Alumni Profile
Name:Kristin Kuhns
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Original City/State: Eugene and Salem, Oregon
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Why did you choose WOU? Proximity to Salem was a factor, I had moved back here
from Maui, Hawaii to be near my family and wasn’t eager to leave them again. My brother had gone to “OCE” and there was a strong influence of WOU on my high school program in the form of guest art events by WOU professors as well as student teachers from WOU, so I was familiar with the school.
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Why did you choose art as a major I had determined that I would work in art by the age of 11. Sprague High School, in the early 70’s had an art program equivalent to many college programs. After high school graduation, I lived and exhibited while living in Hawaii, all without a liberal arts education or an art degree. I chose to attend WOU to receive a liberal arts degree while getting a degree in art to further my understanding of how art fits into our global culture
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What do you like/dislike about this program? I do not think that your current program and the program I experienced are the same. I can only speak to the program that I experienced. It was rich, in that the studio professors taught art history lending a real-life from the maker’s perspective to art history. I don’t think that is very common any more. The facility was very strong and included extensive tools and equipment from printmaking to wood-working to ceramic and sculpture needs. That, too, is not so common.
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Where did you go from WOU? I should have gone to graduate school and received my terminal degree. The department as a whole could have been more “set-up” to move the art majors into graduate school. But, perhaps this is hindsight. I did quite a bit of travel, Europe, Central America and U.S.. I thought about becoming a veterinarian… so I did some class work at a community college in biological science.
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What are you currently working on?I am now accepting myself, as a studio artist, as a studio laborer, as a mixed-media painter and inventor of non-essential dust collecting curiosities. I have taught part-time for Willamette University for the past 10 years as well as other classes here and there. I will turn 50 in the fall of ’07 , for that “milestone” I am working on a project / installation that addresses my relationship with the environment / landscape / nature and how that compares to my community’s, both immediate and state-wide, relationship to the environment / landscape / nature
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What are your plans for the future? My goal is to obtain a sustainable existence, in which what I am doing is valued enough to sustain my existence.
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How do you think your art degree has helped you in your life? My art degree is inseparable from my liberal arts education. I value both in lending me a richer existence with which to interact with my culture and other cultures and endeavors of this world. It gave me tools to seek out information so that I can make informed decisions in my life beyond the classroom, the grades, the degree.
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Tell us something about yourself: I am a product of my time, a time before pragmatism took over. I have developed a way of studio process and dialogue of visual vocabulary that is a direct result of my relationship to the conditions in which I established my own ethics and methodology. This was not planned. It has only become apparent to me recently while truly looking back and attempting to look forward. My work has always been motivated from an internal problem solving directive. What am I trying to do? How should I do it? Why?
I have done most things out of order: I “retired” to Hawaii in my 20’s, graduated college and traveled in my 30’s and got married and had a child in my 40’s . . . wish me luck!