THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 1, 1995 TAG: 9412300253
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 08 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY IDA KAY JORDAN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 192 lines
READY OR NOT, the new art school will open this week in the old Famous building at the corner of High and Court streets.
Red and white banners that will go up on the sides of the building shortly will announce: Visual Arts Center, TCC at Olde Towne Portsmouth.
The faculty will be at work in the building Tuesday, and classes will begin Jan. 9 with about 1,000 people enrolled.
Construction workers have finished the second and third floors of the building, and the first floor will be ready in a month, Center Director Anne Iott said.
The center, originally scheduled to open last fall but delayed by asbestos-removal procedures, will incorporate arts classes previously taught on the Virginia Beach, Chesapeake and Portsmouth campuses of Tidewater Community College.
``It's extraordinarily exciting,'' Iott said in an interview. ``To centralize the art departments gives us more strength and makes us more central to more people.''
For the interview, Iott wore red, black and gray, the colors that are used on the exterior of the remodeled building. The center will have 33,330-square feet on three floors and, in addition, a 300-square-foot space on the roof will be used for raku pottery firing.
Fourteen-foot red columns will adorn the light gray exterior on both Court and High streets. Glass around the building will be tinted gray. The entrance at the corner will be marked with a red pillar.
``The building will look very snappy,'' Iott said.
She added that the art faculty prepared a 200-page book for the architects, outlining exactly how the building should look and function.
First-floor galleries will display work by faculty and students - past and present.
``We are looking for Virginia Museum affiliate status, and we have built the exhibit areas to their specifications for humidity control, security and other things,'' Iott said. ``The gallery is the heartbeat of a school. It can shape things.''
The first floor also will house the pottery and sculpture studios and some of the photography laboratories.
The second floor will house half of the photography labs, the slide and print library, art history and two-dimensional design.
Painting studios, two large drawing studios with platforms for models, and printmaking and etching will be housed on the third floor. Faculty offices, storage spaces and other vital uses will be fitted around the work areas.
The idea of creating an art institute in Downtown came from Tidewater Community College President Larry Whitworth.
``We are very much taken with Olde Towne,'' Whitworth said. ``It is visually exciting and much more attractive than any of the places the art classes have been. There's so much to look at, and we'll be able to get people out in a community to see what is going on.''
TCC, Whitworth said, recognized that it could not ``adequately provide for the arts'' on existing campuses.
``The decision to move to Portsmouth was left to the arts faculty,'' he said. ``Originally, they were skeptical. When they saw Portsmouth and what it offered, they were very excited. They made a very positive decision to move.''
The building was purchased by the Portsmouth Redevelopment and Housing Authority for $270,000. Remodeling was financed with loans and some federal grant money to bring the cost more than $2.6 million. The state signed 10 two-year leases agreeing to pay $132,000 a year for 20 years.
Whitworth said the school is not threatened by the proposed state budget cutbacks that could scuttle a new Norfolk campus of TCC.
``This is not a new facility in Portsmouth,'' he said. ``This is moving what we already have.''
The school is one-of-a-kind in the state's community college system. In its new quarters, it will have a lot of new equipment, including state-of-the-art equipment for computer graphics and photography.
``This is keeping us on top of the technology in some fields,'' Iott said. ``It bumps us up.''
The center has 20 computer stations for graphic design. Computer graphics courses fill up first every session, Iott said. Advertising agencies send artists to TCC for instruction on state-of-the-art computers, she said.
``We use advisory boards to tell us what the market wants,'' she said. ``Community colleges are teaching institutions, if they are going to prepare students to make a living wage - and that is my goal.''
Although Iott must oversee a staff of 45 or more people as well as 10 part-time continuing education instructors, Iott will continue to teach one course: resume and portfolio preparation.
That follows her commitment to turning out students ready to go to work.
TCC art students, who average 31 years of age, include many who already are working but who are seeking new skills, Iott said. Others are looking for personal satisfaction.
``There is no such thing as a typical community college student,'' she said.
Because about 80 percent of the art students work, the center will be open 24 hours a day. Classes will be taught in four shifts, beginning at 9 a.m. and continuing until 10 p.m.
``We will be open all night because the students must use the building and equipment to complete their assignments,'' Iott said.
``Many of the students work and have families, so many are pressed for time,'' Iott said. ``We feel that by offering them the facility 24 hours, they can do their assignments when they have the time.''
The center will offer six programs: fine arts, which includes studies in art history; studio arts, which is all hands-on; photography; graphic design, which encompasses commercial art; business art; and illustrative art.
All the programs can be tailored to students' needs and taken as career development. Students can earn a one-year certificate in a field or receive a two-year associate degree.
More than half of TCC's art students historically have gone on to other schools to seek additional degrees.
``This is not recreation,'' Iott said. ``We treat students as if they want to make a living income.''
All faculty members are working artists, she said, ``but I am very careful that those we hire are teachers first.''
The art offerings will grow over the next few years with the addition of programs in art education, museum studies and crafts, Iott said.
``If all goes well and we need to expand, I think we'll find the space in other Downtown buildings,'' Iott said.
Some faculty and students were at first skeptical about moving to Downtown.
``Change is a problem for everybody, but we're trying to work the class schedule around heavy traffic in the (Downtown and Midtown) tunnels and things like that,'' Iott said. ``This location will be as close to most people as the other campuses.''
Parking decals, included in the registration fee, will be issued so that all students will have a place to park within two blocks of the school.
``The distance to the parking lots here is the same as the distance to parking at the Virginia Beach campus,'' she said.
But for students wary of quiet city streets, the college will provide around-the-clock security at the center as well as escort service to a parking area.
At least 150 students who most recently attended art classes in Virginia Beach have been to Portsmouth to see the building and are ``very excited about the facility,'' Iott said.
Iott came to Hampton Road in 1971 to open TCC's Virginia Beach art department after working in graphic design in New York City and teaching in the Midwest. Her work is included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.
Other working artists who are full-time teachers are Craig Nilsen, graphic design and printmaking; Rob Hawkes, drawing; Ed Gibbs, photography; George Tussing, art history; Bene Wilson, sculpture and design; and Harriette Laskin, pottery and art history.
Other instructors are part-time employees.
Each of the full-time instructors, all of whom have master's degrees in fine arts, will function as untitled heads of the center departments, Iott said.
The move to the new building necessitated the hiring of three full-time instructional assistants to work in computer graphics, photography and slide and print library.
``These assistants were needed to deal with all the new equipment we are getting,'' Iott said. ``They will see that the equipment is clean and functioning and also they will handle some scheduling for use of the equipment.''
Iott believes the school and galleries will augment Portsmouth's existing attractions.
``We already are connected with the Portsmouth Museums with an intern program for the students,'' she said. Last summer, the 1846 Courthouse gallery featured a faculty show, ``Whatever Comes Next.''
People, she said, would be able to spend the day Downtown, ``doing galleries, art shows, antique shops and lunch.''
Iott also believes Portsmouth eventually will attract more artists as residents.
``Already the faculty is looking to move here,'' she said. ``Two were already here when we voted to move the school and one is in the process of moving. Two others are looking now.''
Iott, who lives near the Norfolk-Virginia Beach line, is not planning to move at this time.
``Ten years ago I wanted to live in Olde Towne and was told I couldn't use one of the houses for both a home and a studio,'' she said. ``So I built my own house and studio. It's exactly as close to here as it is to the TCC campus at the Beach.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color cover photo of the TCC Visual Arts Center, no photo
credit available]
Staff photo by MOTOYA NAKAMURA
TCC's Visual Arts Center was created in the old Famous building at
the corner of High and Court streets. The remodeling cost more than
$2.6 million.
Staff photos by MARK MITCHELL
State-of-the-art photography equipment is ready to be installed in
the laboratories on the first and second floors.
Director Anne Iott looks over some computers that are ready for
installation.
Work continues on the first floor, which will house galleries and
studios.
by CNB