A four-year art student, Asher DuFord’s ’20 art career started in humanities arts. This week, Arts & Leisure explores DuFord’s artistic growth at the school.

What does Art mean to you?
Visual Art for me was an outlet for all the accumulated stress. At the time I thought that art was just a hobby, but as I began to navigate new media and ideas, I began to realize that art is more than just visual, it is also emotional and often visceral. As I look back at how my art has changed and evolved, I feel a sense of exhilaration and purpose about where I want my art to go in the future.

Did you paint before Hotchkiss?
No. I came to Hotchkiss as a self-taught artist with skills mostly involving 2-B pencils, colored pencils, and pens. It was only after coming to Hotchkiss that I became serious about visual art. I didn’t quite know what to expect from humanities art, but I knew that I wanted to learn how to accurately portray the images that played in my head all day.

How do you think of pursuing visual art in the future? What steps will you take?
I really want to pursue a career dependent on visual arts. Though I am not sure [whether] I will be majoring in [visual art], I hope to [attend] an art-dependant course in college [that] requires a background knowledge of art.

What changes would you like to see in the visual arts program at Hotchkiss?
Generally, I am very happy with the things they teach in the visual arts program at Hotchkiss because, coming [in] as a complete beginner, it was a huge help to go over all the topics, and the way [they were] taught was great. However, I would like to see a course that can help artists after the two-year course to keep on exploring and discovering [art] – a course that combines pottery, architecture and painting altogether in one seamless package.