George Mason University (Department of Art and Visual Technology )

The Department of Art and Visual Technology is located in the College of Visual and Performing Arts, and offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in art with concentrations in Painting, Sculpture, Printmaking, Interdisciplinary Arts (InterArts), Graphic Information Design, Photography, and Digital Arts. Our undergraduate B.A. and B.F.A. Degree programs prepare students for graduate study and professional work in the visual cultural field. Our M.F.A. program prepares students for employment in higher education or to pursue other scholarly and professional artistic endeavors, and our M.A.T program prepares students with a BFA degree for PK-12 art licensure by the Commonwealth of Virginia.


History

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, and 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 the organization of 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 1990s 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.

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 early 2008. 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 10tth 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.


Facilities

The New George Mason University Studio Art Facility

A new $21 million 88,000 sq. ft. Department of Art and Visual Technology building has been designed for George Mason University by Ayers Saint Gross, a Washington D.C. based national award-winning architecture firm with a rich 90-year history of campus planning and university facility design. Through a very successful interactive design process with the George Mason University campus architects, the AVT faculty and students, and CVPA administration, the design of this facility evolved into a forward-thinking and evolutionary step for education in the visual arts at GMU.

The new building will house all AVT studio instructional areas, B.A., B.F.A. M.A.T., and M.F.A. degree programs. The vision for the new home of the Department of Art and Visual Technology is intended to expand educational program opportunities in advanced technology, offer state-of-the-art studio facilities, increase student services, expand gallery and lecture halls, and support a new community of graduate students in specially planned studio clusters. The introduction of Internet2 technology in lecture halls and studio spaces brings global opportunities for our students to participate in and collaborate with artists on national and international projects, competitions, critiques, and discussions.

As we envision the new home of Art and Visual Technology, we anticipate an overall 50% increase in space for studios, shops, and lecture classrooms. Expanded technology in large format lecture halls, specially designed spaces for student critiques and discussions, a new student print bureau, expanded gallery space and exhibition preparation facilities, expanded foundation program studios, exterior sculpture courtyard neatly dovetailed into outdoor working areas adjacent to densely forested landscape with an outdoor sculpture exhibition program all help characterize a new energy and excitement for the visual arts at George Mason University. Our new facility presents tangible opportunities for the Department of Art and Visual Technology to achieve distinguished artistic excellence for the students of George Mason University.


Accreditation
The Department of Art and Visual Technology at George Mason University has submitted official “Notice of Intention to Apply” for accreditation to the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD). The department hosted an on-campus NASAD consultative visit in Spring 2006. A Self-Study report is being prepared for presentation to NASAD toward accreditation review in Fall 2009 concurrent with the opening of the new studio art building for Art and Visual Technology at George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia.


Exhibitions & Programs

The Department of Art and Visual Technology sponsors a variety of cultural programming outside of the classroom that works to enhance AVT student's educational experiences while being a valuable cultural resource to the campus community and community at large. AVT currently programs exhibitions in four galleries on campus. The Fine Arts Gallery, Gallery 123, The Mason Hall Atrium and The Alcove Gallery feature exhibitions by both students and internationally celebrated artists.

The AVT lecture series Visual Voices runs through the academic year with a full schedule of eight nationally recognized visiting artists and designers who will speak about their work and the world of art and design and interact with students in seminars and studio visits. The AVT artsbus program began in 1987 as a one day bus trip to New York city each term with the intention of exposing GMU students to the NY art scene. Artsbus now schedules 14 day buses over three trips each term, taking more than 1,000 people to New York City during the academic year. Day trips have also been made to Richmond & to Philadelphia.

The Multimedia Performance Studio (MPS) creates original productions, often drawing on historical or science fiction sources; innovative stagings of opera and new music theater; multimedia scenography for theater, dance and performance art; and indoor and outdoor projection installations. MPS artists, who consist of faculty and students, work in the Mason Media Lab and the Harris Theatre at George Mason University, where they experiment with new and traditional stage technologies, and develop imaginative approaches to the integration of these technologies with the live action and music of theater. Great Performances at Mason is a program of George Mason University's College of Visual and Performing Arts. The College of Visual and Performing Arts creates an academic environment in which the arts are explored as individual disciplines and interdisciplinary forms that enhance and strengthen each other. The GMU Center for the Arts features world renowned performances in theater, dance and music.

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