By Maia Ruth Lee

In Kathmandu, Nepal where I grew up there was little to no art classes. I craved to learn how to draw, how to paint and how to build. The resources I had was a plethora of Nepali culture and religious art, artifacts and artisans. I remember looking to these resources as my textbook for creativity. For example, I sought and found a Thangka painting studio near a monastery, where Buddhist monks would paint incredibly meticulous paintings depicting deities and mandalas. I enrolled and for the next months sat next to trained painters to learn how to make Thangka paintings. The fine cotton would be stretched and partly sewn onto a wooden stretcher, primed with buffalo skin glue which would then be sanded down with a large smooth round stone. The templates were carefully laid out, and the natural color pigments were applied with handmade brushes over a span of months for each work to be completed. This type of process and art-making became a blueprint for my own work as I grew up, and the formative artistic experiences molded me to a very specific language and aesthetic. Being resourceful still plays a huge part in my work, and I still like to figure out how to make things I don’t know how to. 

Teaching the 2D class last summer at Cooper Outreach I was 7 months pregnant and still somewhat mobile. I was excited to be given such a special opportunity at a very crucial time in my life to encounter a group of young minds who were also at a very crucial time in their lives. One of my favorite projects was towards the end of the program where I asked of each student to create a 2D work of art based on their current passion. I was impressed by their openness, and willingness to explore and share. The projects covered a lot of ground - from Sylvia Plath’s poetry to Dante’s inferno, Korean feminist art to Brian Eno, Gothic architecture to Nike Air Force ones, Romani poets to Rumi poems, break dancing to Marcel Duchamp’s Nude descending staircase, etc etc. I was blown away by the diversity of subjects and how effortlessly we were able to transform these ideas into a work of art. It was such a pleasure for me to spend time with each of them to work through their ideas and concepts. We did a lot of critiques and open discussions about each others works and they seemed to like that as well.

We are pleased to introduce the Cooper Union 2018 Summer Artists in Residence!
We welcome Rachelle Dang,  Rachael Gorchov, Sara Murphy, Theresa Sterner and Zach Trow. These outstanding artists will join our Summer Art Intensive pre-college students, bringing their studio practice to campus this July. 

By Julia Norton

I have always been a sucker for a big smelly art school. Not the bad kind of smelly, but the lovely lingering turpentine, wood dust, and plaster kind of stink that characterizes this sort of institution. Especially within the rare and special variety of art school that has seen it all. The Cooper Union Foundation Building is such a place, and then some. 

When I first walked through the front doors on day one of the summer artist-in-residence program I immediately felt the history, creativity, and hard work seeping through the walls and up in the air. Continuing up to my new studio for the next month on the 6th floor, I walked into a narrow hallway, made a left, and then was greeted with an overwhelming amount of light and space: the most I’ve seen from any studio building I’ve visited in all of New York City. The overhead windows poured generously into the space a rich, golden light that touched everything inside. There were no dark corners, no windowless coffins, just a democratic studio space where every inch felt magical. It was one of those moments in my career that you savor with all your might. I breathed in deeply that beautiful art school-stink, and sighed out “I’ve made it, I’m home, and I don’t want to ever leave.”

Unfortunately, by nature of the residency and the fact that these paradisiacal spaces belong to the students of Cooper Union as they have for centuries, I did eventually have to leave in a month’s time. After that blissful moment came an almost urgent sense of panic. “I have a month, only a month to make the most of this.” I sprang into action, making lists, hauling in supplies, borrowing funds, and making work. All residency experiences are unique. With some you take the time and space you need to regroup and hash out what matters to you. With some you experiment, maybe making no work at all, but trying out an unfamiliar or brand-new process that may take time to fine tune. I knew from the get-go that this one would be different. I came in with a very specific project in mind, a list of deadlines, and one main goal: to use the opportunity to push myself as far as I could possibly handle. In the end I came out with a project that I felt very proud of and could never have accomplished otherwise. In the beginning I had no idea whether I would eventually feel this way, or whether I would crash and burn, but regardless, one thing was for sure: I was not wasting this space.

In addition to this experience, two factors were also crucial in my enjoyment in and gratitude for this residency, the first being the location, the second, the company. The joy that came from actually working in Manhattan was not lost on me (for the record, I am a born and raised New Yorker and have never once had a studio on the island). I was also able to bring people to my studio on a more frequent basis than ever before. Mentors, colleagues, peers, friends, family were able to come visit on their lunch breaks, or after work. With my past studios located in the far reaches of Brooklyn this has proved to be much more difficult.

As for the company, it should first be stated that I am also a teacher, and have had the most experience working with teens. On occasion, while working away in my studio, one of the teens from the concurrent Summer Intensive program would pop their head around the corner of my studio wall. This was not unwelcome to me, and I found them all to be inquisitive, brave, and open minded. It was a pleasure to work next door to them, and I hope they felt the same. The artist talk that came with the final exhibition of my program as well as theirs provided even richer opportunities to talk to the teens, and gave some of the quieter ones the gusto to come out of their shells further. Its communication like this provided by the chances to connect with youth that reminds me why I am a teacher, and I wish these sorts of meetings happened more often outside the classroom.

Another note on the company: I was also lucky enough to have a studio adjacent to the three other residents in the program; Tammy Kiku Logan, Kate Starbuck Elliot, and Florine Demosthene - all incredibly strong and dedicated artists, whose work I admire immensely. Their presence made the program feel both fun and professional. Working alongside them was a privilege. 

If I were to lodge one complaint about the Cooper Union Summer Residency Program it would be that it does not last forever. It was hard to leave, but in a way also grounding. The studios… sigh… the studios were built with such a time-honored consideration for the arts; for their value and out of respect for the importance of educating and nurturing young or emerging artists… Something a bit harder to find these days. I remember repeating to myself a sort of mantra on the last day of the residency, looking out on the emptied out studio space: “This is how it should be, and this is what we all deserve.”

By Florine Demosthene

I chronicled my journey through West Africa in a series of drawings entitled The Capture. These mix media pieces, textual mélanges of ink, oil, graphite and charcoal, depict voluptuous female figures amid a strange world of decay and destruction. The Capture was the initial phase to constructing a non-typical black heroine persona. By delving into the subconscious mind of a fictitious black heroine and the ephemeral quality of her thoughts and experiences, The Capture was an attempt to structure a new mythology that explores black female sexuality and sensuality.

The most recent works, The Burst, moves within the internal search of the heroine. The figures are depicted in dream-like spaces, where the main protagonist entertains a multitude of emotions and genres, bursting forth with new possibilities and ways of exploring herself, both physically and sexually. This series is a dichotomy of possibilities, intertwining seductive nuances while simultaneously playing with viewer’s thoughts.