SVA Annual 2006

THOMAS GORRELL is a research scientist. When he’s not investigating the life cycle of microscopic organisms, he teaches science courses in the undergraduate Humanities and Sciences Department. As he tells it, there’s a surprisingly close connection between the two sides of his professional life: “Because microbes are close to whatever is the fundamental life form, they help us ask the most fundamental questions about where we came from. There’s a basic misunderstanding about science. Science is not about discovering facts. It’s about asking interesting questions. Students ask interesting questions, and that really forces you to rethink what you know, and how you’re going to present it so that it relates to what is going on in people’s lives.”

Every SVA undergraduate has to take at least one science course. To enliven his classes and help art students connect to the world of science, he brings into the discussion the latest news accounts of comets, eclipses, bird flu and the chances for discovering life on Mars.

If he’s learned anything in his 10 years at SVA, it’s that most students know little or nothing about the visual system that is the primary “tool” of their art. So, in his Light, Color and Vision course, Gorrell uses a simple array of a photoelectric cell and three LEDs—light-emitting diodes that generate red, green and blue light—modeling the way we dissect the images that enter our eyes and then reconstruct a world of color in our brains.

“I also try to get into modern imaging techniques in each course—X-rays, MRIs, CAT scans,” says Gorrell. “I want to give students a better appreciation of what they take for granted about their brains and bodies, and the whole range of what they’re going to encounter in their lives as artists and as members of society.”

DEPARTMENT HIGHLIGHTS

• •	19th annual National Conference on Liberal Arts and the Education of Artists, entitled In the Global World: American Art and Art Education, October 2005. Two-part symposium, Turbulent Sixties: Lessons for Today, November 2005.