Professor hopes art appreciation is contagious
Although he teaches interior design, professor Tom Peterson appreciates all the arts.
In fact, as the professor of the university’s largest class last semester (USU 1330: Creative Arts), Peterson taught nearly 900 students in the Kent Concert Hall. His lectures were performances. His visual aids were as big as some classrooms. Peterson said it’s important to have a variety of methods to keep that many people interested.
Despite the obstacles, Peterson loves having a large class. He said he can get more guest speakers and performers to come, and there’s always something to make it interesting.
“The beauty of having a large class is that I can persuade people to come to class,” Peterson said.
One method of persuasion is classroom performances of artists.
“Rire Woodbury Dance Company out of Salt Lake will come and do a lecture-demo on modern dance,” Peterson said.
Also, the actors from Guthrie Theater from Minneapolis will come to perform for the class on the day of their rendition of Shakespeare’s “Othello.” They will perform at the Eccles Theatre later this month, and that’s how Peterson engineered their guest appearance in the auditorium. He serves on the programming committee and board of directors for the Cache Valley Center for the Arts.
Peterson is the husband of USU’s assistant provost Sydney Peterson. They have four children, two have already graduated from USU and two are attending Logan High School.
Peterson, who was asked to start up the interior design program in the late 1970s, is on a self-appointed crusade to turn one-dimensional students into well-rounded individuals.
“If you’re not at least somewhat conversant in the arts,” Peterson said. “You’re only part of a person.”
Peterson has put his knowledge of interior design to good use. He spent last year building his house, and oversaw the project with the kind of picky pragmatism only a professional could possess.
“I was particularly fussy, I guess,” Peterson said. “I drove a few subcontractors probably crazy … It was hard for people here when I wanted to do something different, different from the run-of-the-mill things that they’ve done.”
But he got the result he wanted.
“His house is the most logically designed house,” said Stefanie Snow, a liberal arts senior who went to Peterson’s residence to cater for her company, Culinary Concepts.
A practitioner of good interior design concepts, Peterson wants to dispel myths about his chosen field of study.
“The most common misconception in interior design is that it’s a profession for women,” Peterson said. “Wrong. Most of the design greats are men.”
Peterson said what’s really interesting this year is that all of the faculty members in interior design are men.
Another misunderstood concept is the difference between interior design and interior decorating. Peterson explained the distinction, noting that many people confuse one for the other.
“The interior decorator is primarily concerned with the embellishment of an existing environment,” Peterson said. “Picking colors, textures, fabrics, accessories, furnishings.”
Peterson said interior designers can do the same things, but it goes a little deeper.
“[Interior design] works at an underlying level of trying to understand how people use space – how space should best be organized so that it’s efficient,” Peterson said.
Interior designers are concerned with many different factors, including cost, practicality and others. They are also always thinking about the health and safety of whoever will be occupying a particular space.
“They have to know code-specific information so that they don’t put up upholstery that will wear out in two years when it should have lasted 10,” Peterson said. “[Or] so that they don’t put fabric on a wall in a public place where if it does catch on fire it produces too much smoke or flame.”
Marianne Pershon, a junior in interior design who also works as an office assistant to Peterson, agreed that interior design is more than meets the eye.
“We study a lot more than just design and architecture,” Pershon said. “We study general art because we have to be able to have that creative spine.”
The drawings for possible designs can yield great works of art themselves, said Pershon.
Pershon also helps out with Peterson’s giant creative arts class.
“He likes to really get involved with his students,” Pershon said. “He remembers faces really well.”
Behind Peterson’s desire to get involved with his students is based in part upon his desire to get his students involved in art.
He said the whole concept behind the university studies courses is “to get students involved with the arts, so that it becomes a part of who they are.”
“I like to think of that as being habituated to the arts,” Peterson said.
Peterson said he is appalled by the amount of people who have never been to a dance performance or an opera or a museum. He said many students do not even realize that there is a museum on campus. Peterson serves on the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum board.
Peterson’s hope, besides growing the interior design program into a department, is that every student will leave his classes with a continuing interest in the arts.
“There is no theater without an audience,” Peterson said.
And, thanks to Peterson, audiences for the arts are growing locally. Peterson just hopes those students will continue to attend even after the class is out.
-marklaroc@cc.usu.edu