Specialization and its unwelcome companion, isolation, can be pitfalls for artists, especially those working hard to hone their craft. In the pursuit of excellence in novel-writing, choreography, printmaking, sculpture, music composition, and so on, big questions about the nature and purpose of art, and the role of the artist in society, sometimes are neglected. If an artist hardly ever has a conversation, or shares work with, artists working in different mediums, thinking can become stale or circular. 

There is nothing revolutionary in the idea that a particular art practice is enriched by an understanding of other arts around it. It is not unusual to painters who also write, poets who compose music, printmakers who dance (and dancers who make prints), all good-naturedly debating each other’s work—complimenting, criticizing, dissecting, and in the process inspiring one another to explore new realms, not to mention new collaborations. Yet within universities few programs exist to encourage or center cross-disciplinary creation and engagement. The GISFA was designed to serve just that purpose. 

Students who complete the GISFA will be uniquely equipped to make art that embraces a wider field of vision. The program is founded on the idea that artists who begin early in their careers to think, make, and collaborate beyond the confines of specialization will be better situated to generate art that serves, and speaks directly to, the complex world and communities we are part of. Created by Michelle Herman in 2015, and co-directed by Tom Dugdale and Richard Finlay Fletcher since 2022, the GISFA has been designed to accommodate a variety of students, from those with well-defined artistic practices beyond their “home” program to those with little more than an impulse to stretch the current boundaries of their work. In other words, any art student with a desire to engage the arts more broadly, is welcome.