A Brief Historical Overview of the Department of Art and Visual Technology at Mason: The Birthing of Artistic Excellence at GMU, 1972 - 2006
The Department of Art and Visual Technology at George Mason University began when George Mason College received university status in 1972. Organized within the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS), the first Department of Fine and Performing Arts included an Arts Division, which offered studio art and art history, dance, theater, music, and communication.
Housed in the old Fairfax High School building, now Paul VI High School, on Route 50 in Fairfax, the visual arts at Mason began with a basic set of studio concentrations including drawing, painting, printmaking, and sculpture. Generously- sized studios were especially convenient for teaching art because their doors opened onto loading docks, making it easy to transport heavy bags of plaster and clay used in sculpture and foundation design studios.
Walter Kravitz, professor of art/painting and drawing and one of the founding fathers of the program, remembers the old Fairfax High School building fondly, “Fifteen-foot-high ceilings with surprisingly good light and ventilation provided a terrific studio setting for our disciplines. There were usually 15 to 20 students per studio. Art history enrolled 25 in the introductory courses and 15 in the upper level. We began with three studio art faculty members when I came on board in 1976 and three art history faculty members who taught a range of courses from Ancient Greek Art through Impressionism.”
The first of several chairs overseeing the operation and growth of all the fine arts programs was from music. From the beginning, the performing arts were a strong component of the department’s academic programming. Early on, the goal was to build audiences and community involvement in the arts at Mason through support of performance-based disciplines (music, theater, dance) and to fold the visual arts into the department in support of these programs. Graduates from the program received diplomas naming their discipline broadly as fine and performing arts without specification of curriculum on their transcripts. Eventually, studio art and art history grew in size and importance within the department to become a voice shared within the mix of all the arts programs.
As enrollment grew, the arts programs sought larger quarters. In 1983, the Visual and Performing Arts programs moved into College Hall and Mason Hall. During the building’s construction, classes had been temporarily held in trailers near the Student Union I Building. With technology and enrollments on the rise, the studio art and art history faculty each grew to five members. In the early 1980s, photography became a program within studio art; later the university supported a search for its first faculty member.
In 1993, the studio art and art history programs were separated – Art Studio joined the Institute of the Arts and Art History joined the History department. The two programs continue to have a close reciprocal relationship. Studio art students now take art history courses as an integral part of their curriculum requirements in the Department of History and Art History, while art history students pursue a range of lecture and studio art courses offered in the Department of Art and Visual Technology.
As a new over-arching approach, Mason instituted a type of conservatory philosophy regarding the fine and performing arts by creating an Institute of the Arts, an independent body within the university with an academic liaison to CAS. The purpose behind this new approach to academic reorganization for the arts was to advance the mission of the arts at Mason through a greater autonomy and freedom of operation. Among the institute’s initial priorities was the formation of the Center for the Arts and the Theater of the First Amendment program as part of the continuing legacy of performance education at Mason.
In 1993 Evans Mandes, professor of psychology, was appointed associate dean for academic affairs for CAS and academic director of the Institute of the Arts and given the task of collaborating with faculty colleagues to form a new and exciting interdisciplinary curriculum within the institute for all students. The influence of this program and many of its courses in aesthetics, visual thinking, creativity, and perception are an integral part of today’s Department of Art and Visual Technology and a tenet of our philosophy of interdisciplinarity.
Strong enrollment trends during the 1990's in the fine and performing arts around the country were especially true at Mason. Institute enrollment climbed from 200 to 500 students. The growing interest in technology through digital arts, graphic design, sculpture, printmaking, and photography played an important role in the dramatic growth in enrollment of the visual arts at Mason.
In 2001 the university administration, with input from the faculty, reorganized the Institute of the Arts into the College of Visual and Performing Arts with departments of Art, Music, Theater, and Dance. The visual arts faculty expanded to 12 full-time members in keeping with an upsurge in enrollment.
Scott Martin was appointed the new chair of Visual Arts. With a background in both technology and music, Martin helped focus attention and develop technology initiatives within the program parallel to the support and the interests of higher education programs in art and also with the interests in the business community in the Northern Virginia region drawing upon that population to support a new media program.
The digital arts and graphic design concentrations at Mason were coming of age. The dramatic growth in enrollment helped expand the graduate concentrations from digital arts to include painting, sculpture, photography, printmaking, and InterArts. Studio art, renamed the Department of Art and Visual Technology (AVT), grew to its current size of 24 full-time and 25 part-time members as enrollment grew to more than 550 students to place the department on the map regionally and nationally as a significant visual arts program.
To meet the need for preparing highly-qualified art teachers in the metropolitan DC, Maryland, and Virginia area (with over 130 employment opportunities available annually), the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) in Art Education Program was developed by Dr. Renee Sandell and approved by SCHEV in 2005. Enhanced by partnerships with area museums and school systems, the MAT Program provides PK-12 certification while helping art teacher candidates expand their knowledge of art and education to develop skills in curriculum design and educational leadership. Beginning Fall 2008, a new Art Education Concentration for the Advanced Studies in Teaching and Learning (ASTL) Program will offer area art teachers the option of earning a M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction or a graduate certificate in Art Education.
Campus wide visibility of art has flourished in recent years with several successful programs in place and other amazing events on the horizon. Great excitement is building toward a momentous event in our history – the construction and opening of a new building with state-of-the-art advanced technology for the Department of Art and Visual Technology – currently in design planning and construction. Our new home is scheduled to open in fall 2009. Our gallery program has blossomed into several venues for student and professional exhibitions including our own Fine Arts Gallery housed in the Fine Arts Building, our student Gallery 123 in the Johnson Center, the Mason Hall Atrium Gallery for special exhibitions, along with several smaller spaces in and among our academic complex in the College of Visual and Performing Arts. We celebrate partnerships in the Mid Atlantic corridor that provide exhibition venues for our students intermixed with other academic and alternate non-profit and institutional communities.
We celebrate our patrons’ generosity, Margarida Kendall’s gift of “Charters de Almerda” an outdoor sculpture which resides beside our Concert Hall; long-term loans, “Katzen and Halegua”, from the National Gallery of Art. Also prominent in the ongoing experience of the arts on campus was the publication of “Arts on the Fairfax Campus” published in 2001. Our new Friends of Art and Navigation Press program initiated in 2005 brings nationally ranked artists in printmaking, book arts, and multiples to campus each year to work in a unique collaboration with our students in the production of an original edition of prints.
Our own ArtsBus program celebrates its 10th year anniversary last year. ArtsBus was the inspiration of Jerry Clapsaddle, Professor Emeritus, and the current responsibility of our foundation coordinator, Peter Winant, Assistant Professor of Art and Visual Technology. ArtsBus offers students and residents in our region numerous opportunities each year to travel with us to see significant exhibitions at preeminent museums and galleries in New York City, as well as enjoying cultural life in the big apple.
The Department of Art and Visual Technology is flourishing with bright ideas and a dynamic future. The process of self-study for accreditation of the department by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD) began with faculty input in early 2006 and continues through 2008 culminating with the evaluation of our program, curriculum, student achievement, and futures planning in the new building. We know you as Alumni and Friends will enjoy participating in all of the community-based programs and travel opportunities that we provide and are planning for the future. If you would like to know more about our lecture and exhibition schedules or become a Friend of Art and participate in sponsored behind-the-scenes trips to top museums, collections, and galleries, please contact us for information and brochures at (703) 993-8898.
