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Apr il 22, 2004

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Group Eorts: Hey, let's start an art

school!
By CaraJepsen

All three of the founders of the Chicago Art Department teach for a
living, but, says Mike Nourse, "We're not convinced that taking
classes that fit into a larger curriculum that leads you to a degree is
the best method of developing art skills."
Nourse teaches video art and digital photography at DePaul and the
School of the Art Institute. Nat Soti, his partner in the design firm
Zero One, is a part-time art prof at DePaul as well. Nathan Peck
teaches computer art at Saint Xavier. The three of them came up
with the idea for their informal school, launched in January, last fall
at a monthly meeting at the two-story Transamoeba loft, a nearsouth-side collective where the three have studio space alongside a
jewelry designer, a construction company, and several other artists.
"We were talking about what this place could be," says Peck. "It
could be a cool bar, a nightclub, cool for raves, whatever. People
kept throwing out ideas. Then someone said, 'You could put a
school in here,' and everyone chuckled. Then we were like, 'Whoa,
whoa, you certainly could.' It kept coming up." After a while, he
says, "we had to decide--should we do it or should we keep coming
up with ideas and never do anything about them?"
They spent a few late nights hammering out a syllabus for a 15week pilot program, and handpicked the first group of 13 students.
Several come from their college classes; the others include a
bartender, an interior decorator, and a culinary school graduate. The
program's modeled on martial arts schools, which allow students to
work at their own pace and share their knowledge with each other.
"This environment is not a class where you sign up and have a
midterm and a final," he says. "You come when you can, and learn
as much as you can, and your progress up the educational ladder is
dictated by you and not so much by us."
Transamoeba has a shared performance space, ten computer
workstations, and traditional art supplies such as paints, canvases,

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and musical instruments. In the first five weeks the students were
taught different techniques: traditional and digital painting,
Photoshop, video editing. "Right now the equipment in the space is
all of our personal stuff that we use," says Nourse. "We're literally
opening up what we own to the students."
Initially the students did a series of exercises in various media
loosely based on the theme "love it or leave it." Some of the results
were exhibited at the DJ bar Sonotheque last month. In recent
weeks they've been working on projects for this weekend's open
house like an interactive digital piece that'll use color to chart the
mood of a room and a multimedia "totem pole" made of video
monitors showing their work. The last few weeks of the class, which
ends in mid-May, will be devoted to documenting the work and
figuring out what to do next, whether that's burning DVDs and CDs
or trying to get shows at other venues. "We're trying to mix realworld experience with a regular art-school type of education," says
Soti.
Students paid just $35 to take the course, and chipped in an
additional $30 each to cover promotional expenses for the open
house. Along the way they made some invaluable connections, says
Peck. "One of the guys here [Caton Volk] started Buddy and has
been running alternative art spaces for a while. I could bring him to
my class [at Xavier] and he could smile and shake hands with my
students, but it's not enough to really know him. Whereas when you
spend every Sunday for 15 weeks with someone, they're on your cell
phone."
In the future, the trio--who'll show raw footage from a short video
documentary they're making about the class at the open house-hope to secure funding for the project and eventually move it to
another location so that the school can grow. They probably won't
hold another session until the fall, and they're not sure what form
the class will take next, but one thing that won't change is the
name. "We joked about it," says Soti. "If you have a fire department
and a police department, why can't we have an art department?"
The Chicago Art Department open house runs Friday and Saturday,
April 23 and 24, from 7 PM to midnight at Transamoeba, 1325 S.
Wabash, suite 101. Demonstrations and performances are at 8 and
11; there's a suggested donation of $5. Call 312-286-8655.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photos/Kathy Richland.

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