UMass Magazine Online

Fall 2005

Departments

Features

Never Mind the Weather?

If You Can Make it There

Peg Riley Wants a New Drug

A Capitol Guy

What They've Learned

Feature

Creative Spaces
Fine artists will soon have a central home on campus

JOYCE HATCH LOOKS OUT ON on the grassy triangle of land at the corner of North Pleasant Street and Infirmary Way. In a year and a half, the spot will be home to the new Studio Arts Building. In an ambitious multi-year capital improvement plan, it’s the first new academic structure that will open—in the fall of 2007.

“The schematic design is complete, and over the winter we’ll be reviewing detail designs and putting it out to bid,” says Hatch, vice chancellor, Office of Administration and Finance, who oversees building projects. “That will keep us on track to award a contract in time to break ground next spring.”

Simultaneously, staff in Hatch’s area are managing the design of a new integrated science building and renovations and additions to Skinner. But the Studio Arts Building will be the first to come online because of its smaller size and less complex nature. Outfitting state-of-the-art laboratories, says Hatch, takes much longer than creating bright, airy studio space.

The new art building will bring together art education activities currently located in 14 different facilities on campus. “Collaborations come from the chemistry of artists talking, and having access to each other’s work, on a regular, immediate basis,” explains Lee Edwards, dean of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts. “This plan is about more than a physical consolidation; it is about creating a confluence of artistic possibilities.”

[top of page]

If You Can Make it There

If You Can Make it There: more images

Creative Spaces

Inking an Internship