AFO students say art was trashed before they could claim it
Photo by Austin Walker
Article updated Dec. 13, 2:00 p.m.
“Please don’t touch: Hanging up to dry. Will pick up tom.”
That was one of the notes crumpled up in a pile of wood, paint, sculptures and furniture in a dumpster outside the Bowe building this morning.
Some VCU Art Foundation students say their work was thrown out into three dumpsters near Bowe after being unable to access the building last night to retrieve their art before the end of semester clean up.
“It was devastating,” said Mackenzie Van Dyke, a freshman in the Art Foundation program. “VCU just decided that that art was worthless. The faculty themselves are artists and they understand how much the materials are worth and how much time we spend on these pieces.”
Van Dyke said she spent somewhere between 15-20 hours working on her piece — an electric chair painted with the last words of executed criminals.
Students were told to remove their art from the building following their critique process.
“We were told countless times to get it out ASAP and some kids left their stuff there since day one,” said AFO student Erin Edgerton.
Edgerton added the mandatory department clean up was for everyone, but a select number of students couldn’t attend because of overlapping exams, so the office started cleaning up last night.
“Many students did though contact their teacher and there were many projects that were protected during the clean up,” Edgerton said.
But according to students, problems arose when the building closed early last night, barring students from being able to gain access to their work. Multiple students posted to Facebook asking anyone for access to the studios.
“Bowe, normally classes end at 9 (p.m.), and the office closes at 8:30 (p.m.),” Van Dyke said. “It’s finals week. Most of us had exams. I had an exam, and we couldn’t get there in time.”
Another AFO student who said she couldn’t retrieve it from the Bowe Street building in time was Kyra Heron.
“I was not able to get (my piece) at all,” Heron said. “None of my teachers mentioned it at all. I got one email, and it was mentioned in one email.”
Van Dyke also said she saw instructors of the program salvaging functional parts of student installations prior to the pieces being dumped.
“I’m guessing they’re just taking whatever they wanted from the pieces before they trashed them,” Van Dyke said.
According to Van Dyke, she saw an instructor carry out a lamp that was attached to her chair the night before she found her sculpture in the dumpster. The lamp allegedly still had strands of hot glue that she’d used to attach it.
AFO students are required to submit a detailed portfolio of their work while in the program, and are encouraged to take photographs of their pieces while they’re on display in the critique room, but Van Dyke said she wasn’t given this opportunity.
Art Foundation director Elissa Armstrong declined a comment to the Commonwealth Times.
Update (Dec. 13, 2 p.m.):
Suzanne Silitch, VCUarts director of communications, reached out to the CT on Dec. 12 to clarify the AFO program values all student artwork, and students were made aware they needed to remove all work and materials by 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 8.
Silitch said AFO students were notified many times, in numerous ways, that their work must be picked up before clean-up.
Spectrum Editor, Austin Walker
Austin is a sophomore print journalism major. He started at the CT as a contributing writer, and frequently covers work done by artists and performers both on and off campus. He hopes to one day be a columnist writing about art that impacts culture, politics and documenting the lives of extraordinary and everyday people. // Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn
walkeraw@commonwealthtimes.org
My daughter had to go
“Dumpster Diving” for her final priject which had been thrown away even though a teacher told her it could be picked up on Wednesday. I think this showed a total lack of regard for these first year art students and as a parent I resent the way they were treated.
The whole mandatory clean-up procession was a mess. It was held in the middle of the week, before Friday classes that still needed to have their final critiques. One student from these Friday classes nearly had their work thrown away. This entire tragedy could’ve been avoided if it was held during the weekend or, you know, after classes in Bowe were finished. Faculty could’ve communicated more to their students before clean-up day. So many things could’ve been done better, but there was no effort to do so.