Professor Isaiah Provides an Inside Look into the Art Department in a Sit Down with TBL

Art is something that we all enjoy, in one form or another. For most of us, when ‘art’ comes to mind, we think of painting, illustration, and photography. But, for a select few, craft is their preferred medium. One of these individuals is Benjamin Isaiah, an art professor here at Frostburg State. The Bottom Line sat down with Isaiah about his engaging career as an artist and how he feels about being an artist and professor here in Frostburg. One can view all of his works on BenIsaiah.com.

TBL: What was one of the driving forces into becoming an artist?

Isaiah: “I had a professor, he taught a Frostburg. That’s where I started. I went to Allegany out  in Cumberland. I would go over to my friends house, and we would be playing video games. He would be down in the garage-shop welding or hammering something on the anvil. I just thought it was really…fascinating. I was probably sixteen or so. That class is no longer on the course catalog. They had a pretty loose class. It was called Crafts Workshop. After my folks moved freshman year, I went to University of the Arts in Philadelphia for a year. That was just a completely different experience entirely, different style of metal work entirely, very fine fabrication and precise part making. I switched again. My folks were out in Arizona, so I ended up finishing at Arizona State. Again, just a different teacher, Becky McDonough. She taught me all kinds of different skills. I think that helped. I wasn’t with just one teacher, I had different influences to make my skill set more well rounded.”

Q: What made you find metal work so fascinating?

Isaiah: “Something about the fire, it’s the fire. Getting it that hot. It’s something that upon further research in grad school. You find that we have this really rich human history of metalworking and working in that way. Getting ores from rock and melting it down and refining it. You see…you feel something…that’s ancient or primal.”

Q: What brought you back to working at Frostburg State?

Isaiah: “I moved back not for a job. I didn’t have a job lined up. I had gone to school with a girl here who was teaching an art class that I am now. She had been there for a couple of years. We kind of met on a chance in town. The chair of the department called me up, I didn’t apply, it just kinda seemed like it was meant to be. I wish I was teaching people how to make that stuff [metal working] in the school. They don’t have the facilities right now to be able to do it. I feel like the department is lacking in several areas, but mainly in the crafts. If you go to bigger schools, you will see that there’s fibers, there’s glass, there’s metal work. You can do some metalwork and sculpture, but its not the kind of metalsmithing that I was trained to do. More fine jewelry making too. I hope somebody will be able to get that together at some point. To get those facilities.”

Q: Who or what inspired you to make your art?

Isaiah: “My dad’s not from this country. He’s Egyptian. Nothing could really ever be good enough. There was a drive. I wanted to make the most impressive thing I could. He was never real big into art. He’s a science guy. He said I shouldn’t go into art or put my energy into that. Proving myself to myself and also to him in the process revealing a lot more of the world to him through me doing it. I feel like he has a greater appreciation for the arts now that I learned and educated him on. My mom is not from here either. But she was more relaxed about saying, ‘Do what you feel passionate about.’ I guess it’s a mix. In her way, that was what I should be doing because that was what I felt in my heart the most. For the other side of the parental equation, ‘do it because you better be impressive, or else.’”

Q: What do you like about the Frostburg community when it comes to creating art and why?

Isaiah: “We do have a high concentration here of artists in the town. There are a lot of people that pursue arts and craft medium as well. Woodcarving, glass, ceramics. I definitely have to be a champion for the crafts because that’s my area – working in craft medium. It’s something that isn’t always looked at as fine art. It’s an area where you can be away from the hustle and bustle of the city and be able to concentrate to make the art. But your not so far out that there is no other artists in the community to bounce your ideas off of. The town itself if very good about promoting the arts district. If your gonna pursue starting a business, opening it up on Main Street, they’ll put you in an area where you can have tax free zones in the art district. The town does value the fact that they have an artist community.”

Q: Is there anything you would like to communicate to the University?

Isaiah: “We’re lacking in the department. I only have to compare it to one school because my academic teaching experience is all at Frostburg, except when I taught at Colorado State after I graduated with my Masters. Yes, its a bigger school. They are probably  40,000 kids. It’s bigger, and they have more money, but I don’t think that’s a reason to neglect the arts. It’s really just a matter of funding. They took care of us a lot better at Colorado State also. If you taught two classes you were still an adjunct, but they would still give you benefits. I teach two classes a semester here, and they pay me less then they pay me to teach one class there. Its the same that it’s been since 1990. And that’s verified. We’ve got adjuncts that have been teaching there for twenty years, and the pay has remained the same since they started. There’s no benefits. They’re lucky they can get adjuncts to teach. And the reason they can is because they are fresh out of grad school, and they don’t know any better. If you can get a job, that’s good – the fact that you got a job in the arts. If you put more money into something, and you make it seem more legitimate then you won’t have as many people treat it as if its a joke. That’s pretty blunt, but the crafts definitely need some improvement. What I’ve been talking to the provost about is moving into the twenty first century. They are kind of still operating the department in the last century. We need to be giving people skills that are applicable to the twenty first century world. We need to make sure that the kids who are learning how to do things are getting a strong classical background in those techniques that are ancient, but that they’re also able to apply that to twenty first century skills. C&C, laser cutting, or 3D printing and that is very revealing to about where we are now. Transferring the old way of doing it into the new way to maybe making hybrids in between. If you don’t know how to do it the old way, the classical way, then it appears that you don’t know how to do it the 21st century way. And vice versa.”

Q: How do you feel about the attitudes towards the department?

Isaiah: “I feel like it’s seen as a joke because the university administration treats us like that. You get the crumbs. We can put 33 million dollars into the science center, but the art department is struggling for every penny. We get forgotten about. We are not looked at as seriously as the sciences. When I met the new dean in our faculty meeting the other day, the provost came in and told me that I should probably just ‘open up a dog boarding place.’ This was her solution to me not having a full contractual position. They call her the ‘hatchet lady’. She was hired to come in and slash and burn on campus. Her names is Elizabeth Throop. They do that in a lot of universities. It’s a business more than an educational entity. They’re running it in a way that they can make the most money. When you start decreasing the value of the education in a way to balance your budget…that’s detrimental to everything.”