By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Students studying the arts at Bowling Green State University have stories to tell.
They tell stories in paintings, and films, in pottery and jewelry. They perform music centuries old or maybe weeks old. The tales can be dramatic soliloquies, or written in verse, or through the movements of dancers.
The University Arts Leadership Council wants to tell these young artists’ story.
The council, which is made up of university and community members, was formed two years ago to help promote the arts at BGSU.
What William Mathis, dean of the College of Musical Arts, refers to as the University Arts Leadership Council v. 2, convened earlier this month in the School of Art.
The council, Mathis said, will now be chaired by Laura Jajko, the president and chief marketing officer of American Frame in Maumee.
Mathis said he’s looking for Jajko to push the council and university administrators to achieve its mission of promoting the arts on campus.
Jajko’s family has long ties to campus. Her father, Ron Mickel, founded American Frame and the first contemporary art gallery in the Toledo area, which exhibited work by faculty artists. Her mother, Elaine Mickel, received her MFA in painting here in 1983.
Jajko helped spearhead the effort to create a scholarship in honor of the late painting professor Bob Mazur by selling his paintings, prints of his work, and a memorial book.
She studied business in college, but finds an art background is invaluable for her American Frame employees.
“How can we communicate what’s really going around here? I thought I knew and today I understand I really don’t,” she said, during a break in the council’s meeting earlier this month.
As part of the meeting, council members visited four studios in the School of Art to talk with faculty and students.
She’d like to see this kind of tour documented through social media so prospective students can see the advantages of a BGSU arts education.
To her mind BGSU has a lot to offer. The various art programs — creative writing, theater and film, music, visual arts, and dance — have traditions of excellence. They are also dedicated to innovation.
“Any one interested in art has to be interested in the forward movement of art,” she said.
The College of Musical Arts’ work in promoting new music is an example, and was a revelation to Jajko. “These classically trained artists are really pushing the boundaries of music. It’s important for our culture.”
BGSU has broad offerings.
The School of Art, she noted, is strong across media — glass painting, photography, drawing, ceramics, metals, digital art, graph design. “It’s all under one roof,” she said. That offers students a chance to expand their learning.
And, she said, BGSU is more affordable than schools considered more prestigious.
Helping keep that the case through scholarships is part of the council’s mission.
“There’s certainly a fundraising aspect,” Mathis said.
With so many worthy causes, Jajko said, the council needs to find a way to convince donors that this is a place to donate. Maybe that’s a $100 or volunteering to help make an event happen.
Or something larger. “How do you get people to say: ‘I want my name on this. I want to do what I can.’”
Mathis said the council is setting out for itself both long-term and short-term projects.
Short-term includes identifying an arts project to showcase on the Day of Giving next year.
Also, the council will host an arts showcase next spring before a performance of the musical “Pippin” next April.
Mathis described the event as “a Bravo-esque kind of event,” a reference to Bravo, the arts gala that was held each spring from 2015 to 2018.
That gala was also intended to develop awareness and support for the arts on campus, but didn’t deliver the results warranted by the effort and funds required to stage it.
In its place, the university has designated certain arts events, which are already part of the schedule, as premier arts events, and given them enhanced promotion.
“Pippin,” which will be staged April 30 through May 3, is the concluding premier event of the academic year.
Mathis said that the synergy of grouping those performances, exhibits, and talks together has been successful. “The audiences have increased.”
He said long-term the council will look into a way to take the new showcase on the road, finding locations, maybe private homes, where it can be presented. That likely would begin in Ohio, outside out Northwest Ohio, but later it could go out of state to spread the word about arts at BGSU, he said. “Getting people energized and telling our story, that’s where I see the value of this group.”
