Mark

In the most isolated days of the early pandemic, Mark Smith was working on a gallery show. The artist and PCC art instructor was on sabbatical, putting together the show, when COVID-19 shut down everything — including the art galleries.

“So that exhibition opened to, you know, basically nothing,” he recalls.

For a while, painting became his focus, a way to escape the dreariness of quarantine. But it’s hard to make art in a vacuum. Mark has always been interested in how his work interacts with the larger community. Many of his early projects were installations in gardens or other public spaces; he also has a piece in Portland’s new county courthouse.

Some of his current projects are large-scale works that end up in corporate spaces. He gets excited thinking that his work might be seen by more people, in busy public areas, than in a private home with a single collector. Mark says he wants to “communicate to a larger group and define spaces where that work would be visible and be meaningful.”

These days, he’s also thinking about community in a new way: as faculty chair of the Sylvania Art Department. He assumed the role after getting back from sabbatical, during the heart of the pandemic.

“Suddenly your responsibility is to be not just concerned about yourself and your students, but to be concerned about everybody,” he says. “And that sent me into a kind of a dark place, I guess, regarding making art. And especially after having just done a show. So there was a period of time where I really did not have focus.”

He was checking email late at night, feeling compelled to respond. Art fell by the wayside for a bit. The work of the Faculty Chair felt urgent in a way that couldn’t be ignored. Or perhaps, he muses, he was trying to distract himself from what was happening out there in the world, a small mechanism of help and control he could offer to colleagues and students.

For Mark, one of the most painful outcomes of being Faculty Chair has been helping part-time faculty navigate job loss. Part-timers often struggle to fill their schedules, are not assigned classes every term and can find themselves suddenly without income. Declining enrollment due to COVID-19 and remote learning caused cuts to many schedules. Mark found himself in the position of advocating for teachers while simultaneously delivering the bad news.

“I so appreciate the role that part-time faculty play in this institution. I feel like they're the backbone. 75% of all of the instructional pool is part-time. This institution is earning their keep on the backs of part-time faculty. I think they have suffered the most in this process,” he says.

In his typical community spirit, Mark says he’d gladly offer up some of his own salary to make sure part-timers are fairly compensated. “I’m not supposed to say that,” he says, grinning.