According to her mother’s speculation, art is in the blood of George Mason University senior Lisa McCarty of Oak Hill, and something that she has watched her daughter develop since her early childhood.
“She has loved art from a very early age, she’s been drawing since she was a little girl,” said McCarty’s mother Brenda, joking she didn’t get her artistic abilities from her.
“Her grandma was always artistic and went to art school, but I think it skipped my generation,” she said, adding McCarty’s older sister Melanie is also an artist.
Although McCarty, 21, began her interest in making art at a young age, she recently was introduced to another side of the art world: the world of a curator.
“It’s like a new way to deal with all of these ideas that are thrown at you in classes,” she said of her recent internship with the McLean Project for the Arts, where she just opened her first exhibition.
As a bachelor of fine arts major in graphic design, as well as an art history minor, McCarty said her university requires art majors to complete an internship before they can graduate.
ALTHOUGH SHE ENJOYED creating her art, taking photographs and transferring them onto canvas, McCarty began her internship last August to try her hand as a curator at the suggestion of one of her professors.
“This is the first time they have done a full year internship,” said Deborah McLeod, an independent curator temporarily working with the McLean Project for the Arts and McCarty’s advisor. “In the past they have done only a semester, but with a full year the students are able to get a much richer experience.”
McLeod has been a curator for the Second Street Gallery in Charlottesville, the Peninsula Fine Arts Center in Newport News and the Hand Workshop Arts Center in Richmond, and is now helping the community arts center until they hire a new curator.
McCarty said when she envisioned a career in art it was always from the standpoint as an artist, not a curator.
“It was different being on this end of it,” said McCarty. “I’m glad to have gotten this experience because now I know what it’s like to be on both sides.”
“She came in not knowing how to do various tasks of the position,” McLeod said of McCarty’s first few weeks. “But she’s very smart, she’s a quick study, and she developed a quick finesse to what we do.”
McLeod said through the course of the internship she and McCarty set the schedule for the exhibition to open June 17, which included everything from McCarty choosing the theme she wanted the exhibition to follow, to finding artists who would display their work, to developing an eye for what represented her concept the best.
“I think she did a great job,” said McLeod. “It was really nice because through the year professors from various universities were coming in to either install pieces or to visit, so she was introduced to those people … and got those connections.”
McCarty chose a theme of Abstract Art for her exhibition.
After hearing art historian Kirk Varnedoe speak last year at the National Gallery of Art on how abstract art can never be truly abstract because viewers will always find some sort of reference based on their experiences, she decided to test that theory.
“Abstraction really is defined as not having content,” McCarty said. “But no matter what you do that’s not possible. Student artists are pegged down by professors, or whoever, as being one or the other.”
McCarty selected the pieces for her exhibition by speaking with the professors she had met from the local universities and then meeting with student artists to view their work.
“I think she did a great job of selecting the work and the pieces that she chose to show,” said McLeod. “There’s diversity and a range of emotional offerings and formal offerings.”
THE SHOW INCLUDES works by students from George Mason University, American University, the Corcoran School of Art, Howard University and Marymont University.
“I just thought it was beautiful,” said McCarty’s mother. “It was well done, and a lovely display. It is what I would call a representation of the area and it was interesting to see the talent.”
McCarty said now that she has been introduced to the life of a curator, it is something she may look into, although creating art will always be her first love.
“For now I am going to finish up school and absorb as much as I can of my last year of undergrad,” she said. “I definitely would like to curate more, so I’ll hopefully keep it going.”
McLeod said that although she thinks McCarty would be a good curator and that it’s a job to “pay the bills” when selling art may not, she hopes McCarty will continue creating art.
“I hope her artwork will always take the front seat,” said McLeod. “It’s a hard role, but it’s a rewarding one, it’s the most creative … it’s an endeavor that is slightly outside of the mainstream and it has to stay there. Artists need to be biting the hands that feed them.”
“Reference: the question of Abstract Art” will be on display at the McLean Community Center, 1234 Ingleside Ave., through July 31.