College Profile:
The Cleveland Institute of Art
To find that you possess the ability to create something extraordinary from ordinary things such as paper and ink is a marvelous discovery. Many of us come to know this without realizing that it is special or even that there may have been a time when we could not. We are artists. When we were children, we preferred a blank page to the outlined drawings of some other person to which we should add color. We preferred texture and layers of color over the marks that most other people were bound to put inside the lines. This desire to create grew stronger as we grew older. In grade school, we looked forward to the weekly art classes. We scheduled as many art classes as we could in high school, and the art room was our favorite place—it was our escape, our haven, our home.
That is how it was for me. When it came time to consider the next step, the only thing that I could imagine was art school. Art school is an entire building filled with art rooms. It is filled with the sights, sounds, and smells of art making. It is Oz for the artist. When I was looking for the perfect art school, I was choosy. All of them were filled with the magic of creating, learning, and living.
In the end, however, The Cleveland Institute of Art, with its five year BFA program, was the one that fit best. I enrolled and filled the next five years with the business of making art everyday. It was awesome to look at my work after just one semester and to think, "I made that!" I was amazed at how much I had learned in just 16 weeks. The professors and my classmates had taught me more than I thought I could learn in a lifetime. This experience repeated semester after semester. Within two years, I had learned about drawing, painting, and design. I studied Art History and Literature, and those studies informed my work as well as gave me a sense of history and my place in it as an artist.
For three years after that, I studied Printmaking. I had 15 majors from which to choose including Drawing, Painting, Photography, and Sculpture. Graphic Design, Illustration, Industrial Design, Interior Design, and Medical Illustration. Glass, Fiber, Metals, Ceramics, and Enameling round out the curriculum vitae. If I were a student today, I would have the newest major to choose from: T.I.M.E. / Digital Arts. Each student has a studio space or a workstation of their own, and instruction comes from professional artists and designers. The liberal arts classes complement the studio classes and help educate the total artist, and preparing each student for a career and life as a professional artist.
My three years in the major were filled with trials and triumphs. Learning the techniques and language of the major filled most of my third year. In my fourth year, I began to find my own style, my strengths, my narratives. In my fifth year, I put together my thesis show, a series of prints presented as two suites. All of this was in preparation for the BFA (Bachelor's in Fine Arts) exhibit. All students show their thesis and have a final critique in which they defend their work toclassmates and professors. At times, it is so difficult you think you should just quit, but then you find a piece in front of you that you created and you know that the education you have chosen will support you as you go on to a career as an artist or designer.
The Cleveland Institute of Art is a five-year professional college of art and design. We are located in University Circle, which is filled with parks and surrounded by museums (including the world renowned Cleveland Museum of Art), Severance Hall, the home of the Cleveland Orchestra, and two other colleges, Case Western Reserve and the Cleveland Institute of Music. The Institute is filled with bright, well-equipped studios and modern computer labs. Most importantly, it is filled with art, art-making, artists, and art lovers. It is a place that offers the camaraderie and facilities to feed that thing inside of you that can create something extraordinary from the ordinary.
Editorial provided by Catherine Redhead (class of 1990), Director of Admissions at The Cleveland Institute of Art.
