Glazing points, animal rights activists, duck poop, and defective computer programs

Today I went on a Grand Adventure up to the Weber State University Art Department.

After ditching work and mummifying all my "babies" in bedsheets for protection and stacking them precariously in the trunk of my car, I embark on a mindless 3 hour drive up to Ogden. After a few wrong turns (including a number of illegal U-turns, Sanpete style) and getting lost once or twice, my mum and I finally make it. Maneuvering past sod cutters and pipeline that were piled around the front doors, and being accidentally attacked by the maintenance worker who was repairing a door, I find myself standing in the foyer of the Kimball Fine Arts building, my soon to be residence for the next 3 years of my education, being assailed by the stench of burned coffee (Coffee stinks anyway, so this should be an interesting 3 years, during which I hopefully will become desensitized to the smell), and the sweet aroma of oil paint, paper, and sawdust.

Home. Minus the coffee smell.

(A friend once told me that she could find me anywhere cause I smell like art supplies. I think she was only mostly kidding.)

I find myself following the burned Starbucks smell, only to run into one of the reasons I am here in the first place. An eccentric sculpture artist/art education adviser who goes simply by "K". A woman of about 50, wild dirty blond hair and crooked glasses balancing on the tip of her nose, dried light seafoam green paint all over her fingers, clumsily dropping the pile of papers in her arms (not for the last time either), asking me if I am her 11:30 appointment and shaking my hand. Despite the fact that I am 10 minutes late, I confirm that I am there to see her about their BFA Education program, all the while helping her restack her papers.

I like K. When I look at her I can see myself in 30 years, and I'm ok with that. She came to Snow as a Visting Artist Lecturer last Fall semester, and she is one of the major reasons I decided on Weber for my BFA program. She added fuel to the fire of my artistic motivation, and helped me broaden my thinking, as well as put a finger on the direction I want to take my work, along with the messages I want to convey with it. Its amazing the influence a person can have on you when they've only been in your life for 2 hours, half of that in a lecture hall filled with art students, the other half spent at the local pizza joint with the SCAD faculty and my two other partners in crime, Scott and Nate. That was a good night, aside from all the snow that was falling.

Back to Weber.

We follow K into the faculty copy room. While she continues to drop papers intermittently and try to navigate the copy machine, she launches into telling me what courses I'll need, the fact that their office had yet again failed to post the DOVA handbook online, details of all the mindless meetings she's been attending in an attempt to get the Education BFA approved by the University, the difference between a regular emphasis BFA and an Education BFA, etc. After adding to her pile of papers by gathering her mail, and only to again drop it, we head back out into the coffee cloud. Handing me a copy of the New York Times (her escape into the rest of the world) and pushing the button on the elevator, she asks if we prefer to ride in the "ascension device" or if we'd prefer the stairs. My mom eloquently says something to the effect of "whatever you usually do".

Up 2 flights of stairs we go, leaving the doors of the elevator opening and closing by themselves.

They get lockers. I'm jealous. When I finally moved out of the studios last spring it took 2 car loads and a couple friends helping me gather all my supplies from random hidden corners in 4 different studio classrooms, including under the couch in the Figure Drawing studio. How I ever managed to fit all that back in my room I have yet to understand.

On the third floor, we pass a number of display boards, peppered with rather pathetic charcoal drawings of pillows and straw bales. I'm in a University art department, right? I hope those were from a non-major class.

LOTS of windows here... natural lighting is fantastic. I like the halls, the classrooms. No nonsense and fluff. White-wall gallery style, concrete floors, an occasional board for posting announcements and artwork, a few scattered mismatched tables and chairs in the hall. Definately not a place I'd be worried about spilling powdered graphite on the floor or accidentally touching a wall after drawing with charcoal. The place feels lived in, worked in, loved in. This is gonna be SWEET!

Moving down the hall we pass a few decent paintings, the most interesting of which looked like it was constructed out of foam board and chopsticks, with a few coats of paint. I like it. It is one of those pieces you want to reach out and touch, which is good. It means that the artist has effectively engaged the attention of the audience. We are all tactile learners.

K unlocks the door to her office, which looks exactly as I expected it would. Somewhat like my room. Papers stacked on taller stacks of books, artwork leaning on the walls. She has to relocate piles of ungraded design assignments from her chairs so we can sit down. One of the signs behind her desk reads "Save me from the things I want".

We sit, and she proceeds to explain the classes I should look at taking, how my Snow credits will transfer over, the order certain class series have to be taken in, etc., all the while peeling the green paint from her fingers and twitching nervously, occasionally hinting at her irritation with the government for cutting so much funding from art programs nationwide. I jokingly tell her they should just cut the football program and stop giving them all scholarships they can't keep because of failing grades anyway. She proceeds to tell me how this year they had the team cut one practice every week and spend the 4 hours in a group study hall with the entire team. Not surprisingly, their grades are higher and they are actually winning games and sustaining fewer injuries. Apparently the administration is somehow surprised with these results.

She wants to know my intended emphasis, and laughs when I tell her I can't decide because I like to do everything. She informs me that is a good thing in art education, especially at a high school level where you have to be proficient in all areas. Hopefully I don't have to deal with high school kids and can get my MFA and teach college. According to Brad and Adam they'd take me on at Snow in a second, and I'd take the offer even faster.

After being interrupted by a phone call from my boss asking if I remembered selling any crow-bars last week since apparently they were used to break open the ATM at the GSC (another reason we should get rid of the football team), and assuring him that I didn't remember selling any, K gives me a few more parting words of advice and sends us on our way.

We go back down the stairs, past the "Art Elements" supply store, which will be incredibly handy despite the fact that its where the coffee stench is originating. We look over some of the boards, getting an idea of just how expensive housing is going to be. I make the discovery that there are a number of animal rights activists on campus. My favorite flyer said something like this:

TOO MUCH POOP!
Animals raised for food produce about 130 times more poop than the entire human population of the US, roughly 89,000 pounds per second. Cut the crap, go vegetarian.
MEAT'S NOT GREEN!

I stiffle my laughter as I text a pic of it to my aforementioned vegan friend Nate, hoping he'll enjoy it as much as I did.

We stop by the main office to ask where I should bring my portfolio work so the department chair can look at it. The outreach coordinator asks if it's all flat work, and how many pieces I'm bringing. She looks surprised when I tell her they are all framed and I have 12 with me. She points around the corner and goes back into her office. We head back out to the car and start unwrapping my work and hauling it inside. All goes well until I get to the bottom 3 pieces.

Can I just emphasize that I've never gotten along well with Gravity?

Neither do stacked pieces of framed artwork, at least not if their packer is not smart enough to remember that the glass, matte, artwork, and foam backer board are only being held in place by some rather small glazing points. If the packer was smart, she'd have thought ahead and realized that the combined weight of stacked artwork would be more than enough to bend and work loose those glazing points, thus resulting in everything in the bottom 3 frames coming OUT of the frames. Consequently they are also the biggest pieces of artwork. I should have thought to stack them upside down so they could push against the frames rather than out of them.

I am not in a good mood at this point. The fact that I can't find half the glazing points and I left my Leatherman at home is not helping the situation.

I manage to redistribute a few glazing points to make up for the missing ones, trying to wedge them back into the wood using my car key. We get everything inside, and I head back to "Art Elements" praying that they have some glazing points. The cashier informs me that they can order some. I honestly feel like crying. I tell her that I need them RIGHT NOW, that I'm turning in my entire body of work to the department chair for a portfolio review, and a quarter of it is falling out of the frames. She sighs and asks how many I need, I tell her I could get by with about 6 to at least keep things in the frames, so she makes me promise not to tell anyone, and she'll get me some out of their framing shop. My mood immediately brightens, and I thank her repeatedly for saving my skin. She comes back with a stack of them... which I unfortunately have no use for given the fact that I don't generally carry the gun used to install that particular style of points in my back pocket. She sighs and tells me that once again if I don't tell anyone, she'll let me come use their gun to repair my work. This woman is my new hero for the day.

My artwork once again secure in their frames, we head to the department chair's office. I think he's been watching this entire fiasco, because Jim Jacobs seems to know exactly who I am, and immediately invites me and my mom into his office.

I like his office too, reminds me of Adam's office, with not so many toys scattering the shelves. He does have a lot of old radios, and a sweet neon ringed clock on the wall. His work is also fantastic, I'd love to watch him produce one of his sculptures someday, just to understand his method.

A slight man, barely taller than me, but with a firm handshake and calm thoughtful voice, I immediately decide that I like him too. Is it bad to pass judgment in the affirmative so quickly? Regardless, I feel comfortable talking to him, asking questions about scholarship deadlines and requirements. He seems confident that I've covered most of the foundation classes and should be able to apply directly to the BFA program in the fall. He asks about me going to Ukraine, and like K tells me it will be a great experience that will likely change the way I see everything. A new way of seeing won't be such a bad thing, I rather consider it an asset.

We go through my artwork, and he seems impressed. I explain and demonstrate my artist's book, then tell him about the Collaborative and Solo shows I've been in. He seems surprised that so much of my work was individually motivated rather than assigned for a class. He doesn't say much, simply that I have some nice prints and that I'll bring some good competition into the department.

I'm beaming. Without saying it, he's essentially told me that my work was on a higher level than he expected to see, which speaks well for scholarship potential. He shakes my hand, tells me they'll take good care of my artwork for the next 6 months, and sends me on my way.

We go across the hall to check out the Faculty show they have hanging in the gallery. I'm impressed, and once again reminded that even the teaching faculty are not exempt from animal rights activists. Paintings of dead deer, and a skinned fox tacked to a wall... it was interesting. A lot of the other work I really like, my mom doesn't get most of it, but she at least attempts to appreciate it with me. When I've absorbed my fill, we walk outside to hunt down the Humanities Adviser.

Debbie's office is located in the performing arts building next door. My mom doesn't like the revolving doors. I think the entire building is fabulous, for different reasons than the visual arts building. This building is plush, simple, but sophisticated. I find her office only to be informed by her receptionist that she'll be in meetings for another 3 hours. So much for that little heart to heart. I'll email her later.

We walk back outside, heading back down the hill, avoiding piles of unidentified poop that seem to be EVERYWHERE on the sidewalks.

Next stop, the Student Services Building. Honestly, whoever designed that building was smoking crack and forgot that people need room to maneuver in it. Huge stairways in the middle of halls, gigantic pillars that serve no real purpose, and a layout that makes no logical sense. After tripping/running into a dozen or so people, I finally manage to locate the Financial Aid office. Simply trying to be efficient with my time there, I just want to be sure they have all my information. I discovered that my IQ dropped during the last hour, probably from coffee aroma exposure. The girl at the window asks if I have photo ID. I think she's talking about my student ID card, and proceed to tell her that I've only just enrolled and won't need an ID card until next fall. She gives me that blank, slightly annoyed look, which makes me realize that she's talking about my drivers license. Here's my sign. I hand it over, she then sends me to the next window "because her computer is having problems". I think she just thinks I'm stupid and she doesn't want to deal with me. The lady at the next window then informs me that it's not just the other computer, its the entire network in their office, so she'd love to help me, but at the moment she's technologically handicapped, so I'll have to call them tomorrow. So much for THAT visit.

With nothing else to occupy our time, we decide it's time to head home. We head out the OTHER back door which happens to be closer and have fewer design flaws in the way. The sidewalk skirts the pond, where I see a whole flock of seagulls, geese, and ducks. That explains the UPP (Unidentified Poop Piles). So long as the geese don't try to chase me, I think we'll be friends next fall.

We get back into my now empty car, my anxiety for my artwork barely manageable. I start to back up, when suddenly there is a deafening roar/grinding noise, which is saying something considering how loud my car is on its own. I immediately assume that I've run over something, only to realize that we are only about 2 miles from Hill Air Force Base, and the roar was a jet flying back to base. I'm going to have to get used to that noise if I'm going to school here, otherwise I'll be ducking for cover every 5 minutes.

I'm looking forward to next fall. I need a new adventure, and this place seems full of them.