Before visiting Purchase, my experience with art schools had been quite underwhelming. I was excited about pursuing art, not because it offered an alternative to a “traditional” education, but because it was an exciting way to synthesize and express ideas. It was discouraging to visit other schools that encouraged a focused study in art but were uninspired when it came to other avenues of study. The architecture of the program at Purchase immediately impressed upon me a sense of interdisciplinary creativity. While I knew I could benefit from the VA’s professional art instruction, I also knew I could take advantage of the other schools on campus.

MORE THAN ENOUGH SPACE
I study Visual Arts with a concentration in Sculpture. Sculpture is exciting because the contemporary definition of this medium is really very broad and can accommodate a wide variety of artistic approaches. I like knowing that the language I use to express an idea does not have a strict definition and that my methods of expression are versatile. I think it’s important as an art student to experiment. Sculpture lends itself to investigations that crisscross material, cerebral, and physical boundaries.
Another aspect of the art program that is especially important to me right now is the amount of space I have to work. I’ve become increasingly interested in working at larger scales and the facilities that I have access to enable this in a really fundamental way.

THE EARTH AS ART
Greg Lock was my Sculpture II professor last semester, which is a more open-ended course. Rather than just using one specific material, you investigate ideas through materials. In a plastics project, for example, we thought about plastic and its relation to place because it’s man-made. That project extended itself organically, and I have revisited it. In the end it has turned into a big thing with Styrofoam.
I also made a piece called “Fold” using slate stone, tape, and string. It was an installation in the VA. It was an abstract translation of the geological process of the way slate forms. Belts under the earth compressing stone. I explored different ways that idea could be translated. Two dimensional, experiential, and so on.

LEOTARDS AND CELLOS
It is conducive to work here. Leotards and cellos everywhere. Other majors walking around in their respective arts. Makes you feel you are part of some greater creative body. Being in a class with other students is as much about learning from each other as it is about learning from the professor. A class’s collective experience, especially in some of the smaller classes that are more conceptually oriented, has directed my projects in ways that might never have occurred if I had been working alone.
In a similar way, the community atmosphere has been fertile ground for rewarding relationships to develop between my professors and me. I’ve had the opportunity to be a teaching assistant in an introductory class and pursue an independent study. Working with a single professor in this way has made me more sensitive to my own tendencies and has been an important step in finding my own voice.
Without a doubt one of the school’s greatest assets is its proximity to Manhattan. Coming from Boston I thought I knew what it was like to enjoy the benefits of a city, but New York is in its own league. Right here on campus, however, we have one of the best museums for visual artists, our own Neuberger Museum. The contemporary collection upstairs houses a Hopper, a Rothko and many others. We have the African art collection. And, of course, all the contemporary installations. As a college museum, its function seems twofold: to provide interesting aesthetic experiences and to teach about ideas in art and the world. In this way, the Neuberger is frequently utilized by academic classes I have taken—to give form to ideas being discussed. I also have the ability to make my work in a supportive environment that values creativity, challenging me to think about what I do in increasingly complex ways.