I'm not going to start complaining that there is no Old White European Distributive, or that I haven't read enough of the history of art. What I am going to complain about -- what, did you expect a happy editorial? -- is the attitudes and ideas of the Studio Art department, that I have come in contact with.
How many of the '98's out there remember Convocation? I wasn't about to remember it either, until the funniest thing happened. I was sitting there, kinda nodding off, while they read that list of diversity in our class. "We have someone from Siberia, someone who can do magic tricks with there toes while blindfolded, someone who once did something cool, someone who is a glassblower." At the sound of that last someone, I woke up with a furious start. I had been a glassblower for parts of 3 summers, and had scribbled such information on my application - you know, they say to put down that weird stuff. Anyway, after looking around for the glassblower, I suddenly realized that it was probably me. This totally shocked me, I mean I thought I was no one, but now I was a Someone.
With this newfound knowledge I went about looking for a place to practice my craft. I came to find out that Dartmouth once had a glassblowing studio, in the 1950's I was told. However, there is no studio that gives glassblowing classes in the area. I had had the same luck looking for places at home, in Maryland, so I wasn't too surprised with the result here.
Last Winter, I took a transfer term at the University of California at Santa Cruz. I was told by my friend there that they, or another college in the town, offered glassblowing. I was totally stoked, as a Californian would say. With this knowledge, I set up an appointment with Esme Thompson, the Chair of the Studio Art Department, to discuss transfer credit.
At first Mrs. Thompson told me that transfer credit was not possible because there was no compatible class offered at Dartmouth. That has to rank up there with the stupidest things, I've ever heard. If there was a comparable class at Dartmouth, I wouldn't have to go 3,000 miles to take glassblowing. The point of the D-plan and transfer terms is to be able to take classes that Dartmouth doesn't offer. After explaining this to Mrs. Thompson, she came at me with a new attack, "I respect glassblowing, like I respect cabinet making, but they are skills not art." Excuse me. Why are there glass exhibits at all the major art museums in the world? Why are people taught about famous glassblowers, stained glass artists, and glass sculptures in most Art History courses? This was not only an ignorant comment, but personally insulting.
It is obvious that glassblowing is indeed an art. But why then would the chair of our Studio Art department say the opposite. Mrs. Thompson went on talk about all the crafts, as she called them, that were great but not offered for credit here -- pottery, glassblowing, color photography, etc. ... but what she missed was the underlying motivations behind her sweeping and false generalizations.
How can someone who thinks a bunch of pink plastic balls constitutes a sculpture to be put in the Hop courtyard, then decide that glassblowing, a 1,000 year old art form is not "art"? The reason is her own personal snobbishness, the same snobbishness that I bet infect many in the Studio Art department. They are unable and down right scared to think of any form of art that involves a functional skill. This is why they do not teach any form or skill in Basic Drawing. This is why there is no grading scale, or instructional improvement given. It is simply based on their egocentric, pompous opinions of what they like -- what is and is not art.
But beyond that, they feel compelled to ridicule and attack the very skills that art was based on. Just because glassblowing is not as chic as three stripes of black paint on a white canvas, does not mean that it too is not art. In fact, in my and many others' opinions, a difficult skill can often make something more artistic. Just because something is out of your skill base, even though you are the head of an Ivy League Art Department, does not mean that you should attack it out of scared insular thinking. In fact, holding such a high position demands that you try to understand all forms of art, basic and complex.
That is what really eats at me. such an institution as this, which brags about it's diversity at Convocation, will simultaneously attempt to belittle and attack the same skills that it has lauded. How hypocritical can you get? Literally, from Day 1 as a Dartmouth student, this college took pride in my ability to blow glass. However, when it came down to one person who had power, she and hence the institution for which she speaks, dismisses the same skill. When will Dartmouth ever learn? When will professors decide to teach and help instead of stroking their own ego's? When will the Studio Art Department stop putting young artists down for not fitting their personal conception of art? When will people learn to actually and honestly appreciate and respect others different abilities and ideas, instead of just using them to fill some quota, fit some list?
