UCI Artists’ Reflections

The following artists, all represented in “A Hotbed of Advanced Art: Four Decades of the Visual Arts at UCI,” were asked to reflect on their experience as students or faculty in the school’s art department.

John Mason, Faculty, 1967-74 and 1987:

“[In the early years] there was support for contemporary ideas and great belief in the fact that there were many things that could and should be done as an artist and as an institution. One of the policies when I was there was a very [rigorous] critical review of who got into the program, but once they got in, they were really supported.”

Alexis Smith, BA, 1970:

“The fact that there were so few students made a lot of cross-pollination between disciplines possible. I was a humanities major and I took a couple art classes, and I got really fascinated. . . . And there was a real absence of both facilities and rules, so it was an ad hoc, seat-of-your-pants situation . . . and there was a lot of competition between bright and ambitious students and we all egged each other on.”

Chris Burden, MFA, 1971:

“Things were freewheeling because the school didn’t have a permanent faculty yet. [The newness] had its disadvantages too--no tools, no shop, no studios. We had a tin shed off campus with a buzz saw that I used, and [most] classes weren’t held on campus, either. But everybody made do. We rented work space in Costa Mesa, in old car body shops and places like that, and professors would just come to your studio.”

Sandra Rowe, MFA, 1980:

“Some people who got into graduate school at that time, I was really surprised they got in. The ‘70s were a real strong period, and they’d [admit] one person, maybe two. The feeling was, if there were no good students applying, we don’t take them. I don’t know about that in the ‘80s. But now, it’s really taken a turn upward again.”

Ross Rudel, MFA, 1985:

“The faculty at that point sort of functioned as a peer group. [One instructor] once told me they do best over a beer off campus than they do trying to teach something within the confines of the department. They were all working artists and just being around them and having a dialogue served the students who knew how to take it. There was no spoon-feeding.”

Catherine Opie, Faculty, 1997:

“Affirmative action has been a huge issue, and you’re looking at a very diverse campus, and to [presume] a Eurocentric [focus] is to not look at . . . how the world is changing and how culture is changing at Irvine, and that’s important to bring into the department, and it’s important to talk about issues of gender to address those students who are queer. But even though there’s a lean toward the political there, it doesn’t ignore the student that wants to only work in formal concerns, although that’s very rare, actually.”