In the Jungle; Aaron Skapik

Welcome to In The Jungle, where we meet the gorillas of Pittsburgh State University. I'm your host, Howard Smith, and today we're joined by Aaron Scapick. Aaron, we're glad to have you here on the show today. Thanks, good to be here. Well, great. Hey, you know, it's nice talking to you a little bit before this. You have an interesting background coming in here. When I understand you spend some time in the Air Force. Sure, I did. Yeah. I graduated in 1999 and the eight and a half years in the Air Force moved around the United States a little bit and did two tours in Iraq. Wow. So you've got a pretty broad experiential base coming into, I mean, coming back to school and doing all that. So what made you decide to come back to school? Well, I kind of had some options. I guess when I got on the military, but I saw myself not being very happy pursuing that path, which would have been security and law enforcement kind of work. And so I did a little soul searching, went back to school and after a few degree shifts and changes, finally settled on art, it was just something that I was good at and, you know, I just figured why not.

So what is your major then? My major is a bachelor general studies, the emphasis on art. In art. Okay. Cool. Now, I understand that coming up, we're going to be having a high school art day. Correct, yeah. But are you going to participate in that? I am. I'll be leading the workshop of another student, we'll be leading the mural workshop. Usually we get around 350 students from across the state of Kansas that come to this. It's a pretty big event. Wow. So what kinds of things will you do in your workshop with them then? We'll kind of give them a little overview of the history of murals and kind of give them some examples of what murals look like in case they haven't seen them, especially since Kansas. And a lot of these kids come from rural areas. And then we're going to give them a project and let them work on a project during it. We're going to run a workshop style, kind of like a conference would go. Uh-huh. So yeah. So then I actually have like a mural to work on? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. We're going to, it'll probably be, you know, a smaller scale, but it'll still be a good place, you know, just something to be able to fill the time and get across the point of a mural, you know. Wow. Cool. That is neat. Hey, I know you're from Ohio. Yeah. So what's it like being here, you know, you grew up in Ohio now, you're relocated here and going to school.

What's that like? It's interesting. I'm kind of a city boy and then I live from Dayton, Ohio, which is kind of a bigger city. And then, you know, went to San Antonio and Phoenix and Wichita, you know, a little bit bigger city. So coming here, it was the first time I'd really been immersed in such a smaller, you know, small city. It was a transition, but I just enjoy the community here. I really do. I like the feel of campus. It's a nice, nice size and just everybody's great here. They really are. Well, that's, that's super. Hey, what are your goals and aspirations for the future then? What do you, what do you want to do when, I mean, you, to me, you've had another, you've had a career. Yes, you're coming back and you're looking at another, what kind of things do you want to do down the road? Yeah, I'd like to, I see myself working for a nonprofit organization and then kind of working with veterans afterwards. So I'm, I'm serving a fellowship with the Michigan Tennis. It's a veteran, nonprofit veteran, veteran organization. They, um, deploy veterans into their community and let them make an impact through volunteerism. So I'm doing that. I'm working at Spive a Center for the Arts in Japan. And so that's kind of my host site for the next six months as I do this fellowship.

Wow. So you've got really some service back, not only military service, but from a servant type of background. Sure. Yeah, yeah. And that's what, that's kind of what feeds my soul. But yeah, and that's the, the whole point of the Michigan Tennis program, you know, they take veterans, um, they're kind of trying to break that, that stigmatism that veterans are broken and get them out of their house and let them make a huge impact on their community like they were making in the military. You know, we did a lot of a, a lot of volunteerism and community service in the military too. And we're encouraged to do that soon. There, there, the Michigan Tennis is that the mission isn't over when you take the uniform off. Hey, in your program so far, they have their, what courses have challenged you the most? I mean, I'm looking at a guy that I'm thinking, actually, I'm thinking of a tough guy. And I'm thinking, what, what courses have challenged you right now? Wow. There've been a lot of them, um, the professors in the art department specifically are, are great at challenging us, you know, they make us look at art from a different perspective and, and challenge us to push ourselves. So I would, I would have to say my art classes, you know, um, some people may think art is, is one of the, are one of those programs where everything's kind of easy, but man, art

takes, takes time, you know, it takes time and effort. So yeah, especially if you want to be good. So yeah, probably my painting classes have been, been most challenging to me and definitely art history. Well, no, there's no doubt about it. I think, I mean, that's a skill. I mean, it's, it's an art art, you know, I know it's art, but that, that's, I know it would be very difficult to do. Has there been anybody that's influenced you in this direction or any, any instructors in particular that you think, you know, this, I'm really glad I had this experience with this person? Yeah, definitely. Um, there've been some great professors here, uh, Ronashan, who was the chair of the art department over there, um, and Jamie Oliver, he's a painting professor there, um, that's kind of how I ended up coming to Pitt State. They were both kind of at an Ohio connection. Ron was actually, went to the same high school I went to. Really? Yeah, so it was kind of crazy. We're a few years apart. So we didn't know each other, but in the Jamie taught, uh, Jamie Oliver taught at a university right outside Columbus. So had a little connection there and, uh, Jamie really influences me, um, and art and supports me that way.

Josie Mai, who was a former art education professor of mine here, um, is really a role model of mine. So I got to, and now she's the executive director of the Spive of the Center for the Arts War Merchant right now. So those connections keep, they just stay forever, don't they? Yeah, they do. It's great. They stay forever. Hey, um, what's your favorite part of campus? Favorite part of campus? Mm-hmm. Oh. I love, uh, I love the stadium on game day, really. That's probably my favorite part, yeah. What has surprised you the most about coming back to college? I didn't think it was going to be so difficult, really. Um, I'd been out of school for quite a while, you know, so, so coming back, um, after a long break from school was, was a challenge, especially when you're not doing such a academic work in the military. I took some college classes while I was in, but it's just, it wasn't the same when you fully immerse yourself into the college experience. Kind of an interesting question to me, because I went to school here too, and Porter was a library. Yeah, that's what I've heard. But, you know, what about that facility? What do you think about that as an art facility? It's great. I think, um, just, I love the history of the building, and then the lighting in the studios are awesome.

Um, you know, just those, uh, old, I don't know, are they stained glass windows? Yeah. They just, they feel cathedral, you know? Right. I just love that light. The light that kind of floods the building. It just seems appropriate to be an art building to me. I agree. Yeah. Not just just the way that it looks. What advice would you give to a prospective student that might be considering pit state right now? What would you tell them? I would tell them pit state is a great place to kind of get involved in the community on a, on a small scale and prepare yourself for, um, experiences that you'll get on not like a national scale when you go to work in your field. Hey, and that proves why you belong at Pittsburgh State University. Thank you for joining us today in the jungle and I'm your host, Howard Smith.