Printmaking students are dealing with less room and more noise in their new room at Art Park West but are working to make necessary adjustments and focusing on the positive.

Denise Rehm-Mott, a printmaking professor in the art department, said her printmaking students have less square footage than the print room in the Doudna Fine Arts Center. However, the shape of the room offers more flexibility than before, despite a cramped space to work in, she said.

Art department classes, including printmaking, were moved temporarily to Art Park West during the renovation and construction of the Doudna Fine Arts Center. Classes will be relocated at Art Park West until 2005.

“Most people gained on space on the move, but I lost,” she said.

Previously, in the Doudna Fine Arts Center, the printmaking room was L-shaped with pillars posted throughout the room. The new, smaller room is square and open to allow more room for students to maneuver around the heavy equipment.

“I like the set up,” Fred Blumbenberg, a senior 2-D studio major, said. “It’s a little more navigable than the old building as far as space.”

In addition to space, the noise from a neighboring sculpture class is also a pressing concern for Rehm-Mott and her students.

The temporary walls in Art Park West separating each classroom do not reach the ceiling, and noise travels easily throughout the building. The printmaking room sits right next to the sculpture room with only a thin wall as a sound barrier. Rehm-Mott’s advanced printmaking class overlaps with a sculpture class, and the noise has been a great distraction for students. As the year progresses and the sculpture students start on bigger projects, she said she fears the noise pollution will get even worse.

Rehm-Mott said if the rooms where not right against each other and separated by a hallway, the noise pollution could have been alleviated. However, now the only solution is to provide her students with ear plugs.

Sculpting students are required to wear plugs while using machines, but Rehm-Mott said she didn’t feel her students should have to purchase ear plugs with their own money because of another class. She said she plans to request ear plugs from the administration soon.

The lack of storage is another problem plaguing printmaking, but Rehm-Mott said she does not expect to gain any more storage space. She said the new room would never have enough space to accommodate any more shelves or cabinets.

“I think this is it. I’ve sort of accepted it,” she said.

In the Doudna Fine Arts Center, printmakers had two storage cabinets, almost doubling the size of the cabinets in Art Park West, and students had individual cubby holes to store their equipment or projects. Now, the walls have no shelves and supplies and materials are piled high against the walls.

The storage problem is a nuisance for students, but Rehm-Mott is also concerned that linoleum and other supplies may be stolen.

“We don’t have all that locked up anymore,” she said. “It just sits out in the open.”

As winter approaches, Rehm-Mott’s concern over the temperature in her classroom also grows.

Only half the ceiling in the printmaking room is insulated, and Rehm-Mott said she may have to rearrange equipment if the room gets too cold. She may move the equipment to the back of the room where there is no insulation because the machines will give off heat when in use. Chairs and tables may be moved to the front of the room, where she expects it will be warmer.

Glen Hild, chair of the art department, said the temperature in the building will be monitored by the university to make sure the building is warm enough during the winter.

He said the university has no plans to insulate the ceiling because administrators had not heard of any complaints from library workers when the building housed Booth West.

Like other classes in the art department, Rehm-Mott also is waiting on last minute equipment to be installed. More lighting is needed over a graining machine so students can see the detail of the stones they are graining.

“I requested it, but I don’t know where they are on that,” she said.

Hild said the university has to pay for the extra lighting because the request was made after the contract between the university and the landlord was signed. Administrators are trying to find money in the budget to fill requests made after the contract signing.