Walk up the path to the new Crafts Center. What will be seen? Bricks, of course. But these are special bricks. They are donor bricks, clustered in a rectangular bed near the wheel-chair-accessible ramp, just to the right of the main entrance.
This tidy visual encompasses everything one needs to know about the Crafts Center transformation: It honors the past of both the arts and Thompson building itself while at the same time, progressing forward with modern sensibilities.
The Crafts Center is housed in the Thompson Building, formerly Frank Thompson Gymnasium. In addition to being the main place for athletic endeavors, the building also hosted arts events. The Crafts Center has been in the building since 1964, when it moved into the lower level, beneath the theatre.
Although the theatre is upstairs and presumably out-of-sight, it still makes its presence known on the lower level. The new costume shop is located near the revamped wood shop, and the wood shop classrooms have been coated with a special acoustic noise buffer, useful since it sits right below rehearsal space. In an interesting historical note, both the costume shop and rehearsal hall areas were part of the original woodshop.
George Thomas, Interim Director of the Crafts Center, said that there have been some previous incidents with the theatre part of the building that illustrate the need for both organizations to have their own space.
“We knew the theatre folks by the riveting sound of unfolding scenes being rehearsed above. In one play, an actor portrayed a beheading with the artificial blood being poured down a hatch. As it turns out, the oozing ‘blue’ liquid passed through sizeable gaps in the old basketball flooring and landed on a teacher below. She was wearing a white angora sweater,” Thomas said.
In a bid to preserve university history, the new woodshop has incorporated the old swimming pool tile into its floor design. The original white tile was preserved, and one can observe a band of red squares outlining the perimeter of a metal flooring.
The original swimming pool will now be used as a facilities room, where staff will not be able to enter (unlike in the previous Crafts Center). The pool is situated below the rehearsal hall, and is used to store high-tech equipment on its downward-sloping, white-tiled floor.
The new Crafts Center has had a complete makeover, revamping spaces and adding studios as the need has demanded.
One way in which the Crafts Center has updated itself has been the addition of accessible spaces. There is a ramp leading to the front entrance and an elevator has been put in along with more bathrooms – single-sex bathrooms instead of unisex ones.
“The new foyer area will be even more welcoming and reflect the creative energy throughout the entire building once they enter,” Hilary Kinlaw, a former student employee of the Crafts Center and current employee of the Gregg Museum, said.
Within this new foyer area there will be gallery lighting to help illuminate the student work on display and in a move both benefiting the exhibition space and practical for use, students’ pottery will be put on display when it is available for pickup in a common area behind the information desk.
A few new studios have been created due to demand, and the newly created fiber arts studio houses a loom, basketry supplies and sewing machines in an area that used to be the multi-purpose room.
“There will be a new lapidary studio for polishing gemstones,” Jo Ellen Westmoreland, Assistant Director of the Crafts Center, said.
The lapidary studio is near the jewelry studio, notable for its four kilns in each of its four corners. Westmoreland said that there are sound-attenuating ceilings in the jewelry and lapidary studios since there is many noise emanating from those two studios at any given time.
A glass studio was created where students can create stained glass work and make beads.
“There has been a real interest in the glass arts lately,” Westmoreland said.
In addition to the new studios, some studios stayed the same, but have been improved and made more accessible. One of these is the pottery studio, found in the same location as the old Crafts Center but has been made much larger. When one nears the studio, they can peer in through the large glass panels that shield it from the foyer and commons area. Within the studio, the space has been divided into two areas, with a pottery wheel on the left, and space for hand-building on the right.
There is space for more pottery wheels should the need arise, as well as an area for glazing that will be situated in a far corner because of noise concerns. The new space also has more sink and counter space, employing fours sinks instead of two, ideal for students working on projects. There will also be more shelving for display and to protect works-in-progress. The space even includes a room at the end of the hall for glaze mixing, since the students make glazes by hand.
The idea of incorporating any available space into a display area affects the most unlikely candidates.
“The windows are being turned into light-table display cases for art,” Westmoreland said.
The rectangular windows in question are set back from the rest of the room, and the arched stone ceiling allows for natural light to come through. Kinlaw said that the window displays will help bring the Crafts Center to its patrons before they ever enter its doors. The windows will also provide views into the art on paper and pottery studios, which will be located near the main entrence form the coliseum parking deck.
“Whether in support of class requirements or as a respite from the same, students will continue to visit the Crafts Center for their own reasons,” Thomas said.
Reopening this fall, the renovated Crafts Center will provide future generations of students a wonderful place to develop technical skills while sharing the adventure of making art with others.
