Student-run BFA party celebrates first successful event.
For those of you who think a fine arts degree isn’t hard, you’re wrong. You might snicker, thinking fine arts students take classes like “Advanced Finger Painting 1001” and “Instagram 1021,” but fine arts has its own set of challenges unique to its field. Let’s be real: most haters have not drawn anything more than a stick man or a grade-nine heart for their Valentines project, so their taunts usually ring hollow. In a successful effort to showcase the amazing art done by student artists, third-year students Maggie Higgins and Sally Hill organized a showing of art from third-year students in an approachable and fun event that effectively demonstrated the talent of Mount Allison student artists.
Hill and Higgins explored the idea during the fall semester of 2012. “We kind of mentioned it from time to time,” said Hill, “but we weren’t really serious until later.” Higgins explained, “The idea came to us in October, but we didn’t fully embrace it until January of this semester.” All third-year fine arts students are required to take a seminar class, and it was this class that Hill and Higgins used as a medium to communicate the idea to their peers. “We talked to our class about it and people were really excited,” said Hill. A call for submissions was sent out and the art was collected from third-year students for display.
The theme of the show was comfort and discomfort. “There was really no mandate for the artists to submit pieces that worked with that theme, but a lot of them did,” said Higgins. The small space rented from the Black Duck Inn was completely packed with the excellent work of the third-year artists. The themes of comfort and discomfort was present in much of the work. “The work of the artists didn’t even have to be recent; it was just whatever they wanted to submit,” elaborated Higgins. Some of the art was even for sale, with the proceeds going to the artists. In total there were twenty-four pieces of art, each one masterfully worked, showcasing the dedication of our third-year artists.
The event was particularly important because it was completely student-organized and led. The work of the artists required no additional faculty support or funding from the university. There was no gallery help requested from START, Struts, or Owens. The effort to create a show that gave credit and praise to fine arts students was unique in that, like the art itself, it was completely student-driven. “It’s nice to do something for us as a class and create a place where people outside of fine arts can come to appreciate student art.” says Hill. This highlights one of their other goals: aside from showcasing student workmanship, the third-year fine arts class was hoping to create a space that would allow students and community members to come and approach student art in an easy and fun setting. While this was the first event organized by Hill and Higgins for third-year students, they hope it will inspire more events of its nature in the future.