On another day Trigg’s class visits the studio of her fellow MFA Fine Arts faculty member Miguel Luciano, whose work often engages the public outside of the gallery. Luciano’s space is filled with pieces from throughout his career. At the end of the visit, the students gather around Pimp My Piragua, a public art project that was commissioned by the Queens Museum in 2008: a functioning shaved-ice cart in gleaming chrome and orange, tricked out with a built-in stereo and video screens. Luciano explains to the class how Pimp My Piragua, originally conceived as a celebration of Latino culture and entrepreneurship in New York City, was later repurposed for a 2015 protest in Central Park against Shell Oil’s Arctic drilling. The event was arranged by the Yes Men, a prank-pulling team of activists, and Luciano, wearing a Shell-branded uniform, served “last-iceberg” snow cones to passersby as his cart’s screens showed climate change-themed images. The conversation illustrates a key lesson of Trigg’s course, and of Studio Life: that studio visits allow artists to share objects, tools and back stories that are often obscured from public view but, once revealed, illuminate the artistic process.

“When you don’t have a personal connection to the artist, you can see the work and you can read about it and you can also have a dialogue with others about it,” says Scarlett Lingwood, an MFA Fine Arts student enrolled in Trigg’s course. “Having first-person knowledge about how the artist is working, and what their concepts are, makes it possible for you to perceive the work another way.”

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