MFA Does Not Stand for Moving Furniture Around

"MFA does not stand for Moving Furniture Around".  This was a phrase that I heard around Ithaca College's Theater Department as and undergraduate there.  It was a constant battle to keep furniture in its appropriate place.  And many of the faculty and staff of the department, with their Master of Fine Arts degrees, could be heard repeating this.  Needless to say, this phrase trickled down to undergraduates who also found themselves trekking furniture across Dillingham.  Unlike most of my Ithaca College lecturers, I went on to do an MA.  Unfortunately the phrase, "MA does not stand for Moving Around" doesn't have the same ring to it, and, frankly, doesn't make that much sense.  Moving around isn't a point of complaint.  So I'm borrowing someone else's phrase, and it has been the motto of the day.  Probably also the week.  And the month, too.

The summer is when the ICLC gets a bit of the love and tenderness that has been put on the back burner while the building is full with students.  Last summer it was new toilets.  This summer it's new carpets.  We are having new carpet put into the classrooms, the back stairs, Heather's office and my office!  With so much furniture that needs moving around, Sarah and I have begun in my office.  With our hands firmly on our bin bags, we have been culling old phone books, staplers that don't work and broken shelves that stand in the way of the furniture we need to move. 

My office is only scratching the surface of the work that we are doing to 35 Harrington Gardens this summer, but I imagine if I continue down this route the story will devolve into my To Do list.  Our building is generally accepted as a lovely one. It has a beautiful 19th century red-brick exterior, an expansive common room, wood paneling around the building, a thickly carved cornice in the director's office and the coziness of a well loved old building.  So, to our Fall 2011, this is what it won't look like when you get here:

The current state of Claire's office, involving experiments with desks

The front hall as a storage space

Bill's office.  Not just during cleaning season, this is the year-round look.

-Claire