CSN Subject Matter: Fine Arts
Air date: Sunday, January 19, 2020


Welcome to this week's edition of CSN Subject Matter, the College of Southern Nevada’s weekly radio program in conjunction with KNPR. I'm your host Meghin Delaney from CSN Communications office.


CSN is Nevada's largest and most diverse higher education institution so naturally we have plenty of great stories to share. Today we’re talking fine arts. I have with me Bob Bonora, the chair of our fine arts department and Jeff Fulmer, a coordinator and adjunct faculty member in the department. 


The Fine Arts department covers a wide-ranging field with many opportunities for students to explore their passions in art, art history, dance, music theater, and a whole lot more. In the second half of the show, we're going to chat with one of those students whose artwork is hanging loud and proud in the new student unions on our campuses. She’ll tell us more about that artwork later in the show. 


As always, you can learn more about CSN by visiting csn.edu. We look forward to helping you succeed and now we’re onto today’s show.


Thank you for being here with me today, I was hoping you could start by giving her audience a brief introduction of who you are and what you do for CSN, Bob, can you go first?


Bob Bonora: Absolutely, I am Bob Bonora, I am chair for the Department of Fine Arts and basically I oversee four programs art, music, theater and dance, and within that we have some subcategories of course, Jeff with the art spaces and art galleries, we have a recording program, music business and technology that I oversee and that's part of the music program but they’re unique and individual enough that it bears mentioning. I'm basically just making sure the programs run, that's what I do here.


Meghin: How about you, Jeff, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your role here at CSN?


Jeff Fulmer: Well, I actually taught my first course at then CCSN in 1998 and I became a full-time member of the art and art history program in 2006. I manage CSN’s visual resources, the college's art galleries and the college's art collection. Beyond that, I’m an artist, I earned my MFA from UNLV in 2000 and I've completed several public art commissions in the valley, including one at the Centennial Hills Leisure Center and my artwork is currently featured in the city of Las Vegas First Street Art Trail. And last month, I was appointed by the Clark County Commission as a member of the County's Art Committee.


Meghin: You got into it a little bit there, Jeff, but since we’re an education institution, I always like to ask people to share a little bit about their education career and how they how that helped lead them to where they are now at CSN, so can you talk a little bit more about that part of your background for us?


Jeff: Absolutely, so I come from a family of educators. Ny grandmother was the first teacher of the year for the South Bend Community School Corporation in South Bend, Indiana. My mother was an elementary school teacher here in Northern Nevada, my aunt was a school teacher and my wife is currently a schoolteacher for CCSD. Growing up, the coolest teachers that I had were always my art teacher so that's kind of what I gravitated to and what I wanted to become. So I earned my BA from Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana, in painting and drawing, and then I went on to earn my MFA as I said from UNLV with a focus in sculpture, criticism and graphic design, and then I was lucky to land a teaching at that alma mater back in Crawfordsville, Indiana, and I stayed there for a while, I also taught at Herron School of Annapolis, Indiana. Long story short, my wife and I decided to get married and start a family, and we decided to move back to Las Vegas to be closer to family and I came back to CSN.


Meghin: Bob, how about you, how did your education story unfold and how did that lead you to where you are now?
Bob: I grew up in Northeastern Ohio, right around Akron, Ohio. I graduated with a bachelor's in music performance in percussion from the University of Akron. I stayed active in the playing scene as much as you can do in northeastern Ohio, which has improved greatly, but I wanted more and decided to move. My brother and I had some friends were living here in the playing scene, the educational scene with UNLV and there were a lot of opportunities to be involved in a variety of things, so I moved here in 1985 pursued of master's degree at UNLV and also have been active since I moved here in the playing scene.


I started off playing in you know different lounge acts and stuff like that, and then gradually morphing into playing showrooms, both with stars, Wayne Newton and you know stuff like that, and now doing production shows, all different production shows. I'm still active in the playing scene, I play nightly over Planet Hollywood at one of the show's over there and just everything about Las Vegas that I came here to do that I thought was going to be that you know, the education scene wasn't really on my radar screen. But the opportunity presented itself to teach part-time at CSN back in 1996 and I taught here part-time for 6 years, teaching drums and percussion and history rock music.


And that job opened up into a full-time position and I was hired full-time in 2001 and for the past four years have served as department chair, so yeah, it's easy to trace, you know, if I can do it, just about anybody can do it and work your way through and you know.


Meghin: Well that’s why I like to ask that question I think it helps students or folks who are listening to see how what they're doing now can lead into something great later on, so thank you for that answer and that helpful context. So Bob, you already started this earlier, a little bit of a rundown of our fine arts program, but can you talk a little bit more about what students could study here and in this department and what they would be learning?


Bob: Absolutely, within this department, if you choose to be an art major, we just re-tooled the degree, so it seamlessly transfers to UNLV, so you get a two-year degree from us and go for another two years to UNLV or another and NSHE institution, UNR, and you can dabble in a variety of different art mediums. 


We did the same thing with the music program, you can major in any of the band and orchestra instruments. We offer music theory, we offer it as a two-year associate's degree in music, so the first two years say at UNLV if you take them with us, you should go over there as a junior to UNLV and finish your bachelor's degree over there. 


Dance, we offer a certificate of achievement, which is you get experience in all different forms of dance and it's a really active, world-renowned program, they just came back from a tour down into Arizona to dance at Yavapai College.


The theater program, we just closed our production of Idea Man and we've got a really active theater tech program.


A new degree coming on a certificate coming online next semester that's going to push lots of people that are interested in doing stuff like along the lines of stage hands so it's a real technical education. you can still get acting experience at CSN, but we're leaning more towards lots of technical work, stagehand work rigging, stuff like that, the people that are dressed in black pants and black shirts and make everything operate behind the scenes, so all of those things.


And the recording music business and technology, all of these things, we try to make sure that our students are learning industry-standard programs, everything, like the business of music, we’ve got a guy active in Los Angeles in film score music placements, we have a guy that keeps all of our programs  really up to date with recording and all of this, you know, everything is industry standard. So when our students go out the door, they know what to expect, they’ve worked on the tools that are popular and what's going on in our in our world today, so we try not to teach students ten year old stuff because it just doesn't, it doesn't work, and they won't work.


Meghin: Yeah, it’s not relevant anymore, because it changes so quickly. And I know that, walking around CSN, we have art sort of all around us on campus, I remember when I started here I was a little surprised by just walking down some of the hallways and seeing that and I know that's thanks to a lot of the work that you've done in the last few years, Jeff. Som can you tell us a little bit about where we can find artwork on our campuses, and it's also implied, but can you tell us why it's important that we showcase our work on our campuses?


Jeff: So as you said, our campuses are sort of full our artwork. Each of our campuses has part of a large college collection, that has mostly come from donors in the community giving us artwork. In addition, we have spaces on each campus to highlight student artwork, faculty and staff artwork. This past year, Clark County recently completed the Zap10 project on Cheyenne Avenue up in North Las Vegas and that’s brought some of our first public art to campus. In addition, I program the Artspace Gallery, which is CSN’s oldest exhibition space and the Fine Arts Gallery, both of which are on the North Las Vegas Campus.


Looking at artwork is important for an artist, like tasting food is important for a chef or playing a piece of music is important for a composer. Until that happens, the artistic process really isn't completed, so it's really important for our art students to be able to see their work and see the work of professional artists as well. In addition, all this artwork on our campus makes our spaces more lively and more welcoming and more relaxed. It inspires our students and our faculty, promotes creativity and innovation and it celebrates our diversity and our different cultures.


Meghin: I know that I like, and I can’t remember the name of which gallery it is, on the main building on the North Las Vegas Campus, it’s on that upper-level and I like to if I'm working on that campus, I like to sit at one of those tables outside the advising office and that artwork is right there and so it's quiet enough of the space that I can work, but you know every time I look up, I'm not looking at a blank while I'm looking at the artwork so I particularly like that spot.


Jeff: That’s our Artspace Gallery. So that one was our oldest space. All of our galleries have seating, whether it’s tables for students can study or benches where they can just sit and reflect on the artwork that's there.


Meghin: Yeah, it seems like it’s done very intentionally and I wanted to ask, how do you find the artists that are in those galleries, in those spaces, I know I have read the little descriptors and it's a mix of folks who work here at CSN, local artists from the community and a lot of times I know it's students at CSN, so what does that process look like when you're choosing the artwork that you're showcasing in these spaces?


Jeff:  So I manage 11 art exhibition spaces at CSN, we have spaces dedicated for our students on each campus, we also have spaces dedicated for faculty and staff to exhibit artwork on each of our campuses. But in order for students to have careers in the arts, students also need to be current in Contemporary Art beyond what's happening on our campuses. 


Many of our students can't make it to New York or Chicago or even LA, so we bring the artists to campus to engage with them. Each spring, I send out an international call and this year we got more than 80 proposals for just seven open slots. Our proposals came from 37 different states and Washington, DC, and they represented 13 different nationalities, so a really diverse group of applicants.


Once those are all compiled, I have a committee of art faculty that review and makes the final recommendations for what we will actually share with our students, because it's really important that what we show in our galleries support what happens in our classrooms.


Meghin: Yeah, so you tie it all back together and then I know that those artists come to campus, right, at some point during the exhibition and they’ll do a talk and a reception with our students? 


Jeff: Almost all of them do. We’re an educational institution and just having the artwork doesn't seem like quite enough to make the connection for a student so most of our shows we actually bring in the artist, if it's a group show will have a panel of artists, come and really engage with the students personally. It's a great way for our students to see how artists function in the real world but also make important connections to the other schools, maybe, if they want to study somewhere else or future job opportunities.


Meghin: And just to be clear, all of these galleries and these events that you do, they're not open just to CSN students, right, we're open to the wider community to come in and experience and take in this work, right?


Jeff: We really are. We really try to cater, as a community college we try to cater to the entire community. So all our Art Gallery events are free and open to the public, check us out online, look for us in The Weekly or the Review-Journal, or Desert Companion magazine, find out where our shows are and come visit us.


Meghin: And then I have one last question in this half of the show for you Bob, it’s sort of a big question, I know a lot of times, we can look at community colleges and we're tying ourselves to work force initiatives and fields directly tied to those, a lot of folks don't think Community College and think fine arts program I think which is which is an incorrect stereotype because clearly we have a robust program here, so why is it important for a community college like CSN to offer all these Fine Arts opportunities?


Bob: In this city, it’s ultimately important because of the entertainment industry, because I read maybe two or three weeks ago in the R-J, there was an article that Las Vegas has the hottest public art scene right now in the United States. 


I was shocked when I went back home to Akron, Ohio, and I'm looking around it at different things since I've left there that are decorated and then I came back to Las Vegas, I was looking around this morning my goodness there's so much more and then I read this article that was that, you know, touting the fact that this is the hottest public art market in the United States so to give students kind of a safe haven to experiment with what their passion is. 


It doesn't cost an arm and a leg, the teachers and the professors that we have all active in the industry,  and like Jeff saidhis artist guest artists come in, we have guest artists come in with the music world, we have just started, we just had an international audio event, we have brought in all of these audio tech people that came in for an entire Saturday. There's a lot of professional contact for our students, they get to rub elbows with a lot of the pros. 


We have some military bands come in with our groups and it's just to get our students out trained on industry standard items and be able to push them out with new venues opening up. The new venue over behind the Venetian, 17,000 seats, it's only going to be more jobs, so we're tying stuff into Workforce Development, that's right there. Our theater program is doing marvelous working just trying to push things out like that and this market, we would be remiss if we didn't have a fine arts program at the community college. 


It's not really common that community colleges offer this and so I won’t say it’s a rarity, but it's not common to have an entire fine arts program like we have, so we're try lucky to have that and we just try to be mindful and keep pushing our students in the right direction.


Meghin:  I think that makes a lot of sense when you’re looking at Las Vegas and then what we do, I mean, you mentioned playing in a nightly show at Planet Hollywood, we have all those opportunities here, so it makes sense for us to offer.


Bob: And we can turn around, you know I’ve had students come in and shadow me when we’re playing a show, they get an inside look at what goes on backstage, they see me playing the show, they’re watching my book and they're flipping pages just you know and it's that professional, you get to rub elbows with the pros every now and then, that's that's a really nice benefit for all of our students in any one of the areas of study that that I oversee, it's an incredible opportunity for all of our students.


Meghin: Thank you, I appreciate you two being in here with me, I look forward to welcoming a student artist with us in just a minute. If you're just joining us, you're listening to CSN Subject Matter, the College of Southern Nevada’s weekly radio program in cooperation with KNPR. I just finished chatting with her first two guests of today’s show, Bob Bonora and Jeff Fulmer from CSN’s fine arts department.


That's our subject today and now we're going to hear from a student who is studying Fine Arts here and also has her artwork up on display in our new student unions. I am going to brag about that for just a minute before she joins us and try to paint a picture of how impressive it is to have her artwork up in the union, please enjoy my puns, I'm very proud of them. The artwork came to campus through a partnership Jeff put together with Guerilla Artz, local art incubator which is owned by a couple of CSN alumni actually.


So the artwork in our unions look like massive pieces of street art, they're almost full floor to ceiling length as you walk down one of the hallways in the union, they are just amazing, lighted very nicely, they've got little descriptors there and that was all through collaboration that Jeff did with our facilities department while those unions were being built, those were the spaces that were intentionally made for this kind of artwork, so it's really great that we are showcasing students, CSN alumni and then local artists in there.


So with that being said I'd like to welcome Yami to the show. Would you mind introducing yourself to our audience and share a little bit about about yourself and what you're studying here at CSN?


Yami: Sure, thanks for having me Meghin. My name is Yami, I am originally from Ethiopia. So I moved to the United States 13 years ago, I always loved art and after high school I went to college to study photography and videography. After that, I moved right away to the United States and moved to Michigan and Utah and then Washington DC before I moved here in Las Vegas. I joined CSN to study art.


Meghin: I’m glad to have your here and glad that you chose CSN now that you’re here in Las Vegas. So let’s talk about your artwork, what kind of artwork do you do, where do you draw inspiration from, maybe you can tell us specifically about your artwork that's in the student union?


Yami: So I like to paint more impressionistic style, I’m not more realistic or portrait, that perfection look, I like to express myself in a different way, different movement in color, I get my inspiration from different cultures, I like to travel, I came a long way and crossed many roads, so sometimes I cannot express it with words in those moments, but that image I think is like a memory card in me so when I paint somehow I express that. It's not just up all my life, the people I meet on the road, the culture how it makes me feel, it might be crying, just emotion, so I took that and made it my art.


Meghin: So being at CSN and studying here, you said painting is sort of your go-to art, I assume we’re exposing you to some other disciplines as well or really honing you in on those painting skills?


Yami: Well, first I was self-taught so I came into CSN and it helped me more skillswise. I might be a painter, but I didn't have that fundamental skill, where to go, what to do, not only that, I love my professors. It doesn't have too much structure as an artist, you want to let it go, so I think having my professor help me and in a way I think he understands me, so especially for an international student that means a lot.


Meghin: Yeah, to have that connection really helps.


Yami: So for us to get a chance to really be able to express, that means a lot.


Meghin: And can you  tell me specifically about your huge piece of artwork that's in in one of the student unions right now?


Yami: So I came in around summer time, so it’s one of the things I did I was most proud of. I saw the  advertising for painting cities to life so I went to my professor and I said what do you think, and he’s like you should go for it Yami, so I sent an application. So it was a public art and we had to paint downtown at Zappo’s office and it was my first time painting in public. I usually hide myself and be me and you don't come in my door inside. So being in a public place makes me appreciate and make me look what it means.


Meghin: So you were actually creating your piece of artwork in front of everybody in Las Vegas?


Yami: It a public place, on Las Vegas Boulevard.


Meghin: And that’s not normally how you create art, right? You don't normally show it to people till it's done, that must have been... 


Yami: The cool part about it, at first I put my earphones to listen to music, after the second day I took it off because people were like people come, they want to talk, children pass, people are around, they come up from all over around, so I was like wow, really this is happening, and after a while I was not afraid to even make a mistake publicly. So when I got in there, I didn't have a full plan exactly what I want to do the minute I put that, I don't know if you’ve seen it, that American flag on the head, that’s when everything came to me, that's when I went home and OK, this is a good start, this is what it means for me to be American. What did I paint so far, this is a big canvas, I can’t let it go, I’ve got to put it together, it’s like a six foot by eight foot canvas, so I went home and I wrote down about 6 original language, including my own language, I wrote peace and love, so I used that in the background as a frame to give it a look, so it has a title on it.


Meghin: I know exactly what piece you’re talking about now. Before we got in here, I had seen all the artwork in all the unions but I wasn't sure which one was specifically, we’ll make sure that -- obviously this is an audio medium, but if you come to CSN’s website, will make sure we have a photo of it up there so you can match the two together. 


But I always like to ask students on the show about plans for the future, so you're obviously here at CSN, you're working on your degree, what are your goals and do you have big plans for what you’d like to do with your life after?


Yami: So I just came in, and showing my art at CSN, I just came in and I wouldn't even expect, you know as an artist, you only paint, you don't have time to do, when Jeff put this together, I couldn’t believe, honestly, I went home, I went oh my God, this means a lot. I can say I’m artist now. I have many art in my home, but I don't have a walkthrough where to go, who to talk to, so it's like you have people, back support too, so you can focus on what you’re doing. 


So for a future, I hope that you know, I'll be able to inspire more people along the way on my process and hopefully one day I can open my open gallery.


Meghin: Great, well you're well on your way there, you’re off to a great start here at CSN and you know, we're excited to it to watch you go on, and you know, when you have your big art gallery showing, I know that Jeff and Bob will definitely be there in and we'll be there as well. 
Thank you so much for joining us Bob, Jeff and Yami, this has been a great talk about the fine arts department and I know that folks listening can learn more about it by visiting the Fine Arts page at csn.edu. Also you can come to our campuses and see our artwork, we’re are open and we're here for you.. You've been listening to CSN Subject Matter, the College of Southern Nevada’s weekly radio program in conjunction with KNPR. I'm Meghin Delaney from CSN’s Communications Office, you can learn more about CSN by visiting csn.edu or searching CSN on any of your preferred social media websites we’re on all of them. We look forward to helping you succeed and I'll see you next time.