Some say the arts are in decline at the University and across the country. These concerned observers, including some retired University art faculty members, say fewer and fewer artists really know how to paint – though they continue to arrive by the busload in New York City – and those who do are rarely recognized. These days, only in design can one survive as an artist.

And the School of Art and Design reflects this change, Leo Grucza, emeritus art professor, said.

“UIUC used to be one of the best art schools in the country,” he said. “It’s not salvageable. I think it will be a design school from now on.”

Grucza, a painter, said he watched the studio arts program decline throughout the years. He retired from the University five years ago.

“There are strong-minded people in graphic design,” Grucza said. “Painters are more laidback. We watch things go by without realizing that they are happening to us.”

Looking at the faculty art on display at the Krannert Art Museum, it is true that University professors are largely departing from traditional notions of studio art in their work. Representational images rendered in paint or traditional sculpting materials are the anomalies.

The new norm is conceptual art that defies attempts at categorization: a video of reflected light on water projected onto a screen; a giant blown-up image of a Yahtzee scorecard; a collection of disparate items from different countries, bought or found, housed in plastic boxes.

But change is to be expected in the art world. And the changes the arts have undergone, at the University and beyond, are more complicated than the gradual takeover by a monolithic school of design, as the studio arts are relegated to a smaller and smaller space on the periphery of the art world.

“Less work is done with hands and raw tools than in the ‘old dog’ days,” said Ron Kovatch, studio art professor.

Digital technology has become more central to art throughout the years, not only to design but to studio art as well, as evident in the 10-year-old new media program at the University. In new media, students study cutting-edge technologies used in art and communication, learning its comparative advantages and applying them to their own projects. The program just received accreditation from the University as a major last year.

But new media is not the same as graphic design; rather, it is proof that as studio art once influenced design, the opposite is now true as technologies trickle down from design into the studio.

“My two majors hate each other,” said Anna Peters, a junior who is majoring in graphic design and new media.

The design program has been more likely to receive support from the University than studio art, Kovatch said.

“The University has a system of rubber stamping things that are easily quantifiable,” Kovatch said. “Digital is neat. It doesn’t leave dust . It is accessible to the public.”

The studio arts have struggled with funding problems, though not due to any bias on the part of the School of Art and Design, said Nan Goggin, the school’s interim director.

Studio art classes are still held in aging buildings, some only partly air-conditioned, or not at all.

The five art buildings next to the South Farms at 2111 Griffith Drive, Champaign, resemble a row of garages, tucked away in a little-visited part of campus.

Kovatch said he would like to see all art students working under the same roof, or at least on the same block, so there could be more cross-disciplinary camaraderie and exchange of ideas.

“We don’t even have air conditioning here,” Daryl McCurdy, junior in FAA, said of the studios in Flagg Hall, where intermediate and advanced studio classes are held. “It’s hard to concentrate.”

But the students make do with what they have and continue to prove the production of good art is not dependent on an ideal workspace.

“They give you a space and let you just work,” McCurdy said. “I like the setup.”

Noble and Flagg Hall are slated to be removed after the Gregory and Peabody Avenue Residence Halls are replaced.

The school’s financial struggles are nested within budget cuts at the University, Grucza said.

“(Art) is not going to save the world,” Kovatch said. “I’m not going to get a grant because I take a picture.”

A University-wide money crunch has made filling the gaps left by retiring faculty difficult, as the art school must rejustify why it needs to hire faculty in certain areas.

And those gaps come in varying shapes and sizes. Most art professors teach courses in multiple disciplines, so when a professional painter leaves, the school might also lose its last printmaker, as it did several years ago.

The School of Art and Design no longer offers classes in glass or printmaking. Other classes no longer offered include figure painting and watercolor painting.

“I’m bummed about glass and printmaking (no longer being offered),” said Rachel Gaddis, senior in FAA.

Yet the school continues to hire new faculty. It brought in four professors last year: a ceramicist, a sculptor and two contemporary art historians. The school also recently received University approval to hire two studio artists and one industrial designer; these professors will also teach foundation courses and courses in other areas.

The art faculty is more unified than ever before, Goggin said. In the last few years, studio art students have been given more freedom to experiment with artistic disciplines through elective courses. In the 1970s, there was hardly any overlap and interaction between different majors. Painters generally stuck with other painters.

Now new media, painting and sculpture students share a studio space in intermediate and advanced classes at Flagg Hall.

“The group is working together,” Goggin said. “It’s a young, vibrant group.”

While some emeritus professors regret to see the art world become more digitized and conceptual, many professors welcome the changes.

“It would be wrong to expect things to stay the same,” Kovatch said.

Some artists wonder if there could be a future devoid of drawing classes involving pencil in paper, in which all drawing is done on computers. For now, drawing, painting, ceramics and the like appear to be safe.

“Things oscillate,” Kovatch said. “They ebb and flow. There is always some sort of issue . (but) I think things are going to bounce back.”