 The Bachelor of Fine Arts program at Mecca offers students a four-year degree in one of ten areas of study. Each year the program recognizes outstanding student artists with the BFA awards. Tom talked with two of the winners, Joshua Yerges and David Twiss, about their work and the program. Josh, David, thanks for joining us. You're both BFA show award winners at the Main College of Art this year. Before we get into your particular projects, could you describe for people who might not know what the BFA show is all about? The BFA show is an art show that the school puts on every year. It is for students to have the opportunity to win scholarships as well as studio visits with local artists around town. The scholarships are usually funded by outside donors that either had kids go to the school before, or they just really appreciate the arts and they want to give art students more of an opportunity to pursue their higher learning. It sounds like a really great way to get your art exposed and get some more opportunities. Josh, could you briefly describe you had a performance piece? Yes, it was a performance installation. The work was inspired by an incident that happened to me when I was around the age of ten. Living in the south, my family went to a very non-denominational, charismatic, overzealous church who prayed in tongues regularly during service. The praying in tongues usually lasts between 15 minutes to half an hour. At the end, someone was called upon at random to have been chosen by God to interpret what had been said by the entire congregation. One time when I was around the age of ten, I was called upon by the pastor and all eyes were on me and I had nothing to say. It was an experience that I carried with me and still do. The performance was about the way the experience was still being with me. It was an interesting experience to go through. Being at Mecca has pushed me in a direction to focus on subject matter that otherwise I would shy away from, personal and not. This project was the product of that. It's great when art can also help process things that happen in our own lives. This happened to you as a child and I understand that your project too has to do with the experience of children, doesn't it? Yeah, my project had dealt with emotions of violence and anger and fear and how these emotions pertain to children in the home and how they're easily overlooked, not really overlooked but underestimated by adults or parents. I use the form of childhood things, things that children normally interact with to display these emotions. It's great to hear about what inspires your art but it would be so much better to actually see it and I think we might have some images of that. Just overall, what does the BFA program mean to you? What does that do for your career and where you're going? For myself, thus far, it's given me a way to explore interests that I didn't know I had and has given me an opportunity to pursue things and to learn about subject matter and practices and skills that I'm wanting to incorporate in my art. So it's been very positive. David, how has it been for you? It's definitely been very positive. The faculty is very open and really helpful in the way of helping you make the things that you want to make so they don't try to make you focus in on one certain discipline so it really helps you be more of a well-rounded artist and for me I want to go into education so seeing this way of teaching and being more flexible on the way people want to make is really kind of helping me develop the way I want to also teach. That flexibility is really important for the creative process. So if people wanted more information about your art, you each have websites. How would they access them? What are the websites? Sure. My website is JoshuaYurgus.com And I just have a blog that people can go to. It's just davidtwistatwordpress.com Well, like I said, it's better to actually see the arts. People watching this, I hope they have the opportunity to get over to Mech and see what you've done. Congratulations and thanks for joining us. Yeah, thank you.