The mind-bending pace of Art Center is the stuff of legends. Sleep deprivation, exhaustion, and a first hand experience inside of a man-sized pressure cooker set atop Lida St. in Pasadena, California have all become a part of my being. Sure I was forewarned by the alumni, the faculty, the students currently attending and even the aspiring applicants who were still in the process of building their entrance portfolios, but being in the mix brought definition to their stories. Being in the mix delineated fact from fictitious tall tales. As it turns out, not many of their accounts were tall tales.
I heard many stories of one instructor in particular. One Mr. Bumsuk Lim - the most talked about instructor at Art Center. Period. His reputation transcended majors at the College; students outside of the Transportation Design realm all knew of him, and even the security guards exchanged stories they've probably heard from students.
Mr. Lim graduated from ACCD back in 1990 and has since returned to teach at Art Center. It is my understanding that he teaches both 1st and 4th term classes. His first term class is a clearinghouse and the objective was clear - this was the so-called "weed out" class for Transportation Design. (Even as I'm writing this, part of me feels the need to set aside the laptop and churn out a couple more sketches for Design Process I - Mr. Lim's class.) As a first-termer, I was enrolled in his class.
The first day of his class, he introduced himself and told us to never ever miss class and never ever be late. Class started at 2:00 PM and ended at 7:00 PM. On the dot. He then launched us into a discussion. The subject matter was very very simple. He told us that the course title, Design Process I, really means Car Design I and that we were going to school to become Car Designers. His job, he told us, was to design Car Designers. His question to us was "What is Car Design?"
The class tried to define Car Design, but after a while, he simplified the question and asked us "What is a car?" It was then that I realized why Art Center Transportation Design students chuckle when they ask each other "What is a car?" This had become one of Mr. Lim's trademark questions he posed to every group of incoming students.
After a good hour and a half of discussion, he finally disclosed his satisfactory answer for what a car is. I won't share it here, just in case any prospective students find this blog. I don't think he'd be thrilled to find out that the answer to his age-old question was disclosed on the internet. He then asked us "What is design?" I won't bore my readers with the details, but pretty much the same discussion took place and in the end, he shared his definition with us, and we were to know it as gospel from that point on.
3 hours of discussion elapsed out of our 5 hour class/studio. The discussion was rich and it was evident that Mr. Lim knew exactly what he was talking about. We were given a half hour break during which he promptly disappeared. At 29 minutes and 55 seconds, Mr. Lim reappeared in the classroom and picked up where he left off. He took us to the student supply store and there, we played the role of locusts during the Biblical Plagues and depleted the student store of all things navy blue - 3 gradients of blue markers, marker ink refills, blue Verithin color pencils as well as Prismacolor pencils and NuPastel blue pastel in addition to pads and pads of A3 marker paper. As of last Friday, the student store is still devoid of any marker within the dark blue spectrum or any refills for that matter.
When we got back to class, he assigned each student with a car make, either Kia, Buick or Volvo. Our task was to design a car that was not currently in their lineup. Then he had us unwrap our marker paper and start sketching our cars for approximately 20 minutes.
For 20 minutes, there was only the sound of blue lines being laid down on marker paper, the occasional whir of the electric pencil sharpener and Mr. Lim's footsteps as he paced the classroom checking up on our sketching process. The time flew by and without warning, Mr. Lim told us to stop sketching and post our sketches up on the wall at the front of the room. We were all caught off guard because nobody had bought any thumbtacks or anything similar - what the hell were we going to do? Luckily, a fellow student produced a box of drafting dots out of his bag and he became the most popular kid in class.
During all this chaos, Mr. Lim looked on and spurred us to hurry up. There was a frenzy at the wall while everyone attempted to post their work, then the frenzy cleared. The wall was papered with sketches posted high and low, some crooked, so straight. Mr. Lim took a look and commanded the class to line up the drawings at eye level, evenly spaced. This resulted in somewhat of a relay action because the next person couldn't post their sketch until the previous person posted theirs so that the sketches could be at the same level and spaced evenly from one to the next. It took a few moments, but we finally got it right.
Mr. Lim then grabbed his blue pencil and critiqued each student's work - he wasn't shy about marking on the sketches. He picked apart each and every sketch and made a point about writing your name on your work - ALWAYS. When he completed his crit session, every last drawing either had a deformed loopdie-loop on it, a big blue X through it, a couple blue spirals or a couple questions marks on it, courtesy of Mr. Lim.
He announced that he had just talked the talk and now it was time for him to walk the walk (his words, not mine), so he hijacked a student's new marker pad, reached out his hand in search for a Verithin pencil (which he got immediately... it was funny because 4 or 5 of them were immediately volunteered and presented to him at the same time) and started throwing beautiful blue arcs onto the white paper. With each drawing tool change, he never looked up, he'd just extend his hand and call out what he needed ("Prisma", "B39", "NuPastel", etc.) it'd be presented to him immediately. I'd imagine that's how Operating Rooms work!
Watching him work was mesmerizing. There was little to no wasted movement. Each line was drawn with intent and the form of a car appeared before our eyes in no time flat. The amount of practice and mileage he had put in was evident. The only other movement he performed was an occasional glance over at his watch. I succumbed to the power of suggestion and so I also glanced down at my watch. It was 6:58PM and Mr. Lim was putting the finishing touches on his sketch with white gouache in order to indicate reflection.
6:59PM he walked over to the wall in front of us, stuck his sketch to the wall and took a few steps back.
"Guys, THAT is a car. Your homework is 20 pages, 2 views per page, 8 pages of user research on 11 x 17, 1 11 x 17 cover page and 1 11 x 17 competitor page. See you next week."
As the heel of his trailing foot cleared the door way, I looked down at my watch. It was 7:00PM with the yellow second hand of my watch on the 12.
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