Carey Cameron
Arts Scholar
Semester 1
The Arts Scholars curriculum is very different from what I expected college courses to be like. The environment is extremely collaborative, and it encourages community building much more than any other course I could think of. The TA and podcast groups we have been with the entire semester certainly prove this point, as well as the many activities offered both in and out of the classroom to socialize. I have met many of my good friends at UMD through the Arts Scholars program through this. The course also focuses on your development as a student (and artist) much more than I was expecting. Many of the assignments given are there to help you explore UMD student life. I found these aspects of the course very helpful.
An arts supporting course that I absolutely loved was Global Women’s Literature. I loved it so much I changed my major to English. In the class, we focused on how literature can portray global identities and issues that are not contained within national borders. We talked about immigration, family dynamics, feminism, sexuality, and connected real-world issues to the novels we read. CPSA 100 this semester talked a lot about art and change. Our podcasts were based on a contemporary issue of our choice we thought was important. The class really put an emphasis on how creating art can affect social change. The novels we read in Global Women’s Literature are pieces of art. The conversations they spark about social injustice and identity are helping to spark change (like our podcasts).
I definitely was not expecting our class to cover the social issues that we did. I was wondering how our class would work now that we do not have in-person class, but I thought we would be doing at-home arts and crafts or movie viewings, etc. The podcast project that encouraged us to focus on and learn more about social justice issues was definitely not what I was expecting. I was a little saddened that we did not do as much in-class art as I thought we were going to do (although I definitely understand why because….pandemic). As someone in a non-visual art, I was looking forward to exploring that a bit more. Nothing is as I thought it would be when I received my acceptance letter (but that’s the same for everything nowadays), but I think the class did a good job at adapting. I really enjoyed the field trip I got to go on with zine making at Studio A. It was fun and informative, and I got to try my hand at a new skill that I really enjoyed!
My life at college is exactly what I thought it would be a year ago. Sitting alone in a moldy dorm room eating food out of a box while thinking of how to get one full night of sleep, living the dream. As you could probably tell, I am joking. It is VERY VERY different. As a senior, I expected college to be the best time of my life. While I have enjoyed aspects of college this year, it has been very isolating and taxing on my mental health (in addition to other roadblocks that have happened this semester). Hopefully it will improve as COVID goes away. I don’t know my plans for next year yet, but I know I am living on campus next semester. I am hoping college will be more fun next semester.
UMD’s COVID response fit my image. I knew we would do well at first, we did a lot of testing and looked pretty good. But after a while UMD got very lax with their testing and reporting and the positivity rate was not accurate at all. Pretty much what I expected. I appreciated the steps UMD took to keep us safe, however they did not do as much as I would have liked to truly feel comfortable on campus.
The most thought-provoking thing I learned in Arts Scholars was through the zine making field trip I attended. In it, I was able to learn the long history of underground zines as a way to push for social change. Although I was aware of the existence of zines, I never knew that they were that important. This affected me on a larger level by showing me how important art, no matter how “amateur” or small, is for creating social change. In the future I will apply this by putting my art out there more, and trying to use my artistic platform to push for social change.
Semester 2
This year was a tough year to develop strong relationships with faculty members. I would say my greatest success in developing these relationships were the relationships I developed with my English professors. First semester, I was going through a lot of personal turmoil and was struggling to meet a lot of deadlines. My English professor at the time always valued learning over the minutia and deadlines and worked with me to get through the semester. I enjoyed her class more as a result. My current English professor has a similar energy and always works to make sure he has a connection with each of the students in his class. Currently, I think I am still struggling to adjust to virtual connection, and hopefully we will all get to be together next year to overcome that hurdle. I recommend that incoming students develop relationships with their teachers by being inquisitive during class time and making use of office hours. And always say THANK YOU!
I certainly had a very hard time adjusting to university, especially since we were in a, you know, casual global pandemic. However, the arts helped me form a lot of connections with my fellow peers. Through my love of music I found a lot of friends in the Art Scholars community who happened to live in my building. Through my love of writing and comedy I was able to join Maryland Night Live and express my creativity there. I even started a radio show (listen to Gaslit on WMUC ;) ) with my friend and we got closer through our shared love of movies and music. Forming these relationships allowed me to create my own community in a place where I previously felt isolated and alone. The greatest obstacle now is still the whole virtual learning factor. We haven’t been able to meet nearly the amount of people we would have because there are no roommates, no in-person classes, no events to stumble upon people with similar interests, Whenever I ask my older friends where they meet their friends in college, it’s normally some weird story about bumping into them in their hall or at a concert or in a group project. I feel like we missed out on a lot of those chance meetings and our friendships had to be very targeted to keep groups small. For incoming freshmen, take advantage of those opportunities. The best people I have met this year have been because of those weird chance meetings. It never hurts to reach out, and bonding over something so powerful as art creates strong relationships.
The Arts Scholars program did its best to foster community and arts engagement while remaining virtual. The class always encouraged people to turn on their cameras and talk out loud as well as in the chat. They also used small workshops to get us more closely connected with our peers while developing our artistic skills. One example of how the Arts program influenced me was during my workshop. I was never a great painter, but I decided to sign up for a painting workshop anyway to expand my skill set. During the workshop, I was able to learn that it wasn’t my skill that was important, but my learning process. Everyone was on different levels but we all supported each other and our growth as a class. We also learned about Greek mythology and always hyped up each other’s interpretations of the myths. I felt like I was engaging with the art I was making as well as with the art of my peers. I felt so connected to our community. In the future, I think I will try to be a friendly face for the freshman so that they can make a community of their own as well. I also might try to teach a workshop next year or be a TA after I graduate the program so that I can help future scholars find their footing.
My appreciation for and understanding of art has grown during my first year as an Arts Scholar. Arts Scholars always put an emphasis on finding the art in your life, especially through things like Pentathlon. I enjoyed taking time out of my week to enjoy art and dissect the meaning behind it. Scholars encouraged me to make consuming art a valuable part of my daily life. The program also provided me with the opportunity to see that art can have drastically different definitions for everyone, and that all of their definitions are pretty much valid. Future Arts Scholars can expand their own definitions of art by consuming more art of all different kinds! If you are more of a visual artist, try looking at/doing the performing arts and vice versa. I was never a visual art persona and mostly enjoyed writing and performing. However, Arts Scholars has helped me appreciate the visual arts more and now I make it a point to be involved with that community.
The most beneficial aspects of Arts Scholars were the ones that took the time to foster community, despite the tough year. I enjoyed getting to know my fellow scholars in breakout rooms and through workshops. It was awesome to learn what art everyone enjoyed and to see their progression throughout the year. Advising meetings with the leadership team also provided this sense of community as they made sure you were doing alright. In order to get the most out of your Arts Scholars experience, I would advise students to make as many connections possible in all iterations of the class. Through breakout rooms, chat interactions, workshops, and dorm building meetings. Really create that sense of community that Arts Scholars is giving you the building blocks to make. Hopefully next year it will be easier, but if I can manage to make friends during a pandemic you can too!
Semester 3
The lessons in colloquium have hammered in many of the course themes throughout the semester. I found these themes to be helpful in understanding CPSA’s goals. First, we learned how art can be used to recontextualize often problematic histories. This can be done through the reclamation of certain cultural art forms like the step dancing and drumming we learned in colloquium. These art forms are utilized to tell stories, and often they tell stories of underrepresented people. Step dancing in particular has its roots in enslaved African American history. By learning this art form we are able to see and hear African American cultural history that was often overlooked. Another theme we discussed was the initiation of the creative process. In order to begin the creative process, one has to brainstorm ideas. There are a few ways to do that, including to draw a mind map and to follow the strategies outlined in the Capstone Study I assignment to complete a structured brainstorm. These strategies will hopefully lead you to find a few ideas you can narrow down. Another way to initiate the creative process is to research your passions and to share ideas/critiques with a friend or peer. All of these strategies can iad in beginning the creative process. We used these in class by creating our own mind maps and by sharing our results with our peers. This was also helpful in our first Capstone Studies. Incorporating feedback is another theme we discussed this semester. After many of our Capstone Studies we shared our ideas and proposals with fellow art scholars. We learned about the proper ways to give constructive critique via the Liz Lerman Critical Response Process. The process emphasizes actual constructive suggestions and artist questions rather than whatever the critique-giver wanted to say. I then utilized this method in order to give and take feedback from my peers. I gained a lot of insight from the feedback given to me on my Capstone studies by my fellow art scholars. It was helpful seeing what a fresh pair of eyes thought about the project. On the flip side, it was great to see the passions of my fellow scholars.
An art piece that has recently been in the news that reflects a lived experience is the sculpture Can’t Help Myself. Although it has been around since 2016, the sculpture gained more of a following after going viral on TikTok. The sculpture is a robot that is programmed to mop up a blood-like substance when it goes out of bounds. No matter how hard the robot may try to contain the substance, however, it will always leak back out with the liquid deteriorating the metal robot. The robot was also given human-like qualities, which made many people (myself included) feel for the robot. There are many meanings people have given to the robot but the meaning given by the artist is the condemnation of border control and border violence across the globe. The artists (Sun Yuan and Peng Yu) are known to use humor to address their own beliefs on hot-button issues like immigration. My engagement with Art Scholars definitely helped me to understand this piece and its popularity better. In Art Scholars this semester we learned about the creative process and how we can incorporate our own experiences/beliefs into artistic expression. Even if the representation of those beliefs is not outright (as it is not outright in Can’t Help Myself), art can be a way of creatively expressing them. Myself and many of my peers are using this strategy in our capstone projects, where we use art to represent our beliefs in both obvious and covert manners.
The course that has connected me closest to Art Scholars is not an arts supporting course (at least not one in my requirements) but rather an elective for my major. It is my ENGL275 Scriptwriting class. I went into the class unsure of my writing abilities as I have only written short comedy sketches before (as much as I love to write). This class touched on a lot of material we were learning adjacently in Art Scholars, specifically how to brainstorm and begin to create a creative idea and the feedback process. We actually learned Liz Lerman’s feedback process in this class as well. This class definitely supported my Art Scholars learning in that way: by putting to practice the techniques I learned in CPSA200. This class also taught me the fundamentals of scriptwriting, the very discipline I am utilizing in my final capstone project. Both ENGL275 have taught me to understand the creative process better and to put it to use doing something that I love.
My learning this semester was definitely improved by interacting with some of my fellow Art Scholars, however I do not think it is to the same degree as it would have been pre-pandemic since our class of scholars is not as connected. It was great to be able to chat with my peers about their capstone projects and get a better sense of where their artistic inclinations and passions lie. They also acted as great people to brainstorm with and bounce ideas off of. My friends Connor, Kate and Kiley all were great help in brainstorming possible capstone ideas and working out logistics. They provided a supportive environment to grow and learn in. However, I do not think many of us sophomores got the “living” part of the living learning experience, and thus are missing a crucial piece of the puzzle. This means that I am not super close with many of my fellow Art Scholars and sometimes feel uncomfortable approaching them about ideas or feedback.
I have been a part of the Arts community at UMD in a few different ways. First, I attended the Pyramid Atlantic Photo Transfer field trip with my fellow classmates, which was very fun and gave me a new arts skill in my toolbelt. I also attended an Art Scholar-run event for record painting earlier in the semester. It was a lot of fun and I got to exercise my poor visual art skills whilst getting to know some new Art Scholars that also attended the event. I also was a student curator for NextNOW Fest this year, and was able to interact with many of my fellow scholars who attended the festival events. It was amazing to see everyone from the Arts community find what events interested them the most. I hope in the future I can attend more of these events and spend more time with my fellow scholars. While these opportunities were great, I wish there were more casual opportunities to get to know my fellow sophomore art scholars (perhaps in class). Although we kind of know each other through Zoom, we are not as close as the current freshmen are with each other. It would be nice to take one class and do something fun and casual so that we can have a moment of connection before we part ways in the spring.
Being a part of Scholars definitely brought me into contact with others who have had differing lives and viewpoints to my own that challenge my beliefs. This I think is a crucial part of the Scholars experience. This is especially true in Art Scholars, where we all have different disciplines and focuses that require vastly different mindsets to master. An example of this is with my friend Kiley. Kiley is a visual artist, and gave me some feedback on my capstone proposal. Their opinion was that my initial project of creating an entire short film was probably too much work. While I initially disagreed, we had more discussions about it and I could see where she was coming from. When I dialed it down to just a script they still said that it was a large undertaking, but understood that I may have more experience in that realm since I frequently write scripted pieces. Although we had different opinions on my final capstone’s format, we were able to come together through the feedback processes that Art Scholars provided in order to reach a mutually pleasing conclusion. By interacting with so many people with so many different opinions and disciplines in Art Scholars, I am able to get a variety of opinions and ideas that I would not necessarily get anywhere else. It is a constant rotation of a fresh pair of eyes, which greatly improves the creative process we have discussed all semester.
Semester 4
Art Scholars has been an interesting and important part of my growth as a student and person in university.
The ePortfolio in particular has been a helpful tool to track my growth from freshman to sophomore, and my progress as those years continued. At the beginning of my ePortfolio, as shown especially by pentathlon assignments, my writing was concise and not detailed at all. I tended to make conclusions not supported by proper evidence and analysis. As my pentathlon assignments continue throughout the semester (and into my sophomore year), you can see how I began to incorporate more analysis and detail for each point of connection in the activity. In my latest pentathlon assignment, you can see that in the connections I made to Scholars and my future career.
My perception of art has also been greatly influenced by my time in Art Scholars. I remember Harold, in our last class, pointed out that many of us came into the program with our definitions of art very limited. I was definitely among those students. I felt wrong being in Art Scholars when my artistic ambitions lay in writing and/or the behind-the-scenes work of art. In the fall semester of this year, we took great time in discussing what is art, and what art means to each of us. Through those discussions, I expanded my definition of art to include my interests. I also believe seeing everyone's capstone projects discussing and engaging in different forms of art encouraged my to expand my definition. Although there were projects displaying traditional visual art, projects (like Eva's combination of art and tech and James' video discussing B movies) helped me expand my more limited definition.
My capstone was a great expansion on what I learned both in Art Scholars and in my supporting courses. Last semester, I decided to take a scriptwriting course as a supporting arts course for CPSA. While I entered the class not expecting to enjoy writing any more than I already did (which was begrudgingly), the class made this new writing process very fun and appealing. During the class, I decided that I enjoyed the style so much that I wanted my capstone to be an expansion of that. So, I decided to challenge myself through writing a screenplay (different than a play's script, but similar principle). This expanded my definition of art to include my writing and made the capstone process something I thoroughly enjoyed. I also took a lot of inspiration and advice from my CPSA250 class, which gave me invaluable skills to help refine my capstone. I learned the importance of "killing my darlings" and how I can use certain techniques to boost my creativity and creative output. These skills helped my capstone get finished in a timely manner and helped me to refine my work to a manageable portion.
Art Scholars has not only helped me to expand my artistic interests into other disciplines, but encouraged me to see the importance and value of my own discipline. I began Scholars with a very rigid set of interests. I enjoyed writing, film, and some theater. I was also very unwilling to share any creative output with anyone. Through workshops and field trips, however, I saw value in my talents in different disciplines. I vividly remember a zine-making workshop I participated in last year. I am by no means a visual artist, but the point of zines is not to be good, but to be fun. The instructor showed me the value in my work, even if it was not Monet-level (I'm more of a Jackson Pollock in my art anyway). This semester in my Music in Film workshop, I also saw that I enjoyed learning new skills in different art forms. I loved learning how to compose music in Soundtrap and learning about the basics of music composition. While I was no savant, I was able to understand that there is value in any kind of artistic pursuit, even if it is not perfect. In my own field of writing, I saw that even if it was not visual art, it was still art. Honestly, that revelation came mostly from conversations with our GA Gabi. Through my conferences and casual conversation with her, I saw that there was value in what I was doing. Yes, it wasn't a painting, but it was personal. And it was advocating for something important. I was making an impact in my own way.
This program has also put me at odds with those holding very diverse perspectives on art. Mostly that comes from the fact that we are all in different fields. Writing is such a personal thing, and my capstone was no different. I was writing about a disorder I have that is often characterized as a very negative thing. I was overly protective of my capstone, not wanting anyone to see it. That put me at odds with our instructors (thank you Heather for putting up with my BS), who wanted me to perform a scene. Although we were at odds, we both took time to understand the other's perspective. Eventually, I came to understand that you have to take a leap of faith and share your work in order for it to be worthwhile. This was a great lesson in collaborating and compromising with those who may have different ideas on how to share art.
The lessons I learned in Art Scholars has given me a great idea as to what I would like to do in the future. Coming into Scholars, I thought that I would be unable to find a career in the arts as something other than an artist. However, I learned otherwise through job postings from scholars and career fairs. Art Scholars did a fantastic job at covering careers that are in the field but are not directly artist jobs. I found out about my first artistic programming job through an Art Scholars newsletter. This led to my current position as a Kennedy Center intern in their programming department. By expanding my understanding of art and a career in the arts, I was able to find a career helping artists of all kinds showcase their work to an audience. Personally, especially in the past few weeks with capstone, I have become more confident in my artistic abilities. I had never shown anyone my writing before because I, frankly, thought it was quite shit. However, I learned that it probably isn't complete shit. And that I should just show it, because that is how we as artists grow and become better.