Written by Abra Manfred. Visuals by Abra Manfred.
I would not have expected it, but so much of the value of art school comes from the fact that art is not made in isolation.
In my experience as a painter, art is made up of bubbles, communities, small factions. While everyone in the painting program is inevitably seeking to find their own voice and point of view, we rely on each other to help find what that is. It may be only in relation to other artists that we are able to find what is true, honest, and real in our own work. At this point in my sophomore year, my voice in painting has drastically changed since coming to SCAD. Last year my art process developed in response to the artists I was surrounded by in classes. But this year, it has been time spent with artists outside of the classroom where I have learned the most.
Through Art History, it can sometimes become confusing whether we are supposed to be a part of a community or be a singular creative. In the telling of art history, art school or ‘the institution’ is often put at odds with the interest of artists. But I think that this narrative is worth examining in a new context.
With the dissolution of major art movements in contemporary art, it is just as viable to have your own unique art movement within a single class. This can be seen in places like Immaculate Heart College in the 1960s where pioneer graphic designer Corrita Kent taught. Kent’s teaching birthed an era of pop artists who had all come up together. Her students were able to learn from her as well as each other, finding a powerful communal energy and voice. This is possible with any group in any art school and should be the story that we tell to empower our own classes.
Before attending SCAD, my painting work relied on a sort of Instagram-friendly hyper-realism. This style of painting was popular on social media feeds but not what was particularly honest to myself. It took being at an art school in real artist spaces to see the power of an individual artist’s voice. It took taking my art off social media and into classroom spaces for my point of view to take root and my current body of collage-based work to grow.
Though, perhaps, my most influential art classes have been outside of a classroom context altogether.
A core aspect of my art practice is keeping a notebook. My series of tiny books has become an endless well to draw on. Writing out conversations, lists, complaints, and often tiny pictographs helps me create a tenable account of thoughts to pull artworks out of. While I cannot imagine being creative without my notebook, it is a recent habit directly lifted from the people around me. Graphic designer and my sister, Edie Manfred, introduced this habitual practice to me in her own vibrant yellow notebook. Since then, I have seen it everywhere, painting students, writing students, everywhere.
While notebook keeping is new to me, I have always loved working out. At times, it is a great escape from the pressure to create art or think about it. This year, I have been training for a half marathon and running with two friends of mine who are Fine Arts graduate students, painter Talia Sullivan and fiber artist Maddie Walter-Sherretts. In long-distance-running training, we have hours to spend talking, covering every topic under the sun. While both of them are incredible artists and thinkers, that is usually the last thing we talk about. But on those days when grad projects and paintings fill their minds and it is unescapable, our discussions have been major breakthroughs for me.
For me, inspiration is found in this way, living with and around other artists. My work relies on collage both in media and in concepts. I use snippets of conversations and book quotes to find the spine of a painting. Using text as a jumping off point, I investigate how I can show complex ideas visually and symbolically. Visual shorthand in images is essential to this, as I want for my collages to be ‘read’ and touch something in a viewer’s unconscious. Work like this requires endless references. It takes the artists around me to help me cultivate these visual citations.
