Barbara Smith

I had a great time meeting Jessica Calderwood this Sunday, and getting to work with her for awhile this past Monday. She was wonderful! Very open about every aspect of her artistic process. She gave a great lecture covering some work from her undergrad, her residency at Kohler, and her grad work at ASU. She also talked about how she has survived as an artist post graduate school, and had many students asking her, “What am I going to do when I graduate?” We have already mentioned to her that we would love to have her back for a longer workshop at some point.

The students really enjoyed working with her…it was a perfect topic for the enameling class, which had yet to do much with painting/drawing with enamel. (I’m not incredibly well versed with this) The students asked intelligent questions and, I think, really gleaned a large amount of information from Jessica. I’m excited to see how my students integrate what they learned from Jessica into their last two class projects.

Interestingly enough, this was my first time at Purdue that I’ve had the opportunity to go to a lecture and workshop by a metalsmith. Come to think of it, we never had anyone in to even do a lecture in photography the entire time I’ve been at Purdue! I know I’m not the only person here who feels this way, but, one of the huge things that we lack is a strong visiting artist program. It is really so important for the students to get opportunities like this one during their formative years in school. It is even important for the faculty! All of the faculty who attended Jessica’s lecture and demo yesterday, including myself, learned a lot and felt excited about this new technique that we could teach and/or use in our work. Yesterday was awesome….and as excited as I was I also felt like I had missed out; that my students miss out because of a lack of funding for visiting artists at Purdue. Maybe one day. I think this was a step in the right direction.

~ by borderlinebarbie on April 15, 2008.