Welcome to the Weekly Spotlight, where you can learn about on-campus organizations in one easy place.

This week we spoke with Will Landis, co-president of the Painter’s Forum. The club presents opportunities for art students to become more exposed to art through field trips to galleries, guest speakers and more.

There are approximately 10-15 active members that meet bi-weekly on Wednesdays from 12:10-1 p.m. in the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Room 105.

UP: When did the paint club begin?

WL: It existed at FAU years ago … The professor who was the sponsor went on sabbatical and the club disbanded. At the beginning of fall 2014 we set it up again.

UP: What are your meetings like?

WL: Our meetings tend to be pretty down to business, our standard meetings we don’t do much more than plan and decide who is doing what. For us it’s really about the things we plan and go do, we bring in artists who do artist talks, we go on trips to museums. The last [trip] we did we went down to Miami to see the Margulies collection and a couple galleries and some of Winwood. And we just had an event with Nayland Blake, a big local artist, where his art was featured.

WL: Our mission statement if we had one would be ‘to add as much to the art experience of students.’ The school does its best, but the experience of going out and seeing art or hearing an artist talk from experience is really priceless. We like to fill in the gaps with things you don’t get from [art] classes.

UP: Does Painter’s Forum ever have events on campus?

WL: On St. Luke’s day, the patron saint of painting, we had a big pizza party in the art room. We also watched Young Frankenstein I think, this was close to Halloween so it was a sort of mixed party. And we have guest speakers at our artist talks, most of those are here on campus — you learn so much when you talk to people on these different levels. We get people like Nayland Blake — people who have been painting for 30 years — then we have people who are new to getting a master’s degree. But mostly we carpool off campus to look at featured galleries and stuff like that. We try to switch it up, we want to fill in the gaps and introduce students to new perspectives.

UP: Do the club members ever get the opportunity to be featured in a show or gallery?

WL: We have some on-campus events, and students have been featured. But not really, actually. That’s not something we’ve had to work with yet. But it’s definitely something we’re interested in. We have been talking about putting on our own show, which would definitely feature Painter’s Forum stuff.

UP: Is there a certain paint style that members favor over another?

WL: Not really, everyone has a very different style, or very different tastes when it comes to painting. When we go and look at a gallery sometimes we talk about what pieces stand out to us; what parts of that piece do we find most interesting. Sometimes our members will like a certain style or technique so much that they try to recreate it in their next project. So Painter’s Forum really tries to facilitate finding your own style — everyone is different in how they paint and we want to encourage them to explore that.

UP: What is your personal painting background?

WL: I got my associate degree from Palm Beach State [College] and then started here, it’s my third year. I’ve taken a lot of painting courses, and we have a top-notch painting program here. Administration has brought in impressive professors. They are real artists, last semester my professor missed class because she had a show opening in Taipei [Taiwan].

UP: Is there anything you would like prospective students to know about your club?

WL: We don’t do a lot of outreach outside of the art club. But this is a great opportunity for anyone who wants to go with a group to go and look at a gallery or talk about art. We do little actual painting, instead we encourage artistic exploration. There is great opportunity for people to bring their own experience to art. I started out as a chemistry major and I came in with that, I developed my own perspective. It goes both ways, people can join and bring art to their major. Painting can be a lot more than a craft, it is hard to find a field here that wouldn’t benefit from exposing yourself to creative thought.

For more information on Painter’s Forum, check it out on its Owl Central page.

Tucker Berardi is a staff writer for the University Press. For information regarding this or other stories, email [email protected] or tweet him @tucker_berardi.