By Jonathan Morales

November 15, 2024

Every day, thousands of people walk by the dozens of public art pieces on the Sacramento State campus, often without knowing anything about them – or even realizing they are there.

But that may change soon.

In Associate Professor of Art Mya Dosch's public art class, 40 students are spending this semester researching campus art pieces and writing entries that eventually will form a publicly available catalog detailing them all.

The project will educate the campus and broader community about campus art while helping students develop their research and writing skills. It also will provide them with the pride of knowing they are contributing to something that will live beyond their time at Sac State.

"They can create meaning at Sac State that future students can use to learn from and to build on,” Dosch said. “The project shows that Sac State cares about their work, and that their work also shows their care for Sac State.”

The project builds on a 2022 student-led initiative that mapped 13 campus public artworks on Google. The new catalog will include information about those pieces and 27 others. The students in Dosch’s art class are working in pairs or groups of three to research 16 from the latest group of artworks. Dosch will write entries for the remaining 11.

Some of the art is conspicuous – the SACRAMENTO mural on the side of Shasta Hall near the campus’ north entrance, for example. Others are visible but less understood, such as the new student-designed “Tributary” sculpture outside the Welcome Center. Others are hiding in plain sight, such as a twisted steel sculpture by Bret Price inside the Library Breezeway, which thousands of people walk by daily.

Dosch and two hired student assistants have been working to identify, contact and interview the artists. To develop their catalog entries, students will draw from those interviews and their own research about the artists and the context in which the pieces were created.

Students might not be able to identify or track down every artist to obtain more information, but Dosch said that outreach is an important part of the learning process.

“I think some of the students have already experienced that kind of research frustration but also the thrill of finding information and making connections, too,” she said. “It’s really preparing students if they want to go on and research, in whatever field they’re in, for both the delight of research and the potential struggles and roadblocks.”

Sometimes, the search requires a little creativity. Julia Encinas, a senior Art History major who was involved in the initial project and is now one of Dosch’s student assistants, was trying to track down information about the multiple ceramic pieces that have been left in Kadema Hall, the art building, over the years. Using Google’s “reverse image search” feature, she was able to match one with a photo in the online portfolio of Jess Thompson, an alumna living in Mendocino County.

“A lot of the time, people don’t have much appreciation for the things that are around them,”  Encinas said. “People walk past the same stuff every day and they don’t really recognize the significance of it. … I think it would be neat to be able to ask, ‘What is this?’ and ‘Why is this here?’ and find a resource to answer those questions.”

The creator of her assigned piece is a little easier to track down: The new, interactive art installation “We Rise Together” is just a few steps from the Kadema Hall office of Assistant Professor of Art Rey Jeong. Encinas has been researching Jeong’s background and previous art shows to better understand her career.

"They can create meaning at Sac State that future students can use to learn from and to build on. The project shows that Sac State cares about their work, and that their work also shows their care for Sac State.” -- Associate Professor of Art Mya Dosch

The course itself has no prerequisites, meaning anyone can take it, not just art majors. For Harleen Saini, a second-year Accounting major, the class satisfied a general education requirement and her personal interest in public art, specifically graffiti. She and her class partner are researching the colorful, mesmerizing and graffiti-like “Hoxxoh” mural by Douglas Hoekzema that overlooks the Capistrano Hall lawn.

While initially nervous about writing something for public consumption, Saini said she now is excited to make a lasting mark on the campus.

“I love knowing that people are going to read my work,” she said. “I’ve never had that. I’ve never had a published work.”

Dosch said her goal is to have a completed catalog available in print and online by late spring. A potential future step could be to place scannable QR codes near each of the pieces that take viewers to the catalog information or even allow them to hear directly from the artist.

She hopes the project helps students and the public understand the way research shapes how they interpret the environment around them and how deeply embedded public art is on the Sacramento State campus.

“It shows that Sac State has an incredible collection of public art, of nationally known artists, and also that Sac State is really a resource for art lovers to come and explore,” Dosch said. “Members of our Sac State community have cultivated public art since the beginning of the University, and it shows.”