ArtsLink: Showing students their options in the arts

Not everyone knows what they want to do when they enter college, and ArtsLink, a new organization at the UW, seeks to introduce students to the art majors earlier in their academic careers.

The organization was started a year ago as a pilot program by DXArts adviser Cynthia Caci and arts adviser Judy Clark. It seeks to create an informal, welcoming way for students to see what the majors under the arts umbrella are all about.

“Students were coming to us late and trying to squeeze too much into their schedules,” Caci said. “Their experience was not as full as it could have been.”

ArtsLink is trying to encourage peer-to-peer connections Caci said. It gives students the opportunity to try things on for size and see how individual majors relate to your own work.

“This is an effort to focus exploration in a smaller pond,” Caci said. “To help them be able to make some early decisions.”

The group is planning a series of informal events, said photography major Sol Hashemi, who is on the student board of ArtsLink. “We want people to get an idea of what students do everyday.”

The informal events include artist talks in Parnassus, the coffee shop in the baesment of the Art Building. The first of these talks was last Thursday with Allison Davis, whose self portraits are hung in Parnassus.

Davis is a junior in the painting and drawing program who also takes linguistics and women’s studies classes. In the informal question and answer session Davis explained how she chooses her subject matter.

“I mainly do self-portraits because I am mainly interested in myself,” Davis stated. “There is a long history [in art] of women being depicted by others.” Davis pointed out that art was a way of thinking about things.

In addition to these smaller events there are larger, more formal ones planned for Career Discovery Week at the UW.

“There will be a series of career workshops [during the week,]” Clark said. “There will be classes on writing and jobs in the arts.”

Another goal of ArtsLink is to connecting students not only with each other, but with alumni and large arts organizations in the Seattle community.

“We are trying to get students connected with alumni,” said Liz Copland, a ceramics senior who is also on the student board for ArtsLink. “Collecting info on how people have found their careers and majors.”

Not only does ArtsLink include the visual arts, it also hopes to reach out to those in the English, comparative literature and comparative history of ideas majors. While the Web site is still in its beginning stages, it is easy to use and the blog is a good way for students to find out about events the organization is holding.