Ellington

As a biochemistry major, senior Joe Pugh is all too familiar with taking demanding, competitive classes. So each summer quarter, alongside his tough prerequisite courses, he sets aside room in his schedule for an art class — a subject that he says helps him clear his head.

“I have always liked art,” he said. “I feel like it requires you to see differently and it keeps your mind fresh.”

Last summer, Pugh decided to enroll in “Alternative Approaches to Art and Design” (Art 131), an introduction to visual art, to fulfill his VLPA graduation requirement. He enjoyed the flexibility and uniqueness of the class so much that he’s choosing to take another art course this year, just for fun.

“Everyone in the art classes [is] maybe more free-spirited,” he said, “rather than in biochem, [where] everyone is like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’ve got to study this whole weekend.’ And then, they actually will.”

Many art courses cap enrollment at around 20 students, meaning in-class discussions and professor interaction happen on a daily basis, something that Pugh said has been rare in his other lecture classes.

For Pugh and other students, the studio environment of many art classes can also be an ideal place to meet and befriend students of different majors. Carrie Bodle, a visiting lecturer from the UW Bothell campus who has taught summer quarter art classes at the Seattle campus for the past five years, said that she views the studio as a unique learning space.

“[In the studio class], students get hands-on experience that they might not experience in other scholastic areas,” she said. “Especially in the summertime, it helps to balance some of the more cerebral courses. I think that the studio time is really different from other courses.”

For senior Aki Kida, a prospective art major taking “Basic Photography” (Art 140) and “Art through the Media, Time and Technology” (Art 280) this quarter, taking classes during these warmest months is an experience that differs from the regular school year. In the summertime, she said, because more non-art majors tend to enroll in art courses, the classroom often takes on a different dynamic.

“They bring in their different perspective,” she said of non-art majors. “I feel like their personalities and lives are kind of reflected in their projects. It’s fun to see.”

Last summer, for a materials project in Bodle’s Art 131 class, students constructed stilts and later tested them out on the quad. For Bodle, seeing how students like engineering majors chose to construct their stilts was especially fun.

“I especially feed off those connections between art majors and outside majors and I don’t find that they lack creativity at all,” she said. “In fact, I find quite the opposite. I think their backgrounds can add an interesting angle on their work.”

Neal Fryett, who just completed his Masters of Fine Arts (MFA), is an Art 140 instructor this summer. The course is unique in that it is open only to non-majors, meaning every student he sees is from a major other than art.

“They’re refreshing, actually,” he said. “In my MFA program, I’m around people that are talking about conceptual interests all day long, and having a class where I’m teaching a bunch of students coming from business or biology or architecture, it kind of makes me, as an instructor, think a little differently about my own art.”

Pugh acknowledged that some students — art majors or not — may be reluctant to take courses at all in the summertime to avoid getting caught inside on a sunny 80-degree day. But he claimed this aspect of summer quarter isn’t half as bad as many might think.

“That’s why I hate spring quarter, when if it’s nice out and you’re inside when it’s sunny — it’s just the worst,” Pugh said. “But in the summer, it’s generally nice every day, so it doesn’t really matter if you’re inside all day today, because you’ll be outside tomorrow.”

Bodle said that her students actually seem to have more motivation to wake up for her 8:30 a.m. class in the summer, when the weather is warm and the skies are lighter earlier in the morning.

“Unbelievably, when the sun is out I find students are actually pretty excited to come to my class,” she said. “I have a lot of repeat students in the summertime. The course content just really gives them this outlet and a place for creativity that they may not experience in other courses.”

Reach reporter Kirsten Johnson at arts@dailyuw.com.