Campus fine art show deserving of coverage

It is 6:15 p.m. I have been working all day at the university and I am tired. I would like to go home to at least eat dinner and relax a bit before I mow the lawn, but I do have to comment on the front page article of Monday’s issue of The State News.

It is the one titled Economic artistry (SN 5/18) by Kate Jacobson. Ms. Jacobson did a very nice job of giving us our yearly dose of how wonderful the East Lansing Art Festival is and how grateful the community should be for having this spectacular moneymaker zoom into East Lansing and then flee as fast as it can after 5:00 p.m. on the Sunday of the fair.

I remember my first fair in 1966, actually one of the first of its kind. In all those years, the one thing I remember most is the lack of any response by The State News to what was happening across the street (Grand River Avenue) on the campus of MSU where the annual Arts and Crafts Show was being hosted by the University Activities Board.

In the beginning, I wondered if it was because The State News reporters hated those students who belong to the University Activities Board and run a show that is one-third larger than the East Lansing offering.

That couldn’t be true. How could you dislike students who work their tails to the bone raising thousands of dollars to fund activities for the students all across campus, including those who write for The State News?

Then I wondered if there was an arrogance about arts and crafts versus fine art. Well, that couldn’t be the case because when you walk through the East Lansing Art Festival you see a whole raft of craft type work – pottery, jewelry, homemade hair ties, baskets, weavings and the like.

The selected pictures for the front page article show those homemade hair ties and a woman weaving. From where a lot of people come from those things are crafts, not fine art.

Does walking across Grand River Avenue somehow make those 200 proclaimed artists better than the 300-plus crafters and artists on the MSU side? Does MSU host third-class producers of schlock or artists in their own way who create things that are cherished by their buyers?

I would hope that even though The State News has moved off campus to be on the East Lansing side of Grand River Avenue that coverage of the massive efforts performed solely by students of MSU who have chosen to devote their time to being a positive model for true dedication to their fellow students might shine before all in the community and beyond.

There does exist beyond the perimeter of East Lansing and its fair, a land called Michigan State University, a land where there exists a tribe of students called the University Activities Board whose only focus and commitment are their fellow students at the university.

That alone should get them a little better coverage on the pages of The State News.

Craig Gunn,

director of the communications program in the Department of Mechanical Engineering