The problem with arts in schools is that there aren’t enough. Ohio University has the opposite problem, there are a variety of fine arts present on campus, and it’s just that people ignore them despite their quality and merit.
To the Editor,
“When e’er we take our book of mem’ries and scan its pages through and through we’ll find no days that glow so brightly as those we spent at old O.U.”
This is an excerpt brandished on the first page of the 2013-2014 AthenaYearbook. In theory, this is a heart-warming statement that we, as future alumni, should hold dear. Except the book in question has no evidence of us: the students of the College of Fine Arts.
The problem with arts in schools is that there aren’t enough. Ohio University has the opposite problem, there are a variety of fine arts present on campus, and it’s just that people ignore them despite their quality and merit. The Athena Yearbook is supposed to be a chronicle about the things that matter on campus. Instead of recognizing the hard work and unwavering dedication of the many artists on campus, with The College of Fine Arts encompassing Film, Music, Theater, Dance, Interdisciplinary Arts and Art and Design, we get a 2 page dedication to Mill Fest and a complete chronicle of fraternities and sororities. In fact the only representation of the College of Fine Arts in the entire book is of the Marching 110 pictured at a football game and Singing Men of Ohio marching in the Homecoming parade.
What’s wrong with this picture?
The College of Fine Arts on Ohio University’s main campus is home to over 1,000 students, including graduate programs. The vibrant and deeply engaging college was founded in 1947. The Athena Yearbook gives the college a quarter of a page with statistics and a picture of the outside of Putnam Hall.
To date, Ohio University’s College of Fine Arts has produced many successful artists, theater performers, technical artists, designers, singers, dancers, choreographers, sculptors, musicians and more. Students are creating their own work, collaborating and making long lasting impacts in many different artistic communities. The Ohio University Division of Theater in particular produces nine to 12 shows per year and hosts an annual playwrights festival which showcases work from its award winning MFA playwriting program.
With notable alumni, a nationally ranked sculpture program and countless opportunities to see and consume art for free, the College of Fine Arts gets two representations in the “so called” yearbook. One, being a cockeyed rendering of the 110 and the other being a cropped picture of the Singing Men. In the “Athena Staff” section their mission statement reads, “The Athena Yearbook staff aims to bring diverse coverage of events from the Ohio University school year. We strive to represent each year by highlighting significant happenings on Ohio University campus.” Significant. Significant.
So the Halloween block party is significant, and snowboarding when class is cancelled is significant, and a two page spread on Nelson Dining Hall is significant, and the beer soaked streets of the fests littered with lost socks and lost memories are significant, but the production of As You Like It consisting of over 40 students, encompassing music written by a faculty member and a set constructed like a piece of living art gets thrown by the wayside. A pool being built in the RTV building for the mythic production of Metamorphoses isn’t significant. The Nuit Blanche festival which encompasses visual, music, dance and theatrical arts isn’t significant. And by God the students and faculty creating these things aren’t significant either.
What the AthenaYearbook shows me is that the arts aren’t significant. The Kennedy Museum, a nationally acclaimed space for art is not even mentioned, but The Ridges as is gets a two page spread without text. We get a representation on a bar graph showing how “insignificant” we are in the eyes of the university. 828 undergraduate students they say on the graph, not worth covering. But those 828 students are working against the odds every day, often graduating, working for the love of their work and trying to make an impact but not being valued by society. Ohio University and The Athena are just a microcosm of a greater issue: the lack of respect for artists as a whole.
The athletic teams, each one, gets a two page spread, totaling to over 34 pages of coverage. There are also two full pages of students learning how to catch fish. We get an article about the “top 10 places to visit in Alden Library,” in addition to a spread of graduates. Not one student of the College of Fine Arts is pictured. How did this not set off an alarm in the editors of this book?
The ceramicists of Ohio University’s nationally ranked program and the dancers training to become the next great choreographers, and the actors bleeding on the floor of Kantner’s studios, and the film-makers shooting in two days are second rate compared to chronicling the debauchery of Court Street. How about our Athena cinema, which showcases film as art, houses student made screenings and works for the community as an outlet for the masses. Where’s the two page spread on that?
Where’s the coverage of our numerous art galleries and installations? How about the professional photos taken by students for every single Division of Theater event? The pictures themselves are art to say nothing the subjects in them.
Performances of high caliber that show thought, dedication and an understanding of the world are something that are treasured in our culture. Movie stars, musicians, artists, dancers and sculptors are icons once they get famous, but how can they get famous if we all don’t recognize them on the ground level? How can change be made if publications like our yearbook, the alleged “diverse chronicle of things that matter on campus,” doesn’t even see the value in them? There is something deeply wrong on this campus, and it’s to the detriment of not just the students of the College of Fine Arts, but the university as a whole. When we accept these injustices we become part of the problem. Why represent our school with red solo cups and Natty Light? Why not represent it with innovation and exploration? Why not represent it with art?
Tess Stevens is an Ohio University senior studying theater performance and journalism.
