Photo by Tony Lee/The Choate News
The Visual Arts Concentration program for this year’s new group of students has been modified to accommodate Covid-19 health and safety guidelines. With nearly half of the fall term being held remotely and Visual Arts Concentration advisers Ms. Smita Sen and Mr. Aaron Sober exclusively teaching online the entire term, the program has had to take extra steps to support student-artists.
The program’s designated space in the Paul Mellon Arts Center (PMAC) is different from previous years. The group used to be situated on the second-floor balcony of the PMAC gallery with work stations arranged in a wide semi-circle, where sun and snow shone through the building’s glass ceiling and provided the artists with creative inspiration and an abundance of natural lighting. This year, the balcony was revamped as the new meeting space for studio arts courses such as drawing, with furniture reconfigured to accomodate a large Virtual Student display and socially-distanced desks and easels.
Past the second-floor balcony and through creaky glass doors, the studio previously used for visual arts classes is now the new home of Visual Arts Concentration. The spacious studio used to be split into three sections. One third held the colossal Rosemary Hall quilt, supplies shelf, as well as easels and still-life configurations for drawing and oil painting classes; another third housed antique chairs, belovedly-named plants, and more easels for life drawing classes; the last third was created in between the other two by movable drywalls, forming an enclosed space with a grey carpet and colorful cushions for artists to meditate or chat in.
Where there used to be cushions, books, and decor, now the studio consists of one continuous space with two rows of seven desks lined roughly six feet apart. The change in their workspace from a light-filled balcony to a carefully organized studio has made a noticeable impact on the Visual Arts Concentration students.
“Previously, the atmosphere of being in the PMAC was being a close community, now it feels very clinical with all the desks spaced apart,” said Macie Simmons ’22, a fifth-former in the program. In the past, students could gather together to review each others’ work, discuss creative ideas, or simply fraternize. Now, however, since students must socially distance, the artists are suddenly deprived of the collaborative aspect of their creative process.
Still, the camaraderie and sense of community established by the Visual Arts Con cohort remains strong through the efforts of the program’s advisers. Unable to visit and instruct the artists in person, Ms. Sen and Mr. Sober have come up with fun ways to continue engaging with the student artists through Zoom calls. During the biweekly Arts Concentration meetings, the advisers start meetings by sharing performances and art pieces that they found to be particularly interesting.
The advisers also regularly review students’ work and offer feedback through Google Drive, where the artists upload their works in progress as opposed to physically presenting their pieces. This new digital system has offered Arts Concentration members more autonomy than in the past.
“The advisers check in on us, and we have to upload things into our Google Drive folder. I still feel like I’m making progress and working well even though I’m not being monitored by teachers all the time,” said Audrey Kaye ’22, another fifth-former in the program. “Mr. Sober and Ms. Sen have been sensitive to students’ heightened levels of stress and check in with students about their well-being. It makes me feel more comfortable when I know that the advisers and the other students care about how I’m doing.”
Yet another hurdle the pandemic poses for Visual Arts Concentration is that campus will soon close for Fall Break, and all classes and extracurricular activities will take place online until at least January.
According to Simmons, being cognizant of the privilege of having access to the PMAC facilities has made her more appreciative of the studio. “Last year there would be times when I didn’t want to come into the PMAC that day,” she said. “Now, I’m always very glad to be here.”
The PMAC balcony, formerly home to the Visual Arts Concentration program, is now an art classroom. Photo by Tony Lee/The Choate News
