IDEA School Field Trip to NYC
At the end of February, my fellow illustration instructor, Jesse Schilperoort and I had the privilege of chaperoning twenty one Illustration and Design students from the IDEA School, Capilano University, on their Field Trip to NYC. It’s an annual trip and part of the 3rd year curricular course in ‘Design Thinking and Research’. Students are required to complete a visual essay assignment on their return, incorporating visual research, original content creation and publishing. The week-long field trip gives students an opportunity to experience travel abroad and exposure to some of the major Art Museums, collections, exhibitions and cultural establishments in the world. Although logistics are carefully planned by the University and chaperones, students are given freedom to explore their own areas of interest, observe, experience, learn and above all, have fun!
Day1: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Central Park and the Guggenheim
The weather on our first day was bright and chilly, perfect for getting orientated and sorting out metro passes. We walked from the hotel at Times Square, through Central Park to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This is where art history lessons came to life for the students - an epic and unforgettable introduction to all NY has to offer. I was struck by the contemporary curation of some of the oldest collections, namely ‘Look Again’ European paintings from 1300-1800. On to see ‘Going Dark’ at the Guggenheim, where we experienced a completely different way of looking at art. Frank Lloyd Wright’s brilliantly designed gallery space with its spiral ramp and central domed skylight added another layer to the exhibition’s central theme - ‘the contemporary figure at the edge of visibility’. Students were free to manage their own time around our 2 daily check ins, morning and afternoon at each venue. At the end of the day, we walked back through the park at dusk and picked up groceries at Columbus Circle.
Day2: A private tour at the Poster House, navigating the transit system and a visit to the Masters of Branding Program at NY School for Visual Arts.
The Poster House is a small, historic museum in Chelsea devoted to poster art and its influence on society and culture. It was a real treat to have the entire place to ourselves. Our very insightful guide, Gabriella steered us through the beautifully designed exhibition, “Art Deco: Commercializing the Avant Garde” on the 1st floor and the exhibition of environmental posters, ‘We tried to warn you!’ in the basement. Our afternoon plan was to visit the Masters of Branding program at New York’s School for Visual Arts, but getting there turned into an exercise in teamwork and navigation! SVA has an enormous campus with buildings dotted throughout Manhattan. We braved the bitterly cold day, hopped on and off buses, rode the metro and walked our legs off, until we eventually all rallied at the proper venue. Since we took an unexpected ‘scenic route’, we were treated to a range of shows in connection with the school. At the Gramercy Gallery, we saw an inspirational retrospective of print maker Marshal Arisman, founder of the MFA program ‘Illustration as Visual Essay’, an annual student show at the Flatiron Windows Gallery and we got a glimpse of Debbie Millman’s office (Chair of the School of Branding and host of the podcast, Design Matters). Some of us ended the day by taking an evening stroll along the High Line - a disused elevated railway line which is now a public park featuring public art.
Day3: Free Day for students and chaperones
Mid week, we all splintered off to explore the city on our own. Many of the students ventured across the bridge to Brooklyn in search of thrift shops. I made my way back to Chelsea to find the galleries I’d spotted at street level, under the High Line the day before. There was such a diverse array of art on display. At the Kravets Wehby Gallery, Liv Aanrud’s tapestries depicting luscious gardens and women in symbiotic + harmonious relations with the natural environment stood in stark contrast to the apocalyptic scenes of Thomas Hirschhorn’s installation ‘Fake it, Fake it …….. til you Fake it!’ two doors down at the Gladstone Gallery. The scene was a replica of an abandoned game design + animation studio, where the inhabitants (artists) had faked it so hard, they had manifested their own destruction. This hit me like a ballistic missile, having spent two decades hunched over a computer screen designing for commercial animation - I had to go out for air! The sense of anxiety was overwhelming. After spending 3 hours soaking in the commercial galleries, I was ready to walk back through Times Square to the hotel to give my feet and mind a rest!
Day4: MOMA, lunch at Carnegie’s Diner and a private tour of the Society of Illustrators’ galleries, archives, library and clubhouse.
MOMA was another massive hit with the students - they needed to be shoe-horned out to attend the group lunch reservation at Carnegie’s Diner. Persuasion included a concession to return to MOMA after their meal and an order of desserts to go! After lunch, Jesse and I were joined by a handful of illustration students for the private tour of the Society of Illustrators. The SOI is a real cultural gem, lovingly maintained through various grants and full of character! Steve, the director of collections + exhibitions, guided us around the galleries on the ground floor and then up 4 narrow flights of stairs to the Archives, Library and original clubhouse. Students saw original paintings with fully rendered revisions in the margins, from days long before Photoshop gave us Command Z and infinite non-destructive iterations. I left Jesse and the students to enjoy the clubhouse while I met up with friend and retired IDEA instructor, Jude Snaydon, for an evening of live Jazz at the Village Vanguard, Greenwich. The perfect end to another packed day in the Big Apple.
Day5: An Atlas of Es Devlin at the Cooper Hewitt Museum, a walk across the park to the American Museum of Natural History and a wrap-up dinner at ‘All & Sundry’.
Our last morning check in was at the old Carnegie family mansion on 5th Ave, which now houses the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Their private collection was being re-hung so we couldn’t view it, but Es Devlin’s ‘monographic exhibition’ of stage design more than made up for an entire floor being off limits. ‘An Atlas of Es Devlin’ was a real inspiration and an impressive curatorial feat. Walls + tables were covered with thousands of pieces of paper, sketchbooks, storyboards and maquettes from her 30 year archive. The whole experience was directly from her playbook, beginning with an immersive introductory video set in a replica of her studio in London, with walls that opened up like apertures. Our last stop, the American Museum of Natural History was by far the most overwhelming (for me anyway). Tickets included one show, the Planetarium, but the highlights for me were the new Gilder Hall, the Insectarium and the Library for Research, Learning and Innovation, which I’m convinced contains the Holy Grail! (If only I lived in New York…..) We rounded off the trip with a wrap-up dinner at ‘All & Sundry’. Thank you Time Out, it was every bit as good as you suggested. Amazingly some students still had enough gas in the tank for last minute late night shopping - the rest of us were ready for an early night before our departure the following day.
Jesse’s cool video essay from the trip