The Fine Arts Complex bustled with business on Friday afternoon as customers wrapped in winter jackets and scarves filtered through rooms browsing the prints, pots, and jewelry for sale.
“The student art sale for the student ceramic arts guild (SCAG) is a fundraiser for our club and a way for students to sell the work they made that semester,” Erin Krogstad president of the SCAG, said regarding the pottery sale. Krogstad managed a table at the sale, taking payments as students waited for their selections to be returned to them, wrapped in newspaper.
There were students and Fairbanks community members alike attending the sale this semester. While a silent auction in the back of the ceramics studio allowed guests to quietly bid on items donated from past artists, the center of the room buzzed with chatter as people examined everything from tea cups to serving trays.
SCAG uses portions of the proceeds from the sales to bring ceramics artists to campus, host Waffle Sundays in the art department, make food bank donations, and cook turkey in the studio’s kiln for Thanksgiving.
Down a narrow hallway from the pottery sale, tables were occupied by large swathes of paper, rather than clusters of clay pots. The print sale featured work from students of the printmaking studio laid out across every available surface. Next door in the metalsmithing studio jewelry was mounted on stands and laid out on open tables for interested parties to examine.
“I had prints and painting set up, but primarily worked with the painting sale,” said Max Bartsch, a graduate student working in the art department. He spent most of last Friday in the painting studio, helping set up for the sale.
This was the first year in awhile the department has been able to set up a painting sale during the other art sales, according to Bartsch. Bartsch said he sold a few prints, but not any paintings.
Students set their own prices for each piece they contribute to the sale and then the proceeds are split between the student and the department, according to Krogstad. There is another sale slated for end of the semester in Spring 2018.
Krogstad said, “It’s a good way for students to learn about selling their own work.”