| Purpose: | To find out what NSCAD is really like. |
| Hypothesis: | Probably a good art school for trying to improve my drawing skills. They
have a reputation for being rather snooty and weird. |
| Materials: | A binder of life drawings A ride to Halifax |
| Process: | 1) Have NSCAD not attend any high schools for college presentations. 2) Go up to find out what the school is really like for portfolio day. 3) Go on a tour. 4) Never, ever go to NSCAD again. |
| Observations: | A professor was in an auditorium talking about the school. I didn’t really listen to anything she said except “We ARE the best art college in Canada.” I don’t know how they got the title but had no plans of arguing, seeing how I was very much out-numbered. The room was packed with more dreads, chucks, plugs, and corduroy mod caps then I had ever seen in one place at once. They could’ve easily trounced me and smeared my remains on a canvas after receiving a 30,000-dollar government grant to do so, and hang in it in the Canadian Museum Art and Bodily Fluids. I spent most of the time talking to Justin Nalepa who had spent the March break taking courses offered for students looking at getting into NSCAD. Justin had taken a drawing class where he did a contour drawing of a teapot. Then the students all had to name their drawing. The teacher constantly stressed the importance of thinking “Outside the box.” He then got kids to switch their drawings with one another, and shade them in with charcoal using a circular motion. They had to be very careful not to get on the floor, because, as the teacher had said, the janitorial staff did not like cleaning up the mess. No, not just the mess from charcoal, mess in general. Next paint was thrown on the paper (With extreme care not to get any on the floor.) then the paper was put in the street and cars ran over the can. Finally they were cut up and a collage was made with the pieces. This is a your average NSCAD drawing class. Several others and myself went on a tour of NSCAD. It is a bizarre structure. The buildings aren’t always connected to one another. In addition, a number of the floors aren’t connected to themselves. Some were divided down the middle by an impenetrable wall. To get to parts of the third story you have to go back down to the second floor and get on another set of stairs. Installing a door to “In the box” for ya? Huh? We walked around all of the school. We saw several locked doors. Behind them were things like the graphic design department, the film department, and some sort of computer loom. One of only two such looms in North America. We never got to see the loom, for security reasons. We must simply rest soundly at night with the knowledge that our ally NSCAD has one of the most powerful looms in our hemisphere. What superpower has the other loom? Are there major clashes over loom supremacy of the continent? I can only imagine there are. We also go to look at the gallery. Every graduating student gets to hold a show in the gallery. We checked it out. At first I thought the walls were covered with smears of glue, turned out to be hundred of dollars worth of prophylactics. You can’t make this stuff up. This kid probably just emptied the free condom basket at the Black Market every week. That’s okay, there aren’t nearly enough venereal diseases and bastard children in Halifax as is. |
| Conclusion: | NSCAD is weird and would be a waste of my time. |