{"id":23514,"date":"2015-04-20T02:00:34","date_gmt":"2015-04-20T06:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=23514"},"modified":"2015-04-21T08:12:02","modified_gmt":"2015-04-21T12:12:02","slug":"new-broward-college-program-wants-to-train-young-artists-and-designers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2015\/04\/20\/new-broward-college-program-wants-to-train-young-artists-and-designers\/","title":{"rendered":"New Broward College Program Wants To Train Young Artists And Designers"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>

John O'Connor \/ StateImpact Florida<\/p>

A storyboard created by Claudia Morell, a student in Broward College's Visual Arts and Design Academy.<\/p><\/div>\n

A new program at Broward College has just eight students and seeks to train the next generation of South Florida artists and designers.<\/p>\n

The school hopes to earn a national certification for the Visual Arts and Design Academy<\/a> this spring \u2013 becoming the first community college in the South to have that.<\/p>\n

Florida\u2019s higher education system has put a focus on training workers for health care and other high-demand fields in recent years. And lawmakers have encouraged school districts to start career-training programs.<\/p>\n

But the National Endowment for the Arts estimates the arts contribute $500 billion<\/a> to the nation\u2019s economy each year. And leaders of the Broward College program argue the arts and technology are tied together.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople don\u2019t realize the relationship, frequently, between science and art,\u201d said Broward College art professor Leo Stitsky. \u201cIf we do away with pure science there would be no computer. If we do away with art there would be no Apple<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

<\/p>\n

Stitsky says most of the students in the Visual Arts and Design Academy are just developing their artistic voice. The students must apply and go through a jury process before they are admitted to the program.<\/p>\n

Many students are like Josh Cartwright. He showed talent, but said he didn\u2019t think of studying art or design until a high school teacher recommended the program.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was graduating high school I wasn\u2019t really into art yet,\u201d Cartwright said. \u201cI knew I could draw and do, like, small projects.\u201d<\/p>\n

During a recent class, Stitsky and Cartwright were checking out black and white illustrations of the great white whale \u2013 Moby Dick.<\/p>\n

Cartwright likes to work in black and white. So Stitsky showed him Rockwell Kent\u2019s 1930 pen and ink drawings for Herman Melville\u2019s novel<\/a>. Without knowing their work, Cartwright has developed a style similar to Kent and Lynd Ward, who made black and white prints from woodcuts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s kind of what I wanted to do for my self portrait,\u201d Cartwright said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah? For your self portrait?\u201d Stitsky replied. “I like that one. That mood. That negative space.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cartwright has clearly found a style. The class\u2019 current assignment is to create a psychological self-portrait. Cartwright\u2019s is silhouetted in stark black and white.<\/p>\n

\"Some<\/a>

John O'Connor \/ StateImpact Florida<\/p>

Some panels from Josh Cartwright's black and white storyboard of "The Tell-Tale Heart."<\/p><\/div>\n

For a previous assignment, he created a storyboard of Edgar Allen Poe\u2019s \u201cThe Tell-Tale Heart\u201d that resembles a graphic novel.<\/p>\n

\u201cI noticed with his stories it was kind of this intense\u2026moment where you\u2019re just sucked into the story,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I wanted to use the black so it can create a very dark moody kind of atmosphere. But use the white so it\u2019s an extreme contrast with the people that\u2019s in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now Cartwright is interested in creating user interfaces and apps for phones, tablets or computers.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the type of relationship with art and design that\u2019s supposed to develop in this classroom.<\/p>\n

The Visual Arts and Design Academy is a school within a school. Broward College already had plenty of students working on two-year art degrees, most of them for graphic design.<\/p>\n

But the college wanted to create a more rigorous program with more of an emphasis on individual attention, where professors have more time and space to teach and mentor students. And it\u2019s harder to get in to.<\/p>\n

The goal is students complete the two-year program and then head to the best fine arts schools in the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn some ways we\u2019re hoping to emulate, to some degree, what New World School of the Arts does in Miami,<\/a>\u201d Stitsky said.<\/p>\n

The rigor starts with entry into the program. Students have to make it through a jury, which reviews and asks them questions about their work.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have to learn to talk about their work,\u201d Stitsky said, \u201cto be conceptual. To be articulate. To be professional about presentation.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the end of the year, students must go through the jury process again. Monica Mendez said the jury forced her to think about what she\u2019s trying to say.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really nerve-wracking last year,\u201d Mendez said. \u201cYou show up and you\u2019re alone in a room and you\u2019re there with your work.”<\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t second-guess her work, Mendez said, but she did think about ways she could have changed things.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

John O'Connor \/ StateImpact Florida<\/p>

The psychological self portrait Monica Mendez is working on.<\/p><\/div>\n

Mendez\u2019 psychological self-portrait incorporates multiple heads, religious iconography and a childhood doll.<\/p>\n

Another student, Claudia Morell, created a small likeness of herself battling a larger, monstrous version.<\/p>\n

The clear message?<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re your own worst enemy,\u201d Morell said of her inspiration.<\/p>\n

Monica Mendez says she loves being one of just eight students.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all come check on each other,\u201d she said. \u201cWe all talk about if I like what you\u2019re doing, or maybe you could try it like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mendez says, after she graduates, she\u2019s thinking about doing art therapy with kids.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new program at Broward College has just eight students and seeks to train the next generation of South Florida artists and designers. The school hopes to earn a national certification for the Visual Arts and Design Academy this spring \u2013 becoming the first community college in the South to have that. Florida\u2019s higher education […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[1103,774,1011],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23514"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23514"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23514\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23524,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23514\/revisions\/23524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}