Visual Arts program supports students

As an English major, I’m often irked by people who assume I’m headed to med school to become a doctor as soon as they learn that I’m at Hopkins. Since making my final college decision during senior year, I’ve found myself in this situation all too often, and I’m sure my fellow students who make up the “arts” of Arts and Sciences would agree.

Typically, I smile uncomfortably and try to sound polite when I correct them that, no, I don’t want to be a doctor, I’m definitely not going to med school and I’m only partially sure I know what organic chemistry is.

Don’t get me wrong, I have great respect for the sciences, and those who choose to pursue them. It just goes over my head.

Hopkins is well known as a research institution that is built around scientific discovery and achievement, and it’s for that reason that the arts areas can sometimes be overshadowed. However, over the last few decades, a shift has occurred that has opened Hopkins’ doors to a larger contingent of students interested in exploring and expanding their creative capacities.

This includes a number of clubs dedicated to honing the artistic talents of students across all majors, including the numerous theater groups, a capella groups and dance groups (such as The Barnstormers, Throat Culture, The Buttered Niblets, The Witness Theater and The Mental Notes).

One of the biggest programs designed to help give students a proper creative outlet is the Visual Arts program.

Craig Hankin, director of the Center for Visual Arts, spoke about his experiences as a student at Hopkins during the early 1970s.

“When I came here in the fall of ’72 there was no art program of any kind,” he said.

He said that a retired artist from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) began a weekly workshop in a small 600-square-foot studio during his junior year.

“It was a huge hit immediately,” Hankin said. “Not just students but also grad students, faculty, spouses, administrators would come in on their lunch hour to work.”

When Hankin returned to Hopkins after graduate school, the weekly workshop had expanded, and he was recruited to begin teaching formal art classes.

“For a lot of them it was therapeutic,” he said. “They were under a tremendous amount of pressure and stress from their major requirements, and for a lot of them it was a form of self-care. They did this because it relaxed them and they could catch their breath and not think about organic chemistry for a while. And that was fine, as someone who had been a Hopkins undergrad himself, I was very sympathetic to that.”

Ruthe Huang, a senior public health studies major in the program, values her artistic practice as a therapeutic relief.

“It balances out life, lets me breathe,” she said. “Whenever I do art it’s an escape, it’s this weird happiness that I can’t get doing anything else. I realized that freshman year because my first semester was a difficult adjustment, and art was the only thing that kept me sane.”

Hankin said that the program grew considerably around the turn of the century when the Mattin Center was built.

“What we hoped to provide for our students wasn’t a creative sanctuary anymore but an outlet for their creative drive,” he said. “What we hope to give our students is the space and the encouragement and the technical training to express what’s inside them.”

Senior Erica Lee spoke about the supportive environment created by the faculty of the program.

“The people here are absolutely amazing,” she said. “They’re always so open to their students. All of them are so supportive of their students and want to connect them and push them further.”

Huang agreed that the faculty bring strength to the program.

“The faculty are all really committed and passionate,” she said. “Each course I’ve taken has been fantastic. While they do keep in perspective that we’re Hopkins students, they don’t take that much sh*t. The faculty are so dedicated and good at what they do that even the people who just do it because it’s easy get interested, and they get better. The quality of our program is pretty damn great.”

Olivia Rodriguez, a senior art history major, said that the small class sizes were a strength of the program.

“The classes are usually maybe 12 people and everyone always does everything very differently, even if we’re looking at the exact same thing and we’re given the exact same materials,” she said.

Rodriguez said that the small classes allow everyone with different perspectives to collaborate, a practice that has changed the way she sees issues that they address in their art.

Lee agreed that her study of art at Hopkins has changed the way she thinks and works.

“Art’s really made me a lot more open,” she said. “Of course, when I first came to Hopkins it was my first time being away from home, and I was very much in a shell. Art really unlocks that expressive side. Everyone in the arts program is so nice. They’re so much fun.”

Although it is clear that the visual arts program at Hopkins is comprised of a strong faculty dedicated to furthering their students’ creative growth it is significantly limited because of space and, of course, budget.

Hankin spoke about their need for more space in order to expand the program.

“We have basically maxed out our spaces in Mattin Center,” he said. “What we do need is additional studio space. That is our greatest need, because all of our 3-D classes and messy media classes are all jammed into the painting studio.  We’re all literally on top of each other. It’s not a great situation.”

Lee identified the need for more studio space and also spoke about expanding the class offerings.

“The studio is packed, and we’re all in each other’s space,” she said. “I would love to see more classes if we got more space. A wider breadth of materials, really giving yourself the courage to work with other materials, that would push us. It’s really interesting to give yourself a new medium.”

Rodriguez agreed that more space would lead to more classes.

“If they were able to have more studio space they could have more classes going on every semester with other professors,” she said.

She mentioned that students are able to take classes at MICA but that this option is not always accessible.

“You have to go out there and the classes are longer, so someone who’s just trying to try something new in the arts field might not feel comfortable doing that,” Rodriguez said.

Huang said that she would like to see more classes to support exploration of new artistic mediums.

“It would be nice if we could get more professors teaching different advanced classes,” she said. “Once you explore and find something you’d like to do, there’s not much support in branching out to more than that. Every semester there’s really only one or two advanced classes to choose from.”

However, Huang noted a benefit of the program’s relationship with MICA.

“Because a lot of our professors are from MICA, they have a Baltimore-centric perspective which is really refreshing,” she said. “They’re in tune with what’s happening in Baltimore, very passionate about helping communities and they know the art scene in Baltimore, which is very unique. It all culminates in getting to know Baltimore better.”

The visual arts program has become an important part of life for many Hopkins students, and the increasing interest justifies expansion. The program will only continue to grow as it engages more and more students.