Aggie aesthetics

By: Adam Shriver

Posted: 6/29/05

With 44,435 thousand students attending in Fall 2004, Texas A&M University has the seventh-largest student population of any university in the country. However, it also happens to be the only school of the 10 largest universities that does not have a fine arts program. Though A&M certainly does a good job at creating a distinctive culture for its students and employees, the lack of an art program means that members of our community need to work extra hard to make sure that the arts are alive and flourishing in Brazos County.

A&M gets its share of high-quality performances coming through town thanks to MSC OPAS, and the MSC Forsyth and J. Wayne Stark galleries have many excellent permanent and traveling works on display at any given time during the year. But, having artwork imported into town that has already been certified as "high quality" by experts is a far cry from having an active artistic community. It is, for all intents and purposes, allowing other people to tell us what to look for in art, rather than letting the artists from our own community develop what local artist Felice House calls a "visual identity."

House, who is also the owner of the local House Painting Studio, says having a thriving arts scene is important for a number of reasons. "Art enlivens communities, provides a common ground for diverse people to come together and creates access to new ideas," House said. Artists function much like small businesses, she said, and invest much more of their money in the community than national chains that sell mass-produced products.

Having a fine arts department at a university provides a locus for working artists who can create artwork that expresses and challenges the ideas of our community. Though creativity is valuable in any academic discipline, this creativity is often confined because it is shaped by a profit motive or an internal resistance to change. Academic art is not entirely immune from these influences, but it is a venue in which creativity is held as one of the highest virtues and often pursued for its own sake. An organized group that constantly strives for new means of expression inevitably produces ideas that can benefit the entire academic community.

A&M recognizes this importance. Vision 2020 includes the establishment of a Fine Arts Program as a goal and says that the "experiences made possible by a vibrant arts community contribute immeasurably to our quality of life and enrich our humanity." However, until that vision is realized, we will have to think of other ways to promote a local arts culture.

One of the most important ways to do this is to buy local art. Of course, most large-scale art is outside of the typical students' budget, but purchasing minor decorations such as prints and wall hangings from local artists that would normally be bought at large-scale chains is generally a reasonable purchase. According to a 2002 study by Civic Economics, spending $100 at a national retail chain only returns $13 to the community, while buying at a local store returns $45 to the local economy. Supporting the community, in many people's minds, more than makes up for the added expense of buying authentic local art.

Another important factor in a thriving arts community is having a network of communication among artists. Like most professions, artists flourish when able to work in an environment of constructive criticism with their peers. It is hard to mimic the organizational focus that exists within a university art department, but a group of artists are making strides to achieve the community vibe at www.BrazosArtists.org. They hosted an event called ArtStep in June that featured paintings, photographs, ceramics, drawings and fine art print from local artists. The next ArtStep should be sometime in November.

Though A&M has its own identity, it would benefit greatly from a more active arts community. Hopefully, the University will implement its 2020 goal of creating a fine arts department sooner rather than later, but until then we should do our best to support the working artists of Brazos County. A thriving arts community provides an immense benefit to the exchange of ideas that characterizes college life.