MUCH HAS CHANGED over the nearly three decades Judith Linhares has been teaching painting and drawing courses in the BFA Fine Arts Department. But one thing has remained virtually the same: the content of the foundation-year classes. “Though students tend to be much clearer about what they want to do,” says Linhares, a successful painter in her own right, “they all still need to understand the basic elements of their work.”

All SVA students must take fine arts foundation classes (except those in the photography and film and video programs, which offer their own foundation curricula), and Linhares feels they are crucial for establishing a visual vocabulary. “It’s about giving names to what they’re creating— expressing form, articulating light and space, defining composition and process—so they can talk cogently about their work and be conscious of what they’re doing,” Linhares says.

Linhares has experimented with various assignments to help students get at the basics. In recent years, she’s begun most semesters with a task that entails using ink wash to create a palette of different shades of gray, and then using the grays to depict a model. “It’s a great way for students to address the visual values that go into constructing a figure: creating volume, thinking about the relationship between figure and ground, and working with background,” she says.

Along with concentrating on basic skills,
Linhares also sees the importance of getting students to think of their work in terms of the broader culture, and of where they fit in the continuum of art history. “I often very pointedly posit class assignments against the backdrop of artwork that’s come before; sooner or later, every artist has to take a look at themselves in this larger context.” Fundamentally, though, Linhares says, “Even if we do look at work in terms of history, art is simply not an academic subject. It’s all about personal desires and personal makeup.”

DEPARTMENT HIGHLIGHTS
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 Suzanne Anker appointed as new department chair.
Students invited the public into their workspaces for open-studios events, December 2005 and
April 2006.
Printmaking facilities at 141 West 21st Street underwent summer 2006 renovations, in conjunction with the expansion of the department’s printmaking program.