Choosing to double major allows students to explore two distinct areas of academic interest, providing flexibility of career options in the future and a chance to develop understanding of multiple fields. Many times, however, one area of interest gets dropped after graduation as students move into the "real world."
Karen Schwartz (LA '75) is one Tufts alumna who has incorporated her two very different interests into her everyday life. A psychologist with her own practice in Atlanta, Georgia, Schwartz also devotes time to painting vibrant and creative portraits - a passion that has resulted in her work being shown among international emerging artists in Florence at the Biennale Internazionale Dell'Arte Contemporanea.
Many of Schwartz's paintings have their initial roots in images seen through a camera lens. "Photography is what I've always done for myself," she said. "I do mostly portraits and landscapes. A lot of work I do is from my own photographs."
Schwartz's work is heavily focused on portraiture, especially iconic figures from music, literature, pop culture, and politics. Like the portraits she paints of lesser-known subjects - strangers in photographs from her travels, or members of her family - Schwartz's portraiture of famous people is also often photography-based.
"I do a lot of musicians and politicians - about 90 percent of the work is portraits," said Schwartz, who bases those portraits on photos taken from newspapers or other media.
From Bob Dylan and B.B. King to former New York statesman Daniel Patrick Moynihan (a Tufts alum himself) and ex-New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, Schwartz's portraits do not merely replicate the photographs she works from, but expand and interpret them, employing bold color and original style. She likes to draw from photographs that are not necessarily "art-worthy" in their own right.
The Biennale Internazionale Dell'Arte Contemporanea, where several of Schwartz's portraits were recently shown, is a forum for upcoming contemporary artists from around the world held every two years in Florence, Italy. Schwartz said organizers asked her to submit her work after seeing samples showcased on her website, www.uncommonportraiture.com.
Additionally, one piece of Schwartz's artwork - a portrait of Rudy Giuliani - will be shown in March at a biennial showcase of women artists in New York City.
The artistic world isn't the only one on which Schwartz has made her mark: she's a success in the realm of psychology as well. Schwartz graduated from Tufts with a degree in psychology and art history, and after graduation, she attained her doctorate in clinical psychology from Emory University.
Schwartz then worked as an assistant professor at Georgia State University's student counseling center, training psychology interns and practicing psychotherapy, before opening her own practice, which she has maintained for almost 20 years.
Schwartz finds that maintaining a balance between her art and her career in psychology is sometimes challenging. "I do find it difficult to plan my time to give my art a fair shot," she said. "My interest and motivation are always strong, and I'm always looking and seeing images I want to work with in my art. Making time to be in my studio requires discipline and keeping track of my priorities, and that is itself a work in progress."
Schwartz's work ethic may contribute to her ability to juggle art and psychology: "I don't like to not be working," she said.
One of the things that drew Schwartz to Tufts was its partnership with the Museum of Fine Arts. "I came split between [art and psychology], and I chose Tufts because I knew of their affiliation with the Museum School," she said.
The division of the Museum School campus from the main Tufts campus posed a severe hindrance to Schwartz's pursuit of both psychology and studio art. "When I got [to Tufts], I realized the studio art was downtown, a part of the other campus," Schwartz said. "I wanted to be a regular freshman at Tufts, on the main campus."
Schwartz continued to pursue her interest in art by becoming an art history major, and taking some studio art classes on the Medford campus. "It was hard to do studio art and an academic major compared to two academic majors," she said. "I would have had to be on two different campuses."
As someone who has maintained diverse interests through her work and hobbies, Schwartz is a fan of the double major. "What I like about double majors is that instead of just doing a smattering, you get in depth in more than one area," she said.
