OCAC photos Stephen Funk
th ere’s a lot of buzz these
days about innovation and the
benefits of creative, right-brain
thinking—the kind artists do—for
business:
The A rt o f Innovation,
by Tom Kelley of the design firm
IDEO, is a best-seller; “The
MFA is the new MBA,” asserts
author and cultural commentator
Daniel Pink.
So where does craft fit into
the conversation? Front and cen-
ter, according to Denise Mullen,
new president of the Oregon
College of Art and Craft.
“It’s a very interesting time
for craft, on a lot of levels,” says
Mullen, whose resume includes
leadership roles at the Alberta
College of Art + Design and
the Corcoran College of Art +
Design. “One of the things that
attracted me to OCAC at this
moment in time is the willing-
ness we’re seeing on the part of
the larger community to really
appreciate what we do in the
visual art field.”
Mullen sees tremendous
Mullen, who believes “making a
living and expressing oneself
creatively are not diametrically
opposed.” She’s convinced that
the skills used to craft a func-
tional object—organizational
ability, problem-solving, an
understanding of material—are
transferable to virtually any
field, and highly marketable.
Large corporations and small
businesses alike are talking about
innovation, Mullen says, “and
they’re finding that students
with this type of degree have the
skill set they’re looking for.”
That’s an exciting message craft
educators need to emphasize to
prospective students, she notes.
It’s an exciting time at
OCAC, which just dedicated a
handsome new building in the
heart of its wooded campus in
Portland. (Mullen describes the
design, by Boston architect
Charles Rose and Portland archi-
tecture firm COLAB, as “really
thoughtful, with art- and craft-
making in mind.”) A master’s
degree program offered jointly
with the Pacific Northwest Col-
lege of Art is in its second year.
OCAC is intentionally small
(about 150 undergraduate and 30
graduate students), with an em-
phasis on mentorship and real-
world, collaborative work
environments.
A native Georgian and
longtime New Yorker, Mullen
considers herself “very much a
maker.” For years she’s made
embossed leather-bound books
of 19th-century photographic
images, using old hand-processes
such as photogravure and palla-
dium printing. “I liked the idea
of the personal nature of the
book, the fact that someone has
to want to make the effort to
pick it up and turn the pages to
look at it.”
She went into education
“kicking and screaming,” she
jokes, but quickly grew to love
teaching. Later, as an administra-
tor and a board member of advo-
cacy groups such as the National
Association of Schools of Art
and Design, she developed a big-
picture perspective on the im-
portance of art in K-12 as well as
higher education.
“It’s part of the responsibility
we have as artists, designers and
craftspeople to do as much as we
can to shape the educational en-
vironment,” Mullen says. “It
makes such a huge difference to
the society in which we live.”
-J.L .
ocac.edu
Denise Mullen,
new president of the Oregon
College of Art and Craft
org/edu
T h e K e y t o
I n n o v a t i o n ?
C
r a
f t
public interest in the creative
process, in such diverse exam-
ples as business-school courses
in design strategy and popular
TV shows such as
Project Run-
way.
“It has resonance. People
understand it. It’s accessible.”
And craft, the most acces-
sible, process-oriented visual art
of all, is what OCAC has been
about since its founding in 1907.
(According to the school’s web-
site, craft is “who we are, who
we’ve always been__Without
craft, there is no art.”)
“Students who graduate with
degrees in craft and in the visual
arts are very well-suited for a
wide variety of careers,” says
Top right: Students of
craft learn problem-
solving skills and an un-
derstanding of material
that apply well beyond
the studio, say Mullen
and others; they’re par-
ticularly in demand in
the business world.
Right: The Oregon
College of Art and Craft
recently dedicated
a new building on its
wooded campus in
Portland, one of many
recent developments
at the school.
