In early February, Justin Roykovich moved into a workspace at the Torpedo Factory, and he’s had shifting expectations during his time there.
A graduate of George Mason University’s School of Art, he holds a Master of Fine Arts from the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University and is one of four artists in the Torpedo Factory’s new Post-Graduate Residency.
Through a juried process, four artists were accepted to the program that Eric Wallner, Torpedo Factory’s CEO, says will “deepen the [art center’s] connection to the region’s institutions of higher education, while providing opportunities for new graduates to develop their professional skills, learn from our master artists and market their work.”
One month in, Roykovich says his expectations have already shifted. With the art center’s interactive model, he says his work-alone, holed-up-in-a studio mentality is challenged. He has had to adapt, broadening his own creative process and allowing him “to see how people react to certain things or to talk to people about the way my work is speaking to them.”
Roykovich is the first to move into the studio. The other three artists—Stephanie Booth, Steven Skowron and Jenny Wu—will move in throughout the year. The program will culminate in a fall group exhibit from Oct. 24 through Nov. 29.
Skowron, an accomplished artist who has shown nationally and internationally, has various awards and permanent collections (some of which are in the Library of Congress) and holds a Master of Fine Arts from GMU, mirrors Roykovich’s expectations even though he doesn’t move into the studio until late summer. Skowron is fascinated by the dimension of not knowing what to expect and how his work will evolve based on the environment.
“What I tell my students is you ask a question, you follow through in making whatever it is that question is asking and then based on what you get back, that was either informative or leads you to go into the next step. The space is going to help inform me. The important thing is to be open to the possibility that my ideas are going to evolve, and by virtue to them evolving I will grow.”
With this being a pilot program, issues that arise will be dealt with throughout the year, but Roykovich says he’s already seeing the benefits. “I’ve had the time and the space, both physical and mental, to think about my practice, where I want to go with it and what I want to say with it. It’s been a really beneficial experience already.” –Lynn Norusis
(April 2015)
