ARKADELPHIA — “Is it science, or is it art?” That is a question that has been posed for almost every profession mankind has ever created.
For art students at Ouachita Baptist University, that question was more of a challenge, and one that is becoming less of a problem.
Donnie Copeland, assistant professor of art and chairman of the Rosemary Adams Department of Visual Arts, said the Moses-Provine building that houses the art department was OBU’s main science building when the two-story structure opened in 1951. The art department moved into the building’s second floor in 1999, Copeland said. That was when the Harvey and Bernice Jones Science Center was built and became home for the J.D. Patterson School of Natural Sciences.
“For many years, most of the lab rooms in Moses-Provine were not remodeled,” Copeland said. “Of course, for students, a good art studio is just an open room with lots of light.”
However there are other requirements, including proper storage space for art supplies and finished pieces, a gallery to display artwork and some ventilation improvements that were needed to deal with paint solvents and other chemicals used in creating artwork in a variety of media.
“We started talking about a remodeling in the spring of 2013, on the off chance we might get a gift,” Copeland said. “It was all pie-in-the-sky stuff for us, but it seems development and the dean had been talking to Rosemary Adams.”
A 1963 OBU graduate with a major in art, Adams made a major gift to the university for the department of visual arts.
“Mrs. Adams’ gift allowed the department to update the facility by providing new gallery space and state-of-the-art studios for drawing, painting, ceramics and graphic design,” said Scott Holsclaw, dean of the School of Fine Arts at OBU. “This gift will help ensure that we are able to meet our mission for years to come as we strive to make a difference through the arts.”
Adams said she had been talking with the university’s development officers about making a gift to the university upon her death.
“After meeting Dr. Holsclaw and learning about the need for a new art center at Ouachita,” she said, “I became interested in making a gift now so that I could see it and enjoy the work being done.”
Adams earned a Master of Arts degree from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth and has had careers as an art teacher, a commercial interior designer and a business owner.
The building that now carries Adams’ name and houses the department of visual arts has already received some major exterior work.
“It is a simple design for the interior, in meeting with the overall theme of the building, but with lots of natural night,” Copeland said. “A lot of thinking and re-thinking went into the design to meet the budget. The emphasis was on meeting the needs of the students and enhancing their learning experience.”
Copeland said the improvements included creating large open rooms that can be used as studios or as lecture classrooms. The art department designed and built some of the furniture now being used, he said, and the “right kind of storage” was designed for storing canvases.
“We have just been improvising storage space, and some canvases can be very large, and we have the space for that now,” Copeland said. “We improved the floors and removed the lab furniture and made those big open spaces possible.”
Perhaps more important than the furniture and space provided by the renovations are the improvements made to create a safe environment for the arts and science students who use the building.
“We have improved the ventilation for painting,” Copeland said. “We are filtering the air that comes in and goes out with three major air-moving systems for the classrooms and workrooms.”
The movement of air through the building keeps the fumes from paint solvents and chemicals used in ceramics from building up in the air. There is also a vacuum and filter system that contains the sawdust created in the woodworking studio. In addition, a new wall was built to separate the saws and sawdust of the woodworking area from the heat of the kilns used for the ceramic pieces. The ventilation system also carries out the heat from the baking units.
Copeland said the department also works to keep pigments and solvents away from the discharge water of the building.
A major addition is the new gallery at the front of the building that includes a corner made up of large windows that not only bring in light, but open the art department to the world.
“The gallery opens the art experience for the campus and the community,” Copeland said. “Art needs a place for people to see it, that is inviting.”
Right now, the yellow, orange and red autumn leaves on the trees bring color and a sense of the seasons, along with a view of campus life, into the gallery as a background for the art on exhibit.
While official ceremonies to open the new gallery are scheduled for early December, the exhibition space is open with a display of drawings and paintings by John Deering, the editorial cartoonist for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and creator of the nationally syndicated comic strip Strange Brew.
The Adams Visual Arts Department has 45 visual arts majors and a total of about 100 students taking art classes offered by the department.
Staff writer Wayne Bryan can be reached at (501) 244-4460 or wbryan@arkansasonline.com.