Portland Monthly Points to PNCA as a School of Influence
August 27, 2012
In the September Issue of Portland Monthly, Camille Grigsby-Rocca pens an article tracing PNCA’s “decade-long ascent” and growing influence as part of a national art-college boom in art school enrollment.
The piece opens, “Imagine the corner of NW Broadway and Hoyt Street, two years from now: hundreds of students and professors swarm through the Pacific Northwest College of Art’s Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Center for Art and Design. The former post office gleams after a $15 million renovation guided by acclaimed architect Brad Cloepfil. With sweeping marble floors and natural light pouring in, the school’s flagship building becomes the elbow in the arm connecting Old Town and the Pearl District.”
Read “Painting a Broader Canvas” in the current issue of Portland Monthly.
Here are some of the facts outlined in the article:
- PNCA has doubled its student body since 2004, with a current student body of 600 students.
- PNCA’s operating budget has more than doubled and its endowment has grown form $1.6 million to more than $13 million since 2000.
- PNCA continues to show signs of growth, from forming a partnership with the Museum of Contemporary Craft in 2009, and the most recent announcement of ArtHouse, a new student housing project at the site of the former Powell’s Technical Books.
The article also points to PNCA’s success in attracting national talent to be a part of Portland’s growing, “creative palette.” Grigsby-Rocca writes, “And Kavin Buck recently joined PNCA as Vice President of Enrollment Services, leaving his own 5,000-square-foot gallery in Inglewood and a long term career at the UCLA School of Arts and Architecture.”
Tomi Douglas Anderson, a culture policy advisor to Mayor Sam Adams is quoted in closing, “Art schools produce students with rigorous skills and fresh perspectives. They invest in ideas and ask ‘What’s next?’”