| 'I
can do better than that' is USU art student's creed
By Riki Richards
April 17, 2008 | A beaded curtain
depicting the Mona Lisa covers the large front window
of Laura Metcalf’s apartment.
She sits down cross-legged on her
couch and a strand of magenta hair slips from her loosely
held pony-tail and parks next to her black, oval glasses.
Next to the window is a cardboard
chair she made for one of her classes. She said she
was only allowed to use cardboard and Elmer’s glue.
The finished product had to be aesthetically pleasing
from all angles and strong enough to hold her.
Anyone who enters the house is quickly
invited to sit in it. The chair stands about five feet
tall and has a throne- like appearance. The back of
the chair is rectangular with a pointed top and attaches
to the seat. The legs of the chair, which also attach
to the seat, are solid slabs of cardboard that create
armrests and then run to the floor.
Metcalf said she is not exceptionally
proud of the chair and feels as if she didn’t put as
much effort into at she could have.
“I was so busy with other projects
I kind of feel like I copped out on the chair,” she
said.
Metcalf said this is her second semester
as an art major at Utah State and she is going into
painting because she loves the colors.
A portrait of a young Bob Marley
hangs on the wall in her living room that she said she
painted. In her bedroom is her portfolio that includes
everything from watercolor paintings of Alice in Wonderland
to an envelope full of homemade money. In one of her
classes she said everyone was required to design their
own form of currency. The envelope contained samples
from the entire class and Metcalf said she could see
the personalities of each person in their designs.
“Art and school are an antithesis,”
she said. “Art is supposed to be created when you feel
like it but school has this rigid structure.”
She said it is hard for her to create
when she is stressed so if she gets stuck for ideas
when she has an assignment due she will put on “happy
music” or clean her room. She said that having a clean
work space really helps her to focus.
Metcalf said that being forced to
work in a new medium is always challenging but sometimes
you end up creating things you never thought that you
could.
She describes her art a “spazzy.”
She said she likes art that is almost real but slightly
abstract.
There are two blank canvases leaning
up against the wall in her apartment and a pile of pictures
scattered on the floor. She pointed to the largest board,
about three feet high and two feet wide.
“I think that one is going
to be kind of a collage,” she said.
She points to the second board, about
two and a half feet tall and one and a half feet wide.
“To tell you the truth, I have
no idea what that one is going to be.”
She said she is also working on a
metal sculpture and is learning how to weld with an
oxy-acetylene torch.
Metcalf said she attended three different
Utah high schools but never got her high school diploma.
About six months after high school ended for her she
said she got her GED and spent the next three years
majoring in art at Snow College.
She said she never liked art classes
in High Schools.
“The teacher would give you
assignments and then sit in the corner of the room,”
she said. “It was where all the druggies hung out.”
Metcalf said her interest in art
came much earlier in life.
“When I was little I used to
cover my room in really bad watercolor,” she said.
Aside from painting her bedroom,
she said she liked drawing the trees in the backyard
and people.
Metcalf’s brother Alan said his sister
is “fantastically creative.” He said she is particularly
gifted at drawing faces.
“She can draw anybody’s face
and make it look like them and that’s something that
I think many artists have difficulty with,” he said.
She remembers one day when she was
creating on a whiteboard her brother said, in a very
sarcastic tone, “Laura, you’d better be careful or you’re
going to get good at that.”
She said at that point she realized
that art might be more than just a hobby for her.
Metcalf said she will hopefully graduate
in a year and a half and after that she really doesn’t
know what is next.
“Art is one of those nebulous
fields that don’t have a job at the end of the rainbow,”
she said.
She said she would love to sell her
work in galleries but she doesn’t really want to depend
on that for her livelihood. She said she is even considering
getting her massage therapy certification.
“I go to these really nice
art galleries and I look at the stuff and I am a little
bitter about it,” she said. “I look at the paintings
and think I can do better than that. And these people
are making hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
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