Photo by Maria Porter
Last fall, art became an official major in the Jordan College of Fine Arts. This fall, art students are reviving an organization that brings art back to the students.
The Visual Arts Student Organization is open to everyone and welcomes students of all levels of talent and majors.
Elizabeth Mix, an associate professor of art and adviser of the club, said she hopes VASO will help to bring about arts recognition and acknowledgment from people both at Butler University and in the community.
“Several times since I joined Butler, individuals outside our community have said to me ‘I didn’t know that Butler had an art program,’” Mix said.
The revival seeks to fix this. However, VASO is not a new concept or organization.
Created when the department only offered a minor, VASO ended when the students who had minors graduated. Now, Mix said the revival is taking on a new purpose.
“The old VASO was a refuge for students who loved art but found it mainly absent from Butler’s campus,” Mix said. “The new VASO can celebrate and promote the creation of a freestanding program, the new major and new spaces in the Jordan College Annex.”
Angela Mion, senior psychology major and treasurer of VASO, said the club welcomes all majors and levels of talent because art is everywhere, and one of the club goals is to bring art back into the lives of the students.
“Art is essential to culture, and I want to bring that back to Butler,” Mion said.
Mix said that the approach to bring the art back to Butler is two-pronged: exhibitions and outreach to the Butler community and field trips to the art scene of Indianapolis including places like the Indianapolis Museum of Art and the Harrison Center.
Mion said the organization has interactive projects in mind that will incorporate fashion design, painting, photography, graphic design and more.
“I’m most interested to see what happens when stores of untapped creativity are pooled together to make something for the whole university,” Mion said. “I think the possibilities are endless.”
Despite the fact that an art major is relatively new at Butler, Mix said that art in general is important, no matter the major or number of people in the major.
“It changes people’s perceptions of their environments,” Mix said. “It provides an outlet for creativity.”
Mion said that she hopes the club will be a resource for students to broaden their artistic horizons and bring each other to a new level.
“This is a place [where] a pharmacy major can learn to paint from a biology major,” Mion said, “where an English major can sharpen her photography skills with a marketing major.”
For more information, contact President Maria Porter or Vice President Rachel Anderson at mcporter@butler.edu and reanders@butler.edu, respectively.
VASO is open to all students and Mion said there will be a call-out meeting Nov. 15 at 7:30 p.m. Room to be announced.
