UALR magazine
Fall/Winter 2007 • Vol. 3 No. 2
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Old Fashioned Revival
By Tonya Oaks Smith
Weaving looms click-clack and table saws buzz in the newly renovated workshop for Applied Design in UALR’s University Plaza at the corner of Asher and University avenues. Students work their imaginative magic under the tutelage of experienced craftsmen from around the world, aiming to create art that stands the test of time.
Applied Design and America’s craft heritage are enjoying a resurgence in the United States, thanks in part to groups of dedicated craftspeople and nonprofit organizations like Friends of Contemporary Craft and Handmade in America based in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. UALR’s Art Department and Applied Design program lead the central Arkansas charge to promote craft as fine art.
“There is currently a revival of the craft movement in the United States, but we’re in the very early stages,” said Win Bruhl, chair of the Department of Art. “I see it as a reaction to the overwhelming surge of technology we have. Art satisfies the intellectual and spiritual need in people, and we as human beings need these opportunities to engage in art that has an everyday purpose and usefulness in our lives.”
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Not only do UALR Studio Art students engage in Applied Design classes, the program has a large group of non-matriculating student populations, who learn for personal enrichment. About 10 percent of the enrollment in any given Applied Design class is filled with students who are learning simply for the sake of increasing their knowledge and techniques in one of four disciplines — furniture making, fiber work, metal work, and ceramics. Students in the UALR Applied Design program work in one of four media — wood, fiber, metal, and ceramics. The fiber and wood programs hold class in the University Plaza building, while the metal and ceramics programs are in the Fine Arts Building on the north side of campus.
Ceramics classes completely changed the direction of the future for UALR art student Amy Blackwell Bennett. The senior had already completed her degree plan in psychology as a part of the prestigious Donaghey Scholars Program, but she had several semesters remaining on her scholarship eligibility. Art classes beckoned.
“I became very interested in ceramics — mainly because of my professor Missy McCormick — and have completely changed my life path,” Bennett said. “After I graduate, I will continue to take a few more ceramics courses at UALR to strengthen my portfolio for grad school. UALR’s ceramics department is a diamond in the rough. We have great equipment, a challenging curriculum, and an extremely knowledgeable and hands-on professor who has the energy and passion for every student at every level of ability to cultivate them into artists that can be successful in the real world.”
Bruhl likes to say that the Applied Design program offers opportunities to the community that residents can’t find elsewhere, and he is correct. The program, offered by the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, is the only college-based program of its kind in the south central United States and is accredited through the National Association of Schools of Art and Design.
Design programs in the closest proximity and with similar opportunities can be found at Tennessee Tech University and the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia. Other well-known Applied Design programs are at the University of Iowa, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, and San Diego State University, where Mia Hall, UALR’s new furniture design professor, received her graduate degree.
Because of how the program is structured — students create unique designs that they interpret as models that eventually become actual-size works of art — students in each of the Applied Design disciplines are able to gain more than skills and appreciation for art.
The Applied Design program prepares students to become entrepreneurs, studio art furniture designers, fiber artists, metal fabricators, and ceramists. In addition, students are encouraged to work with local materials, decreasing the reliance upon high-priced, limited supplies from exotic places while increasing local opinion of and demand for native materials.
Applied Design was begun to help continue America’s craft heritage, which began with the Arts and Crafts Movement — an earlier response to a time of growing technology with the 19th Century Industrial Revolution.
In each of these crafts, as with the Arts and Crafts Movement, machines and technology are not thought to be enemies but tools used to allow the artist to focus on a creative vision and make unique aesthetically pleasing and functional art items affordable.
“The program is designed to allow our students to work as independent designers or work in an industrial environment,” Bruhl said. “While focusing on traditional arts and crafts representative of our Mid-South region, we are also working to give our students a sound foundation so they can succeed in the marketplace.”
To that end, students in the studio furniture program may register for CATIA (Computer Aided Three Dimensional Interactive Application) classes through the UALR College of Engineering and Information Technology. They may also apply their formalized design background to fill a need in the community — such as working with Dassault Falcon Jet to customize interiors for private aircraft at the Completion Center in Little Rock.
In addition, Bruhl encourages Applied Design students to enroll in the entrepreneurship program in UALR’s College of Business to help them market their work and engage in a fruitful design future.
“We are allowing students to develop their artistic skills,” Bruhl said, “but we also want them to be able to develop their business skills. In doing this, we provide a service to the state and community while giving students opportunities they cannot get elsewhere in Arkansas.”