Willard Hall appeared to be empty on the evening of March 7, but appearances can be deceiving. Behind closed studio doors and down in the basement of Willard, students were still working on projects the day before spring break.
Casey Keatley, sophomore in kinesiology, was working in the Willard ceramics studio on a project for ART 102, ceramics for non-majors, which she attends on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.
“We’re supposed to do an abstract project,” Keatley said. “Right now, I’m just waiting on my clay to dry … so I can put it together and be done when I leave for spring break.”
Keatley was one of two students staying late in the studio after the last session of the course before spring break.
While Keatley said she had taken other night classes before, this was her first studio course.
“You kind of have to apply yourself a little bit,” Keatley said. “You definitely have to be creative, which is also hard when you’re so ready to be done for the day. You’ve got to get those creative juices flowing.”
Meanwhile, up on the second floor of Willard, Jordan Hill, freshman in fine arts, was spending time in a drawing studio.
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“I’m supposed to be working on a ballpoint pen drawing that’s due after spring break is over,” Hill said, “but I had to get done an image that I need to photocopy for a woodblock carving I’m going to be doing for printmaking.”
Hill said he has found himself spending more time in the studio at night in the spring semester than he did in the fall. There are more projects in his printmaking and 3D design classes that can’t be easily worked on in the dorms, he said.
Though Willard appeared empty, Regnier Hall had no such deceptions right before the beginning of spring break. Through the large glass windows, students could be seen in various architecture studios hard at work.
However, Regnier is hard to get into after dark if you aren’t an architecture major; students have codes they use to get inside the building.
Jenna Engel, senior in architecture, said in an off-site interview that she spends four to five nights a week in the studio.
“Technically, once, when I was a freshman, I pulled an all-nighter,” Engel said.
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Architecture studio is a five credit hour course. The other classes architecture students take often correlate directly with their studio class.
“It’s a pretty normal thing directly after studio ends to go eat supper and then come back,” Engel said.
When working on projects, students perform site analysis, participate in a design and feedback process and then spend time in production meticulously making models of their projects.
“Production is where you spend the most time,” Engel said. “Those are the crazy insane hours of getting three hours a night of sleep.”
Despite the long hours, Engel said she enjoys the dynamic that exists between the members of a studio.
“The environment is awesome,” Engel said. “I really think that’s unique to this major. There’s something about being in studio together at 3 in the morning, super stressed and super delirious, that you get super close to each other. The studio I have now is constantly roasting each other and it’s hilarious. You’re around these people constantly, but after 1 a.m. it’s completely different.”
