NC State visual artists use university community and resources as inspiration Austin Dunlow Photographs by Cliff Maske
tile design and architecture. create some of my work.”
NC
Photographer Malcolm Sales, a second-year in art studies, said the Craft Center has been a resource he has used to work on and hone his artistic skills and to receive tips from instructors at the center.
State University has gained a reputation as a primarily STEM school, with little focus on the arts. However, this does not mean that there is not a thriving culture of artists hidden around the campus, and it would be false to say that NC State does nothing to encourage the arts on campus. The university provides resources like the readily available Craft Center, which gives students access to pottery wheels, a dark room and more, as well as arts minors and art-focused majors like fashion and tex-
Sales said the resources provided by the Craft Center actually encouraged him to continue pursuing photography. “I was shooting just for fun, and I discovered [the Craft Center’s] dark room, and I took a class and learned how to do printing,” Sales said. “I learned how to process my own film and do the whole analog process, and that’s what really got me into photography.”
“The Craft Center is a huge resource that I use,” Sales said. “Pretty much everything that I do is in [the dark room] — everything except for the actual shooting. I make all of my prints in here. I process everything. One of the teachers here has been re- Sales’ story shows that the ally helpful in giving me tips university provides a unique and working with me to help situation in which student artists can pursue their crafts with the help of mentors and teachers while also pursuing an education. However, this does create an issue for artists when it comes to time management or money. The “starving artist” is a cliche that does not work well when combined with the cliche of the “starving college student.” Mitchell Burleson, a fourth-year studying textile design and a fiber artist who focuses on hand weaving, said this creates a dichotomy between creating crafts for oneself and producing craft for a consumer.
A selection of fabrics from Mitchell Burleson’s work.
“A lot of NC State is focused on industry, so now I find April 2020 — Roundabout | 9
