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Alternate routes to art

by kwon yang

Under the soft light of the Faulconer Gallery, a motley collection of artworks clashes despite the dimness. Pastoral landscape watercolors hang alongside abstract smooth linear forms in a warm rust color by a pixilated projection of horizontal strips of a larger, colorful painting.

Grinnell alumni and faculty who created the hodgepodge displayed in the Faulconer Gallery exhibit these works in "Artists at and after Grinnell." Their works and oral accounts document the varied journeys people take from Grinnell students to professional artist.

"Alternate Route," the abstract pale-colored painting and its creator, Susan Arthur ?91, represent the winding road that leads Grinnell alumni to art. Arthur graduated as a History major. After several years of odd jobs, Arthur arrived to pursue art through graduate school. "When I went to graduate school I was quite serious and I knew it was for a short time and I would have to get back to life, whatever it might be," she said. Since graduating from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's graduate school in 1999, she has experimented mainly with abstract paintings. Her work was displayed in a solo exhibit at the Bowery Gallery in New York City in 2004.

Bobby McKibbin, Art, creator of some pastoral paintings in the exhibit, taught all the alumni in the exhibit except one, and in her opinion, Arthur's academic undergraduate experience is typical. According to McKibbin, artist Gregory Gomez '80 came from a long line of doctors but decided to major in Art at Grinnell. Sheldon Tapley '80, also a former art student featured in the exhibit, was originally a Chemistry major but decided to become an Art major because "it was harder than chemistry."

Recently arrived professor Lee Running, Art, emphasized the importance of Grinnell's commitment to community to help the artists develop their artwork, no matter what their academic focus or future goals. "Art is a lonely pursuit," she said. "It is something people do often alone in a studio with no other witnesses so I think one of the most important things that Grinnell can provide for its arts students is a community of peers. You have people to talk to about what you are doing ? you have people to notice the sort of the visual progress that you are making."

Whether or not aspiring artists take full advantage of the Grinnell arts community and art classes, McKibbin said further art education is critical, and she fully advocates Arthur's path. "If you are serious about art you need to go to graduate school," she said.

Arthur advised conflicted art students to consider the lifestyle of an artist before deciding to become artists. "I remember an art teacher that once said to me when someone asks, ?How can you make it work?' and she said, ?It's just simple. You are simply going to have to decide you are going to love the life whatever that means.' It seemed like such a kind of a nothing statement when I first heard it, because what does that mean? Love the life? Love the life of being an artist? She didn't mean it in a particularly romantic way. She meant it in a way that you just have to decide that whatever that life holds, whether it's times of difficulty or times when you are more financially comfortable, whatever that means, what you really care about is making the art, you are going to find a way to do it."

Arthur is now deeply immersed in the life of painting that she has to remind herself not to lose perspective. "There is a lot of stepping back," she said. "You know, when I am working the large paintings I would be frequently evaluating and revaluating and making a decision about where the next mark will be. It's just the importance of seeing it and its entirety so if I am so close to the work, I won't get a sense of it."

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