AD 303: Individual Art Review

A huge part of the art school here at Northern Michigan University is AD 303 -- Individual Art Review -- a pass-or-fail class that determines whether or not you can continue being an art major. It's serious, scary business and you are required not only to build a portfolio, but develop a statement of intent that clearly explains the social purpose behind your artwork. Leading up to the final review, you develop this statement of intent (presenting it to your advisor several times), create a resume, and make digital documentation of your portfolio. For the final review, you hand out your statement of intent and present your portfolio to a panel of six art professors, one of which is your advisor. You are then questioned for twenty-five minutes, and you have no prior knowledge of the crazy things these professors might ask you. And then -- you pass, or you fail.


I went through this process yesterday, and I'm pleased to report that I passed with a satisfactory grade. It's a whole lot of stress off my shoulders, and now I can focus more on other classes that I've been neglecting. The scariest part of yesterday's review was when I was asked if I considered myself to be of the modern or post-modern thought process. I froze up and admitted I really didn't know what these two schools of thought were -- oops. Yeah, pretty embarrassing, and it didn't help that the review had just started and I was still really freaking out at this point.


Anyway, besides the photography aspect, how does this relate to this Michigan Architecture Blog? My portfolio consists of twelve photographs, all fragments of buildings from the northern portion of the state of Michigan. I don't want to get into my whole statement of intent (I'm incredibly sick of reading and retyping it at this point, believe me) -- but part of it was focusing on the gradual transformation that these buildings are going through, and how their current use and appearance is often far different than how they were originally imagined, five, seven, ten decades ago.

Negaunee


Cross Village


Negaunee


Hancock


Chassell


Houghton


Negaunee


Germfask


Negaunee


Hancock


Republic


Germfask

With the exception of the photograph of the mural taken in Cross Village (just south of the Mackinac Bridge), this portfolio was compiled entirely in the Upper Peninsula, where the buildings on Main Street have a very unique look and feel.