Construction Continues on Art Department’s New East Campus Facilities
The Gore Art Complex represents Dr. Gore’s humble beginnings from the basement of Ratliff, to a state-of-the-art upgrade for the small-in-size, but mighty-in-caliber, Department of Art.
Nathan Jarnigan, the administrative assistant of MC’s Art Department, pointed to the red brick of what once housed the city of Clinton’s junior high school. It will now be the Gore Arts Complex. He held up his hands, as if pressing on a wall, mimicking the famous Dr. Samuel Gore, late local artist and MC professor, who once laid hands on the structure and prayed that it would be home to the Choctaw campus’ art hub.
That vision will finally become tangible for art students and faculty members this semester. Studio art classes are the first courses to make the move to East Campus. These will include drawing, ceramics, sculpture, and painting. The rest of the department, such as graphic design, will stay in Aven Hall on the main campus.
“Watch your step: there are power cords and metal everywhere,” Jarnigan chuckled, as he gave a tour of the new facilities. He beamed as he showed off the new ceramic kiln firing courtyard and walked up and down the u-shaped community’s former junior high building.
Originally slated for the beginning of Fall 2022, the opening of the art department’s new facilities will tentatively be ready by mid-September for students. The much-anticipated plans for the future of MC’s award-winning Department of Art have been coming to fruition over the summer.
“As a department, we are simply filled to the brim with joy,” said Dr. Randy Miley, the art department chair. “The move is giving us the opportunity to be a ministry to the students and give them the space to grow. We are also better able to serve the community with this building in new ways. Our program can only benefit from something like this.”
The redesign of the former Clinton Junior High is being spearheaded by Cook, Douglass, Farr, and Lemon (CDFL), who is also responsible for the 2020 Alumni Hall renovation, and Alliant Construction. While national supply chain shortages and a deadline to try to make the property accessible for move-in for the fall, the construction company and art department staff have made great time with only a few weeks over the original timeline given to students.
Student workers, employed for the summer session, made cleaning out and organizing copious amounts of supplies possible. Cate Stennett, a junior art student worker, has been a right-hand woman for Jarnigan and her professors as they brave the face of the exodus across campus. “It’s been a lot of organizing current supplies, getting rid of things, and preparing to move it all out,” said Stennett. “As an art student, it’s really important to me that I have the space to spread out and not feel crowded or like I’m crowding others. Creation for me comes easiest when I have a clean and organized environment to work freely.”
The modern, crisp-line design of the Gore Arts Complex will surely inspire its inhabitants with its off-white and soft gray color pallet and its generous amount of natural light provided by the numerous windows along the hallways and in the classrooms of the structure.
The Complex’s aesthetics will match that of Alumni Hall’s, which is a popular place for MC students to study, with its earth-toned furnishings and mixed-media interior structure.
Just as the exposed brick is original to Alumni Hall’s days as a gymnasium, so is the original hardwood found in some of the Complex’s new classrooms. This mix of old and new speaks to how the art department plans to enhance the future of its programs by preserving its past.
The former auditorium and stage is being revamped to be utilized by MC’s Communication Department’s theater program, and tentatively, Clinton’s community theater. It seats 320 audience members, with an area slightly larger than Aven’s “Little Theater,” the former stage for some of MC’s theater productions. “We are now going to really be able to compete with public state university art programs. We have always had exemplary faculty and staff, but now we’ll have the facilities and space to match,” Jarnigan said, who also received Dr. Blake Thompson’s April MVP staff award.
The Gore Art Complex represents Dr. Gore’s humble beginnings from the basement of Ratliff, to a state-of-the-art upgrade for the small-in-size, but mighty-in-caliber, Department of Art.
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