RU student highlights Dr. Bay
| Published 12/10/04
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Throughout my many drawing classes at Radford University, I have had many professors. However, there is only one who has truly inspired me. His name is Richard Bay. Most of my drawing classes have taught me a lot, yet they are were pretty much the same. I drew still lives and nude models. The purpose for the projects always seemed to be to make the drawing as three dimensional as possible. They always involved mimetic theory, yet not any of the other theories. Once I learned the basics, I was ready for something new. While visiting the Flossie Martin Art Gallery, I saw a picture unlike any other. It was a self portrait, yet it wasn't realistic. Instead, it was full of color and expression. When I learned that the person who created this piece was a teacher, I knew I should take his class. I signed up for advanced drawing with him the following semester. The first day of class he talked like most professors do. Yet he didn't get into the attendance policy and grading system as much as his philosophy on art. He said that it was a way of expressing emotions. He mentioned that if your art work didn't come from your emotions then there wasn't much point. Dr. Bay told us that he had had 13 operations in the last 13 years of his life, but art had kept him going. He used it as a catharsis for what he had been through. In his class, he wanted all of his students to find their style, their artistic voice and themselves. In his class, we did still lives and nude models, yet it was different from any other class I have had. The first still life we did was of his masks he had gotten from Mexico. They were devils, a sheep, a bull and other various animals. He had us use techniques like holding the pencil at the end of it, not lifting the pencil off of the page and using our whole arm to draw. For the next still life, we had objects set up all over the room such as masks, a stapler and a toy dinosaur. It was more interesting than plants and pots, which I had done repeatedly in other classes. There was also always music playing, which I find helps me draw. He provided a diverse collection of mediums including oil pastels, paint, markers and crayons. Dr. Bay also had fun projects to do with the nude models. For one project, he projected slides onto the model. The slides were of artwork from designs to eyeballs. In another assignment, the model stood behind a curtain so we could only see her silhouetted image. Before I had Dr.Bay as a teacher, I was discouraged about my artwork as well as my major. Now that I have had him as a teacher, my outlook has changed. I found someone else who felt the same way that I did about art. I have more confidence in my artwork and the purpose behind it. |
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