By AMELIA MERCHANT
As students settle in to life on campus for the ‘17-18 school year, the Arts and Crafts studio is firing up as well. Located in the basement of Worner, the Arts and Crafts Studio provides a creative escape for Colorado College students. Many students join classes in the studio to continue a hobby they picked up in high school or to try something entirely new. Students have been streaming into the studio in the last week and have already begun attending classes—weaving textiles, throwing clay, and crafting jewelry.
A three-person department, the studio offers classes in ceramics, stained glass, jewelry, screen-printing, weaving and much more. Each class meets twice a week for two hours and costs $20 per block or $60 per semester for open studio. This price includes all of the materials associated with the class. While some classes such as felting are offered intermittently depending on who is available to teach, most are regular. All classes are student-taught except for one ceramics class taught by Greg Marshall and one weaving class taught by Jeanne Steiner, the head of Arts and Crafts.
Greg Marshall, in his 18th year teaching ceramics at CC, said the purpose of the studio is “to offer a place where students can come and relax and take a break from their academic class without the pressure of competing for a grade.”
Since the recent merger between CC and the Fine Arts Center (FAC), it is undetermined what the relationship between the Bemis School of Arts and the CC Arts & Crafts studio will be. Marshall is looking forward to the merger. “Eventually students may be able to take classes there or have open studios available,” Marshall said. “They are community-based so they have a different structure. I’m not sure how we are eventually going to merge it… Bemis is on the back-burner for now,” Marshall said. As far as ceramics goes, Bemis has a larger facility with more wheels and a wider variety of glazes and types of clay. Additionally, CC would be able to take advantage of the merger as a community enrichment program, since all the classes provided at the FAC are community-based.
“There’s been talk about offering life drawing sessions in Bemis because that’s something that Bemis likes to offer, but sometimes they can’t get enough community people to participate to make it worthwhile,” Marshall explained. “The art department here is always looking to have life drawings sessions for the art majors. So that’s a way that they can combine and benefit both CC and Bemis.”
The future for the union of the CC Arts and Crafts studio and the Bemis School of Arts is bright, with a possible collaboration on the horizon. Meanwhile, CC students continue to enjoy all the creative opportunities the Arts and Crafts studio has to offer.