Four years of toil pay off at art show

By Kirsten Germeraad

Every spring, the senior studio art majors take over the art department's gallery with weekly displays of their creative endeavors.

They are not required to have a show, but most take advantage of the chance to show their work publicly.

The opportunity is something that many aspiring artists only dream of havinging. Some will go on to MFA programs, others will work for museums or design firms, and a few, like me, will try to pass on their training by becoming art teachers.

Every quarter, I take at least one class and produce a few pieces, but the only people who ever see them are the other students in the class. My gallery was a chance to show everyone the art I had made, to prove that all of those late nights spent in the studio instead of going out or studying physics were worth it.

Art majors learn as much from their mistakes and successes as from their professors. Our galleries are not just a culmination of four years of work, they represent how far each of us has come as and artist and person.

Within the gallery everything is a student creation. Literally. We don't just make the art. We hang it, we make sure the lights hit it properly, we spackle and paint the walls and pedestals and we cut out letters and labels. We think about every square inch and consider how it looks and feels. We make sure that the work we display is the best of what we have created, and we make sure that everything flows together.

And we make it happen in less than 48 hours. Call us crazy, and most of us probably are. But if you stop by and see what we have created, you'll probably wish you were crazy, too.

Contact Kirsten Germeraad at kgermeraad@scu.edu.