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Sometimes when you want something to happen, you’ve got to just make it happen. So, on Tuesday of last week, a group of graduate students in the Interdisciplinary Arts Department organized our first Interdisciplinary Arts Salon. We were interested in having another place where we could show work in a casual, non-critique setting to get familiar with each other and to practice talking about our art.

The plan was to have four people show with at least one Media student, one Book and Paper student, and one faculty member. The salon became a reality due to the efforts of Sid Branca, a first-year student in the Interdisciplinary Arts & Media MFA program, and Greg Browe, a second-year student in Interdisciplinary Arts & Media.

This first salon included showings from:

• Kellen Walker, first-year student in the Interdisciplinary Arts & Media MFA program

• Morgan Sayers, first-year student in Interdisciplinary Arts & Media

• Davina NaTanya Stewart, second-year student in Interdisciplinary Arts & Media

• Alex Borgen, second-year student in the Interdisciplinary Book & Paper Arts MFA program

• Chip Schilling, faculty, Interdisciplinary Book & Paper Arts

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It was a wonderful success, with a good turnout of faculty and students—about 20 people showed up! From Morgan’s eye lash sonification to Kellen’s sensory performance to Chips artist books, the work shown was interesting and varied. It was great to get to know the work of my classmates and colleagues a little better.

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There’s some wonderful lesson here for us artists and us human beings. Do you want to see something happen? Then make it happen.  Thanks to Sid’s and Greg’s willingness to step up, our entire department now has an event that can benefit all of us.

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