By Kensi Freeland
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark.— The University of Arkansas’s School of Art received a grant from the Windgate Foundation to create an upcoming studio and design center.
It received 40 million dollars to create a single spacious place for all art students to reside. The building is expected to be finished by the summer of 2022.
“This building will really just bring all of us together; It’s really hard to collaborate when one building is across campus,” Marty Maxwell Lane, associate director for the School of Art, said.
Lane said there are eight different art buildings scattered both on and off campus. The Windgate Studio and Design Center will be built next to the School of Art’s existing sculpture facility.
Once completed, this building will be on the corner of MLK and Hill Ave. It is set to be over 140 thousand square feet, which is triple the size of previous work areas.
The university hopes to have students and faculty in the building for the fall 2022 semester.
Executive Director for the School of Art, Gerry Snyder, said he is enjoying the process of building the new studio and design center.
“When you get to build a new building you get to build for the future, as opposed to trying to retrofit current thinking and ideas into older spaces,” Snyder said.
He also mentioned how the art footprint on campus is decently small. Snyder is glad to get a new facility that will attract more art students.
“It will provide students who come here to study art and design with the same great resources that the other programs have,” Snyder said.
The Windgate Art Studio and Design Center should help the art community at the University of Arkansas maintain a sense of community.
“I think it’ll also inspire new collaborations because design students will walk by a ceramic studio and perhaps be inspired to work in a new medium,” Marty Maxwell Lane said.