Emma Brown
Arts Scholar
Semester 1
Despite the circumstances that COVID-19 presented, I was quite excited for my first semester in Art Scholars. I had been looking forward to a nicely balanced program that would allow me to pursue art while finishing my engineering major. Although the structure was not what I had depicted upon signing up, I found myself being able to do the exact things I expected. Some assignments were not as broad as I would have preferred them to be but completely understandable given the circumstances.
I found myself making all sorts of connections to Art Scholars that I may not have seen before. For instance, when exploring art within activism for our colloquium, I found many of the techniques they were teaching us being used in my English 101 class. The concept of conveying an idea and using that artistic medium as a way to properly argue for your position was something I found myself doing in both classes.
However, one thing that I was not expecting was to do a group project. I was also not expecting that group project to be creating a podcast. Because of the limits of this semester, I did not expect them to do a project that required such an extensive amount of time, effort, and communication across multiple people. I was also not expecting this project to take up the majority of our semester. I was expecting many different small projects that we would be allowed to adapt to our specific arts concentration. Yet, the activities that we did during and even outside of the class were about what I had expected since there was not much we could do without being in person.
Overall, college life has not been anything that I have imagined it to be. When I was in high school I would often daydream about becoming independent and being responsible for myself. Now that I am at home that is not quite the case. My sister said something once which is that I have all the work of a college student without any of the actual fun of being in college. However, I do find it nice being able to transition into this workload without the stress of missing my family and budget. Yet, I would like to become more independent next semester. That is why I am hoping to learn how to drive this winter break. Hopefully, my perception of college life at home will become less bleak by sophomore year.
The university has done mostly everything that I have expected it to do in the wake of this pandemic. I did expect them to pursue hybrid learning with most of the gen-eds and larger classes being online (which is why it did not shock me that I would be living at home). The guidelines they put on campus were about what I expected as well. I felt that it was a good idea for them to require consistent testing and regulate the number of people in buildings.
The most memorable session I had in Art Scholars was the guest artist presentation for spoken word poetry with music. For this segment, I was allowed to bring my instrument and actually play for others in the class. Although my arts concentration is not music, music is still a very important part of my life and arts experience as well. I was so inspired by the speaker and the way he spoke about music. I have always seen music in an academic setting since that is where I learned it but he taught me to look at it with a more artistic, humane view. I felt so much joy playing that day and I truly felt as if I was making art, not just playing music. In the future I want this experience to guide me. Though I am taking this course for school, my projects should be an extension of me and how I express myself.
Semester 2
Although this first year of college was not what I anticipated, I’m still glad I pursued it. Getting to meet new people will always be something I cherish no matter what situation I’m in. If there was one piece of advice I’d want to give to new students it would be make your relationships with people a priority.
Mentoring within the university has always been a bit complex for me specifically. Since I knew one of the professors within my major’s school was a family friend, I got to learn a lot about the school beforehand. She took me under her wing and even let me participate in engineering activities. However, I didn’t know any of the arts faculty. Coming into Art Scholars I was worried about getting along with the teachers, since I wouldn’t get to meet them in person. I had a fear that I’d be forgettable if not met in person. Yet, the Art Scholars faculty were very nice right from the get go! They did not only extend kindness, but made an effort to know us on personal terms. They even set individual interviews with each student just to talk with them. I recommend that new students accept this kindness with open arms. Maintain these relationships from the beginning and they will grow beautifully.
One nice thing about going to school online is that it’s been a lot easier to talk to people about my interest without feeling embarrassed. I’ve been able to make connections with other Art Scholars on social media platforms, such as Instagram. Being able to see their profiles and find out their art concentrations may be similar to mine has made it easier for me to connect with them. Overall, I’ve used my art skills in my engineering classes. I find that many people in my major aren’t comfortable with visual arts so I decided to help by using the skills that I learned from Art Scholars. These relationships may seem difficult at first since it may feel like you only have one thing in common but one thing can lead to another and before you know it, you may be friends. Use these connections with your peers to not only expand your network, but expand your group friends during a time when it may seem impossible.
The Art Scholars program fosters community by hosting events within it that are meant to bring us together. One example I have of this is pentathlon. While pentathlons are a required assignment, Art Scholars provides a plethora of events to fulfill this. I remember one of the events I went to was a music presentation where we matched each other to their favorite songs. It was fun and gave me a lot to write about for the assignment! I intend to continue to attend these events as they’re a nice way to interact with the community while completely my assignment.
After spending a year in the Art Scholars program, I realized that the concept of art is actually much more flexible than I originally thought. Being able to interact in a community with all kinds of art concentrations has opened my eyes to all the different types of expression. Even things that I was taught have no connection, such as engineering, actually have many.
Workshop was probably the most beneficial I had towards my work this year. I wanted to be able to take something that could supplement what I wanted to do for my capstone project. Since I want to create a short film and/or pitch bible, I took a creative writing workshop. The experience was wonderful and interacting with others interested in the same things as me in a smaller setting really helped me grow more comfortable with sharing my work.
Semester 3
This semester was the first semester I spent on the UMD campus. While learning how to adjust to this new environment, I found that Art Scholars provided a very needed sense of community.
Coming back to in person learning really helped facilitate a feeling of community that was not as strong when things were virtual. My favorite part of our in person classes in Art Scholars was when we had a class on stepping. I have taken dance classes over zoom before and they were fun but being able to interact with others and coordinate together made the experience feel whole. I discovered that while during the pandemic many artists found a way to adapt, some art is truly meant to be experienced in person and that compromising this (while safety should always be the priority) can change the impact you intended to have on the audience.
This semester was also the same semester I took my data visualizations class. This was the first class I had ever taken that mixed STEM with the arts. As I have always strived to mix the two together I was excited to see a crouse dedicated to just this. One interesting connection I found between this course and Art Scholars was how the purpose of art and how it can aid in conveying a certain message was prioritized. In my data visualizations class, we found that a good visualization should work to simplify data that is either too big or difficult to show as raw. Similarly, Art Scholars works to convey strong emotional messages that would be too difficult to convey with just a regular block of text or documentary.
I also began participating in AAB (Arts Advisory Board). Planning events with my fellow art scholars was a unique experience in that there was a lot of freedom in what we could do. I don’t often have the chance to plan out big events for a lot of people to attend so having that chance while also participating in creative events was a lot of fun. Going forward, I hope to continue working in AAB and use these opportunities to create an event that introduces people to a form of art that they may have never learned about before. Art Scholars has truly opened the door to so many different styles of art that I probably otherwise would not get to experience. Time and time again I find myself learning something in class and end up amazed by how nuanced an artistic approach to something usually not seen as art can be. The best example of this is when I attended a comedy show afifliated with Art Scholars. Originally, I never really found spoken comedy to be an art form but after having to analyze it in Art Scholars, I found that it can be just as nuanced as any other literature, film, or piece of music.
As I began working on my capstone project, Art Scholars helped me recontextualize the meaning of the story I had been working on previously. I found that art can work to prove something that may have already been known in a different way. Even though something has already been done before, since art is so different depending on who is making it, you can convey the same message in completely different ways. Art has the effect of conveying something with more emotion than if it were just read or said out loud. I was also able to further analyze and plan out the project I had set out to do from the beginning. From mapping my ideas to creating my work plan, Art Scholars helped me begin the process of tackling this seemingly overwhelming project. The community in Art Scholars also aided me in this process by providing meaningful feedback on how to better convey my project to my audience. With this criticism, I was able to create a clear path forward with how my project should look and what it should accomplish.
In preparing for my Capstone project, I had trouble getting over the wall of fear that I found blocking me form advancing my project. It was difficult to stay motivtaed when I felt that the project might never get finished. Yet, I remembered a particular artists who’s experience changed my way of thinking. This artist had been paralyzed in the legs and struggled with finding joy in life again. In his art, he was able to find happiness but his inspiration and motivation did not come out of no where. There was no clear spark that pushed him forward to finish his projects. Instead, he just got up and did it. He just started and kept going and eventually found a way to finish. This is the same mentality I hope to apply to my capstone project.
Semester 4
Through my time in Art Scholars, I wouldn’t say my perception of art has changed much rather my perception of my own art and how I work has evolved. Starting this program, I always thought that my workflow had to be linear in order for things to be structured but, the more I tackled projects, the more I realized that that isn’t really realistic for me. Each project I had, from the podcast to my capstone, I found myself jumping back and forth between what needed to be done. And while some people may find this disorganized, for me this was structure. And in doing so, I also forced myself to step out of my comfort zone and try new things that I’d never done before, not just what I signed up to do.
After looking back at my old pentathlons and reflections, I realized that my presentation of what I’ve learned has become much more structured than what I thought it was originally capable of. The lessons learned and the way they were presented became much more artistic in the words I used and the projects I attempted. For instance, when I first began I was mostly doing [ersonal projects (mostly due to COVID) but, by the end, I was attending many more events and learning from them.
My capstone was probably the most difficult art project I had ever attempted not due to the complexity of the project but the amount of time allotted. As an artist, I had always had trouble completing the projects I had set out to do. While I attribute this mostly to my lack of displacing, it was also the fact that I never felt that my work was worth finishing. Eventually, I’d get to a point in the project where I felt whatever the final product was going to be would be disappointing.
Art Scholars has taught me to be patient but disciplined with my work. Throughout the entire time of my capstone, I was so worried about it not living up to the quality of my peers around me but once I finished, I realized that what counts as “professional quality” was different for each and every one of us. And my work had greatly improved on its own. Instead of comparing how my abilities are to others, I began to truly compare my abilities against what they used to be. And, when I began looking at it this way, I realized that I’ve already gone above and beyond. Once I started doing this, I felt more comfortable trying new things and expanding my skillset even further. At the beginning of this program, I would’ve never even considered creating a logo for my project but I did because I believed that I had grown enough as an artist to do so.
Working with others and having them inform my own project was very new to me when I first started working on the capstone. It was scary to share unfinished work for the purpose of it being judged but it was also necessary. I received a lot of feedback and I not only learned how to take it but how to curate it as well. I learned that not all feedback has to be implemented. It should be considered but that does not mean it has to be used. Especially when you are getting conflicting opinions. For instance, I had a lot of trouble deciding on some character designs, and each person I asked gave me a different answer. Instead of focusing on the answers, I focused on why they wanted that design in the first place. By using that feedback, and my own artistic intuition, I was able to deduce the best design. But, I was also wrong sometimes. There were times when I thought something was working and the feedback I got said otherwise. It was hard to change from my gut feeling but necessary if I wanted to improve my project.
In the future, I will definitely use many of the methods I learned in Art Scholar in my future projects. Not just my art projects but my engineering work as well. I think the most important thing I’ve learned here in Art Scholars that I’ll carry with me is that there will always be people in my corner. When I first came here, I was worried that it would be similar to my environment in high school where we were all in competition with each other to be the best. But when I got here, everyone was so welcoming and supportive. Even those I considered better than me on a technical level found enjoyment in my work and I there’s. Going forward, I will always try to create an environment such as this one.