ERIE, Pa. \u2014 The small barn located in front of Glenhill Farmhouse at Penn State Behrend has been many things: a bunkhouse, a farmer\u2019s office, a student lounge, a library, a classroom, and a theater. The building was part of the original estate that Ernst and Mary Behrend purchased for their country getaway.<\/p>\n
The Behrends turned the barn into a cottage, adding a stone foundation, a fireplace, a staircase, a bathroom and a \u201csleeping bunk,\u201d which provided guest lodging in the 1930s. Mary occasionally used the space to entertain her friends.<\/p>\n
Years later, before Mary donated the property in 1948, creating what is now Penn State Behrend, the little cottage became her art studio, a quiet place for her to paint. She mostly painted landscapes, including scenes from her Glenhill Farm.<\/p>\n
She took her hobby seriously, and she learned from one of the best: famed Erie artist Joseph Plavcan. The two often worked together in the studio. In 1945, Plavcan left a sketch of Mary in a guestbook.<\/p>\n
Today, more than 80 years later, the building is again being used to create art. Dan Schank, associate teaching professor of art, leads classes there, with students seated at easels across the barn\u2019s floor.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s such a great building, with its deep, dark wood structure and stone accents,\u201d he said. \u201cIt has a long, rich history, and I think students benefit from making art in a place with such an eclectic flavor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brushes fill buckets in the back of the room. Tubes of paint and cans of fixer crowd a supply cart. Canvases are propped against the old wooden walls to dry, while watercolor paintings are laid flat in a wire rack near the entryway.<\/p>\n
Taking big creative swings<\/p>\n
Behrend has long been known for its strong STEM presence, but Schank said he sees value in learning through art, regardless of a student\u2019s major.<\/p>\n
\u201cCourses like Intro to Painting or Intro to Drawing encourage students to use a different mental skill set than many of them are used to,\u201d he said. \u201cI teach them to rely on intuition, something that contrasts sharply with the part of their brain that is constantly fact-checking or measuring.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are no \u2018right\u2019 answers here,\u201d he said. \u201cBy working more instinctively, students develop a new way to observe the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
The approach can spill over into students\u2019 other coursework, Schank said \u2015 even in majors that are not often associated with creative pursuits.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of our engineering majors are natural tinkerers,\u201d he said. \u201cThey like pulling things apart, seeing how they work, and putting them back together again. There\u2019s a trial-and-error quality to artmaking that utilizes this instinct very effectively and allows them to do so in a safe, low-risk setting. They can take big creative swings without having to get it perfectly right.\u201d<\/p>\n
Practice leads to improvement<\/p>\n
Schank has taught art for decades. He said he often equates artistic talent to athletic achievement.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of art instruction, especially at the introductory level, is like learning a sport,\u201d he said. \u201cSome people are naturally stronger or faster than others, but everyone can improve with enough practice.\u201d<\/p>\n
When students struggle in an art class, Schank said, they tend to take it more personally than if they had done poorly on a science or English exam.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think the processes are all that different,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you put the time in, you can achieve the end goal that you desire. You just have to keep working on it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ERIE, Pa. \u2014 The small barn located in front of Glenhill Farmhouse at Penn State Behrend has been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":276937,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[136,138,137],"class_list":["post-276936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}