Transforming Brutalism: Student Art Prints Improve the Learning Environment
Creating the Print Collection
Honoring the Student Artists Leads to Next Steps
An afternoon cake and punch reception was held during the fall term to introduce the new collection to the college and the community. In addition to the artists and their families and friends, invitations were extended to the members of Lane's Foundation Board, the donor of the art funds, and all Lane staff and faculty as well as the community. Art department faculty members were asked to announce the event to their students and encouraged to bring their classes to the reception. The event was well attended and several art classes came to view the prints and discuss them with the artists.
An unexpected and exciting outcome from the reception was an offer by a retired Lane art instructor to help increase the print collection. He was so impressed with the collection that he plans to contact former students of his who are now mid-career professional artists and ask them to donate a piece.
Another unanticipated connection made at the reception was with an academic learning instructor in developmental education. She came to the reception to talk with the artists because her students were expected to view the print collection and write about it as a class assignment. She wanted more insight into the work for the next time she gave the assignment. It became evident that an important next step is to develop ways to help faculty in other disciplines use the print collection and other art on campus as learning tools.
An idea that has emerged is to create a traveling print collection for display in community settings and perhaps at other community colleges around the country. Given the ease and low cost of shipping unframed prints as well as inexpensive ways to display them, Lowdermilk hopes to develop another print collection that can be shared.
Affordable Public Art for Lane
Lane's learning environment, like many college campuses built in the late 1960s, is classic Brutalist architecture: bare exposed concrete. In a recent survey, students overwhelmingly commented that they experience the Brutalism as austere, cold, drab, and gloomy, especially during the gray drizzly days of a Eugene, Oregon winter. Some likened it to learning in a parking garage!
To help mitigate this experience, a series of efforts have been initiated by the Art on Campus Committee. Prior to the creation of the print collection, a painting collection and a commercial art collection were pulled out of storage and mounted throughout the main campus. An invitational sculpture exhibit was held and a number of pieces were purchased and put on permanent display. Two sculpture faculty members, also members of the Art on Campus Committee, offered several classes that created public artwork. Traditional Japanese carvers were invited to mentor students for a wood sculpture course that resulted in a large joint outdoor sculpture. A metal sculpture class created a multipiece work for the bus stop that garnered partial funding from the bus company. A stunning stone piece now stands in front of the administration building, the outcome of a two-term sculpture course.
Another goal is to transform the feel of the main campus through the design of new buildings and the landscaping and artwork for them. Currently, a new health and wellness building is under construction as is a Native American longhouse. A regional competition was held and an internationally known Northwest artist has been commissioned to create an outdoor sculpture for the entrance to the health and wellness building. Native American artwork will grace the longhouse once it is completed.
Lane Community College is using art to significantly change its stark, concrete learning environment. With the inspiration of a small group of innovative faculty and staff, support and encouragement from its president, a very modest budget, and, most importantly, student creativity, transformation has begun.
Tamara Pinkas is lead faculty, Cooperative Education Division, at Lane Community College, Eugene, OR.