Students spend summer immersed in art
By Deborah Lilly
Since the mid-1990s, more than 20 Anderson University students and alumni have spent their summer months at the Chautauqua Art Institute in New York state. During the summer of 2007, three alumni and three students traveled the institute to immerse themselves in painting, sculpture, drawing, and ceramics.
The cost of the summer experience runs between $3,000 to $4,000, but many of the AU students who go manage to receive scholarships; some even receive full tuition reimbursement. To be considered for acceptance, students must submit 20 slides of their work, three letters of recommendation, and write a statement about their work as an artist. “It’s not unlike what they would send to a potential graduate school,” says Kathleen Dugan, AU assistant professor of art.
Dugan has encouraged students to go to Chautauqua based on similar experiences she had in summer art programs as a college student. “When they are on campus, they are taking other academic courses along with art classes,” she says. “But at Chautauqua, they can just focus on art for eight weeks solid.”
Senior Harvey Bayliss has spent two summers at Chautauqua. “It has been a very good experience,” he says. “You have the entire day to paint. You don’t have to do anything else. Just having a place that gives you that opportunity is really good.” Bayliss focused on landscape painting while at Chautauqua while also taking drawing classes in the evening. His painting class would begin at 9 a.m. and continue until noon. He would spend the afternoon painting in his studio until his 6 p.m. drawing class. At 9 p.m., he would return to his studio and paint until 1 or 2 in the morning. Weekends were also spent in his studio. With that much time devoted to his art work, Bayliss says eight weeks at Chautauqua is like being in college for a whole year.
Junior Amy Mitchell wanted to immerse herself in art at Chautauqua but for different reasons. “I just wanted to get some more art experience,” she says. Homeschooled during her high school years, she had only taken one art class before she came to AU to study art and psychology. Her entire concept of art has come from AU professors and students. “So going somewhere to learn from another perspective was a really big deal to me,” she says.
She, too, spent her mornings in the landscape painting class and evenings in the drawing class. For four weeks, she also took an afternoon sculpture class. For the first time, she had her own studio to work in. For the first time, she exhibited several pieces in a show, and for the first time, she sold a piece of her work.
“Going to Chautauqua has given me a lot more confidence in myself,” says Mitchell. But Chautauqua is about more than spending time locked in your own studio. It is also about meeting other art professors and students from schools across the country. “It energizes them to be around other individuals who are as excited and as serious about this kind of academic study of art,” says Dugan. “It brings about a momentum that I don’t think they always experience during the school year when they are being pulled in various directions.”
Now that Bayliss is back at AU, he doesn’t have the luxury of 12-hour days in front of a canvas. He claims that now he is lucky to even have 12 hours a week to devote to his work. But he has brought the influence of Chautauqua back home with him. “Chautauqua gives me the opportunity to get new ideas,” he explains. “It’s a place to experiment. Then I bring those ideas back to campus with me.”
What Bayliss and Mitchell may not realize is how they influence other AU art students when they come back. Dugan explains, “The other art students see them working and focused and doing different things than when they left. It rubs off on the other students and energizes them. It also makes them want to go to Chautauqua, too.”
