Q&A with Tiffany Calvert

Tiffany Calvert was named chair of the MFA in Visual Art program at WashU, beginning her role in the fall 2024 semester.

As chair of the MFA-VA program, Calvert provides leadership in academic planning, recruitment, student learning, policy development, and more. As an artist, her painting practice incorporates a wide range of technologies, from fresco, to 3D modeling, to data manipulation. Since 2023, Calvert has been working on a series that uses machine learning trained on historical Dutch still life paintings to create an image printed on canvas. From there, she overlays a large, digitally designed, vinyl stencil, then paints over the canvas in oil. She subsequently removes the stencil, resulting in a complex image with an uncanny painterly presence.

In this Q&A, Calvert shares what she looks forward to experiencing and working on at the Sam Fox School and in St. Louis.

When you arrived on campus, what were your first impressions of the community?
It’s easy to be impressed by the facilities and campus at WashU and the Sam Fox School; they are amazing. But what I’ve experienced in my first semester working with the MFA-VA students is their generosity — in helping me learn the ropes here and in their honesty and forthrightness.  

What’s been a highlight of working with the current cohort of MFA-VA students so far?
I enjoy chairing the program, and the best part of my days is always to visit with our MFAs in their studios. It challenges me to think about each person’s work in their own context, to think about readings and resources that will help them further their work, and it keeps me research focused.

What excites you about the MFA-VA program and curriculum?
I think the strength of the curriculum is that it prioritizes making art in the context of research-based practice, something I really believe in as an ideal. Artists have important roles to play in showing us different ways of thinking and in questioning and challenging new technologies and ideas.

What are you looking forward to in the spring exhibitions, particularly the second-year thesis show?
I’m most excited to see the gratification in the students when two years’ worth of work culminates in a really great-looking professional museum show.

How do you see your own creative practice evolving in St. Louis?
I moved here from Louisville, Kentucky, and before that lived all over the U.S., including Brooklyn, San Francisco, and Portland. What I loved about Louisville, I anticipate I will love about St. Louis; it has all the parts of a city that feed my work and my soul (museums, artists, a symphony orchestra, Shakespeare in the Park), without a ton off traffic, so I can spend more time in my studio and with my family.

Is there anyone in the Sam Fox School you’re hoping to collaborate with one day?
Yes — it’s the most attractive aspect of being at an art school like the Sam Fox School, my colleagues are smart and exciting. I have been inspired by attending Patty Heyda’s talk on her new book, “Radical Atlas,” and by talking to Jamie Adams about painting. I’m looking forward to learning from Amy Hauft and Anika Todd’s 3D practices, and Joe deVera’s expanded definition of painting.

Have you found any St. Louis spots that you love?
I knew I loved the City Museum before I moved here. I haven’t had enough time to explore St. Louis more deeply yet, so I’m open to suggestions. I’m currently a fan of walking to campus from my home in University City.