Columbia as America

Does Columbia College Chicago even have a ‘scene’? Can you throw all the different people studying early child development and fashion retail in to the same category and slab a title on them? Would they be mad if you did?

Columbia College Chicago offers undergraduate and graduate level programs in Art History, Art and Design, Theatre, Music, Photography, Creative Writing, Dance, Fashion Business/Design, Game Design, Graphic Design, Product Design, Radio, Television, Arts Management, Journalism, Audio Arts and Acoustics, Early Childhood Education, Cultural Studies, Interactive Arts and Media, Playwriting and Illustration. Most undergraduate diplomas are given in BA’s or BFA’s, with the exception of the Bachelors in Music. Students also have the option to create their own major and put together their own curriculum, which is then approved by a faculty member. Inside of the school you can find all different types of students. The fashion kids usually dressed trendier than the rest of us. But is there anything that really defines someone as a Columbia student? Is it bright neon colors that remind our older generation of a past decade? Is it an attitude? Are we all pretentious artsy-fartsy kids with our heads up our own asses? Sitting in our studio apartments, high off the smell of our own work?

For me, one of the bigger selling points was how unorthodox Columbia is in comparison to most state schools. We don’t have a quad for bros to throw frisbees and footballs around in. Our campus isn’t confined to a sanctioned part of the tiny college town. Our campus is Chicago. The entire south loop screams Columbia College. Most would agree with me when I say, “The Harrison Red Line stop is the front door to Columbia.” When you get off the stop you’re surrounded by orange and yellow vinyl leafs on the ceiling, haiku’s on the wall and a general sense of youth. If you’ve never seen it, don’t expect anything glamorous; most of the letters from the poems have been ripped off or destroyed in some way. But what do you expect… our school was founded in the 1800s. Upon leaving the Harrison train stop you are at the doorstep of the University Center, often referred to as “The UC”, it’s home to over 1,700 students from four different colleges in the surrounding area. Walk east a block to Wabash and Harrison and you’ll come across a strip of cheap to mid-price restaurants, a few bars and some of Columbia’s educational buildings.

One of Columbia College's main buildings is located at 623 S Wabash. Often referred to as "623", this building houses ShopColumbia - the school store where current students and recent alumni can cosign their art for 75% of the sale price - The Quincy Wong Center - a room full of tables and chairs complete with a small café, The Hokin Annex – a small study lounge which hosts different themed galleries of art, as well as multiple floors containing classrooms, print shops and computer labs. Outside the front doors are black ledges filled with students sitting, smoking cigarettes, and on occasion - pot. The groups are often 2-5 young adults coming from the same class. The females in and outside of this building are almost always better looking than the ones seen outside the music buildings. The sense of fashion seems high and important. Skinny jeans tucked into knee-high boots. Belts hidden by red peacoats. Shirts and blouses unseen behind yellow scarves. Their eyes focused on the elevator doors, as if to say, "You're not worthy of my time." The boys with knit caps, dark colored jackets and thick black rimmed glasses. All keeping them warm from the cold lake wind coming in from only a few blocks away. Two elevators in the front of the building hold up a mosaic of the word "Columbia". Posters for school and student events are scattered on the walls. It's easy to tell the hiply dressed Columbia students from the yellow-headed construction works and grey haired teachers. Students ride in on skateboards while the staff park their cars. The Columbia Chronicle newsstand covered in stickers. One of which I notice the most, it reads “LATE IN THE PLAYOFFS”. Once inside you can hear the guitar chimes of indie rock playing in the lobby but it isn’t a student band. There has actually been a fair amount of musical talent to come out of Columbia, most of which dropped out to pursue their dreams. The more famous of them being Kanye West, Columbia is still known as college stompin grounds to Common, Maps & Atlases (who I swear took their name from the side of the music building off Michigan Ave), Matt Skiba of Alkaline Trio, Kid Sister, and Jeremih, who had the hit single “Birthday Sex” in 2009.

If you really want to get a feel for the music scene currently at Columbia you can stop at one of the campus’ many free music events or search the plastered walls of 623 to find a poster supplying the information for an off campus event with student bands. On Thursday, October 27, Miska’s hosted four bands (and a DJ to end the night), all of which containing members that attend Columbia College Chicago. The first band, They Face Reaction, was a punk quartet with two members hailing from Brazil. Their sound was loud, raw and energetic. They Face Reaction draw their influences from 90’s rock acts such as Alkaline Trio, Foo Fighters and Weezer.

Shortly after the bar began filling the next act, Late In The Playoffs, started setting up and performing songs. LITPO, for short, is also punk, but sounds more pop punk than TFR. Comparable bands would be Motion City Soundtrack, The Get Up Kids and Saves The Day, which they actually played a few songs of. The crowd consisted of mostly 21-25 year old males sucking on vortex bottles but had its fair share of supporting girlfriends raising their red jello shots for a toast. Other members from the bands were wandering the bar mingling, playing pool or waiting in the line for the bathroom. That’s really all there was to do there. Drink, socialize or shut up and watch some live music from early twenty-somethings.

The third band was much different than the first two. I would describe Beer Hockey as an instruMETAL band. Blending the edge of metal bands, like Between The Buried And Me, with the songwriting styles of instrumentalists, Explosions In The Sky. One of my favorite parts of their set was the fact they were all dressed as Mormons – which could have been confused for early Beatles costumes. Nevertheless, Beer Hockey brought the rock to the table and supplied more than ample heavy, head-banging rock tunes.

The night was closed out with the glitch-infused DJ, Agito. The bar service was terrible. There was only one beer wench working. The atmosphere was unspecific and was a little bit of everything; Irish, NHL, College football themed with Halloween decorations. The music was good and the vibe of the people was great but can that really say everything about Columbia’s culture?

On campus events vary from concerts to photo exhibits, dance performances to installation art and almost anything in between. The lobby of 33 E Congress in Chicago, IL had an art gallery entitled “Dwelling” open for students of Columbia College as well as the general public. At first glance, I noticed multiple white blankets tied together, hanging from a window pane, with TV screens in the background. The installation piece from Heather Boaz entitled “Escape” was the piece hanging. I liked the simplicity of it. Simply calling it “Escape” left it open for interpretation. In me, it evoked the emotions tied with sneaking out of the house for the first time, as well as some of the more troubling issues concerning my relationships with certain people and how I might sometimes be crawling out of that very window down the sheets.

            I moved on to the TV screens that I noticed behind it. As I watched the footage being looped on it I felt slightly creeped out. Here is this video on the left of an older man at a table walking to and from his fridge and they’re calling it “Art”?! I gave it a chance to redeem itself though and read the title and artist card, “Windows” by Olga Chernysheua. I also observed the second video screen on the right. This one was also outside of a window and provided the view of someone watching television; the curtains gave off a vibe of an older woman living there.

            I suppose together these two pieces of installation art can play off of each other really well. Together, they could tell the audience that we need to escape these mundane lives; that these windows allow us to see outside of our safe zones, or houses. There’s so much outside if we just looked out the window (including the creepy people filming us).

           

There was one piece that I didn’t care for that much; “Untitled 1 & 2” by Emily Hunt came off as lazy to me. First, because of the lack of title for her photos, and second, because they didn’t seem well planned. The photos just gave off these lazy vibes like, “Oh man, I have to take pictures for that art gallery that’s going up tomorrow. Let me point my Polaroid at the window in my apartment and I’ll be done!” I can admire the effort in using a Polaroid since the film is so expensive and you only get one shot at getting the picture right but I think it’s too close to abstract art where people are allowed to paint a whatever they want and call it, ‘untitled’. The next piece that caught my attention was, again, by Heather Boaz. Entitled “Defense” was a simple concept of putting a chair under a door handle as a means of locking yourself behind it. This door was more of an entire wall though. With an old iron doorknob, as if to say, “this has been around for a long time.” The chair underneath it also had a rustic/vintage look to it.

In short, Heather Boaz’s work was by far my favorite because of simplicity and it’s directness. And because the concepts were so simple, it allowed people of all backgrounds to attach something to it. It allowed us to see what we’re running away or hiding from. I enjoyed that the most and I’m sure I wasn’t alone on that feeling.

If there are any Columbia events or galleries that I just can’t seem to grasp well, it has to be the dance performances. I’ve never been one to really understand what dancers try to convey, especially in modern dance, which is what a lot of Columbia does. On December 1^st, I made the walk down to the dance center on the southern end of Michigan avenue, past the 1014 location of the music department but just north of the Music Conservatory, which is much smaller than the Music Department but hosts a bigger auditorium for performances. Upon walking into the dance building I noticed parents looking around, students walking in and out of the bathroom and an usher escorting people towards empty seats. The vibe given off from them was very professional and low-key. These people liked their silence and attempted to kick out anybody disrupting that. The lights dimmed and the curtains pulled back. The music playing was completely different than anything described above. This was more rhythmic and sporadic, almost jungle-like. The dancers came out, only two at first, and proceeded in their show. Unfortunately for me, the entire performance went right over my head and nothing except for the fact that the students were the ones who choreographed the show stuck with me. When leaving the performance hall the students and dancers came out to greet their parents and friends. They stood around smiling, some breathing heavy from the last dance, all of them politely accepting the “thank you’s” and “great job’s” that came their way.

Regardless of all the events mentioned above, you can’t define an art scene with it. It’s not like these art forms were ready to present after a few hours of work. No, these kinds of things take time, not only to make but also to perfect. There’s years of work that go into learning a musical instrument or perfecting your technique for pliés. Some people might have the ability to shoot a well-framed photograph, but the photograph still says something about you and your surroundings.

The art scene at Columbia should not be defined by the work that’s being put out, but rather, by what’s around us that goes into the work before it hits public eyes: the skyline view of the city from the museum campus on the lakefront, the smell of the wind blowing off the lake, the tall snow banks reaching to overcome the parking meters, the lawn chairs that save peoples parking spots, the sound of the train, the way that sounds prevents you from finishing a story among your friends. If Harold’s chicken weren’t directly across the street from our campus would students still go there and know its majesty? Buddy Guy’s Legends bar is right across the street from that and hosts students having a mid day beer to Buddy Guy himself coming in at night to enjoy a beer and occasionally perform a song. There’s no other school in this country that can provide that for their students – Buddy Guy is one of the LAST living blues players in this nation. Is it possible to say that can set the bar higher for the musicians in the area? Or does some of his greatness rub off on the surrounding area in the same way that laughter can be infectious? This city can teach us the importance of separation through the segregated neighborhoods, allowing us to realize that not everything has to touch or be connected. Our color palettes given to us on a train guide map handed to you by an overly zealous churchgoer in front of the Belmont Red Line. Reds, Blues, Yellows, Greens, Browns, Purples, look there’s even a Pink line. If you were a paintbrush what color would you paint the town? Would your brush take Jackson to Lawrence in a red blaze? Or would you go left to Jefferson Park and paint your canvas with blue?

I think the main point I’m making here is you can look at the student art all you want, watch it evolve with time, and maybe even contribute some yourself but until you take your focus off that and look around you to see where the influence is coming from, you’ll never be able to become a part of it. You could live in Seattle and listen to a Chicago based band but you’ll never know the feeling of emerging in the south loop, surrounded by strangers your age, all of you walking from the underground to the old dirty streets that once saw a three day fire in 1871. The students at Columbia College are too different to be slapped in the face with a single title. And even when we’re all so different, we can make things that are similar because it’s what’s around us that creates our art scene. The skyline, the frozen urban snow banks, the lake, the two rival baseball teams that both reside on the red line, the under and above ground train system, the bums that expose themselves on it, the dive bars, the bars owned by blues legends, the tiny living spaces, the wide open studios in Pilsen, the boy painting alone at 5am, the girl losing her mind over her photo final, the band playing Big Mouth for a room full of rappers, the students playing three hour cover sets at Potbelly’s cause it beats making the sandwiches and you still get to eat one, the row of cigarette smokers who refuse to converse outside their circle, the hipster parties hosting music that sounds similar to Transformers having sex, the whiskey sours your friend makes for you on a Tuesday night, the $3 wine from Trader Joe’s, the pot a vegan sells down the street, the coke you find at a 5am party, the blueberry coffee at Dunkin Donuts, the pumpkin lotion the girl on the train applies to her arms and legs, the regrettable and anything-but-sober weekend one night stands. THESE are the things that shape our art scene. THESE are the things that feed our machine. And our machine has heart, damnit. We don’t go down without a fight, no matter how outnumbered we might be. We treat our work as if it were our mother – sure, sometimes we can’t stand it and wish it would just go away but damnit, we’ll do anything for it. We’d fall to our knees and cry if it ever left us. We’ll spend any godforsaken amount of money on it (like 19k a year). This is what keeps us going and it’s why we’re all here, and yes, it’s all different, just like anybody’s mother compared to yours, but it still takes care of us when we need it the most and we do our best to give it what it deserves back.