At a meeting of students in the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Studio Arts program last September, one topic of discussion was how to best make sure everyone knew about all the cool things that were happening, both on-campus and off.
As things were, students felt overwhelmed by email notices, it wasn't possible to share images on the mailing list server and they had to proactively check each of the many channels that already disseminated such information.
They thought the best solution would be a single place into and from which all information, including images, could be streamlined. The blog could also link to, and be linked from, other websites. Jenna Meyers, a graduate student in the Painting and Drawing concentration, suggested a blog was the perfect one-stop location.
"We wanted a space that accumulated information in a way that was both visual and text-based," says Meyers, who was already maintaining a couple of similar blogs.
Everyone was onboard, so Meyers designed and built a sophisticated blog on Tumblr that enables contributors to submit their own notices, reviews and requests - just like an old-fashioned, paper bulletin board. It also brings together people from different Studio Arts concentrations and serves to connect with alumni.
Meyers and fellow MFA students David Butler (Sculpture) and Geneviève Moisan (Fibres) keep the blog rolling smoothly, but it's designed so that users can easily upload their own text, photos, videos or links.
"It's an informal, public way of sharing information. I like the 'open-sourceness' of it," says Beth Frey, one of the students who contributes. "Jenna and the others working on it have also been quite successful in getting it to the outside community."
Meyers, who posted the first item in December 2011, says that the majority of the current postings are to promote upcoming shows, but hopes contributors will post more items covering a broad variety of bases, such as reviews, news and opinions as well, and that they use the chat board to exchange thoughts and ideas.
The blog gets about 5,000 hits a week from all over the world and now counts about 1,400 Tumblr followers, Meyers says. "Generally, I'm really happy with it."
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