PNCAwesome!

Portland, OR

Today I took another step toward my goal of attaining a BFA in photography.  Last week I scheduled a tour/interview with an admissions counselor at PNCA (Pacific Northwest College of Art).  Today, I had that tour.  PNCA is a pretty amazing place, the campus is huge, it occupies several buildings scattered around northwest Portland.  The main campus building, pictured above, is essentially a large cluster of art galleries, class rooms and creative space.  My tour guide/admissions counselor was Bill (pictured below).  He was pretty casual but helpful at the same time.  When not working at PNCA, Bill is a professional photographer.  I felt like this was fitting because he was able to speak to me from the perspective of a photographer.

After exploring the Art Institute and PNCA, it’s pretty clear to me what the differences are.  There’s not really even any room for comparison.  The atmosphere at PNCA seems to be very nurturing to the creative soul, the student to faculty ratio is 12 to 1 which is amazing.  The school’s capacity is, I think 560 students which means that enrollment is limited.  Pictured below is one student’s “creative space”  each senior receives his or her own creative space to work on their senior thesis.  At the end of the year these creative spaces are cleaned up and opened to the public as one really big art gallery, showcasing the hard work of the thesis students.

Bill and I talked a bit about the discovery process, about how PNCA’s educational programs are designed to help the student, as an artist, explore who he or she is.  This appeals to me in a huge way, I know that I love photography but I am interested to see how learning sculpting, illustration and design will sharpen my skills as an artist.  It seems like discovery is a big part of the experience here and the creative process is nurtured by the staff, by the atmosphere and by the other students.  One other thing that I thought was really awesome is that they have a gallery in the main campus building that is dedicated to non-domestic artists (not from Portland). The art that was on display while I was there was pretty amazing, it was an installation piece of huge shelves that covered every wall in the room.  These shelves were lined with books, not just any books mind you but the employee hand-books of failed financial institutions.  It was really crazy to see how many there were and just how big our economical collapse really is.  Here are a couple photos from that exhibit.

I would have to say that after my time at PNCA today, my mind is pretty much made up.  The cost of tuition is pretty dang high at PNCA but they have a great transfer system, so I plan to take as many classes as I can at Portland Community College before starting my BFA at PNCA.  Thanks to everyone that has been supportive of me and who has followed my ramblings through this process.