounded" in or to.
Later I was thinking, why does art have to have some deep meaning or motivation. I think all art has some motivation or the artist wouldn't make it. But does it have to have deep meaning or make a political, social, emotional statement? Is this the art you see in museums? Is this the art people actually buy? Lots of questions ran through my mind concerning the intellectual art realm vs. the more visual. Why can't art just be? And be something beautiful or not or just something one person likes to look at? Maybe that doesn't work in that graduate school atmosphere.
I didn't get to stay for the next person as I had to get back to my reality of working with sixth graders and trying to meet the yearbook deadline.
