Coastline Pilot

21 September 2006

 

Chasing the Muse

Catharine Cooper

 

What better place to chase one’s own muse, than an art college, especially one nestled under tall trees in the heart of the our winding canyon. Laguna College of Art & Design is a 4 year degree granting institution that trains and educates an amazing cadre of artists.  Skilled and patient faculty guide and direct talented students, and the results are measurable and stunning.

 

It was to LCAD that I turned when faced with a career change in the early 90s.  I was a recently divorced mother with two small sons to raise.  I had a handful of knowledge about computers, a successful background as a photographer, but a need to firmly ground myself in a career that would allow me to be both soccer mom and working parent. 

 

The Visual Communications program, while in a state of relative infancy, provided me with a foundation and framework with which to build a flourishing and successful business.  But it did more than that.

 

I had held a story, since a high school art teacher told me I was better suited for math, that I could not draw.  What a surprise, that under the kind tutelage of Jonathan Burke, Betty Shelton and Lenny Scarola, I discovered that sketching was my friend - and that I had talent.

 

Academics have always been easy for me, but a class with Art Historian, Dr. Helene Garrison, challenged perceptions and called into play the ability to make connections between world events and the role of art and artists. Her abilities to bring history to life have been instrumental in studies of all of her students.

 

LCAD’s summer session in Italy, with Garrison, Shelton, Scarola, and Roger Armstrong and further impacted both my understanding and appreciation of history, and the chance to draw and paint in the field. These summer sessions also provided a fertile opportunity for deepened relationships, new friendships, and lots of lattes.

 

As I turned around in the late 90s, an opportunity arose to join the Trustees, first as an Alumna representative and eventually as a full Board Member.  The early challenges were first and foremost, to spread the word about the existence of the college.  Too often, I would speak with members in the city who had no knowledge of the school, or if they did, thought it was simply a place to paint or throw pots.  Hardly!

 

LCAD today graduates animators, fine art painters, future educators, graphic artists, sculptors, and gallery/museum curators.  While maintaining a remarkably low faculty-student ratio, students receive intense and personalized training.  The campus itself fuels both a camaraderie and a healthy competitive atmosphere.  The challenge to do and be ones best is always present.

 

In 2003. I was fortunate to lead the college’s strategic planning team. Rather than jump directly to numbers, I asked the team to develop an overall vision for the college and subsequently a set of goals.  We called ourselves the “Dream Team” and worked diligently through every aspect of the college, from facility to curriculum.  At every turn, I asked them and those they polled to assume that everything was possible.  The point of the dream is to set the stage for reach and then plan an approach. 

 

The 2006 MFA in Painting was one of the components of our planning sessions.  There were some who had feared we would be unable to enroll the necessary six students to make the program fly.  This year, proudly, LCAD has enrolled 17 full-time students and 2 part-time.  The program is unique to the West coast and involves a broad blend of personal studio work with art history, contemporary culture and a visiting artist program.

 

New this year, Virtual Drawing & Painting, a course that combines traditional drawing skills with a graphics tablet and a computer.  LCAd is the first college in the nation to offer this class, which is designed to be the answer to the question, “What would Michelangelo do with a computer?”

 

Daily, this gem of a college opens up creative doors to the minds and talents of the next generation of visual communicators.  Art, in many ways, is the most accessible medium to communicate the culture and social aspects of our times.  Like the work that has preceded them, LCAD artists carry the task interpreting their world for their followers.  Their work speaks for itself.

 

Catharine Cooper is a proud Alumna of Laguna College of Art & Design.  She can be reached at ccooper@cooperdesign.net