Brett Mullinix
Since 1998, assistant professor of art Brett Mullinix has guided students at Reinhardt University toward making a career out of their artistic talents and aspirations. With a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Master of Fine Arts from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Mullinix is devoted and has a strong passion for the arts.
That passion transfers to the classroom where he helps students work through their creative processes and helps them hone their strengths and identify their weaknesses.
“The Reinhardt Experience is unique in that it is both intimate and expansive,” Mullinix said. “That is to say that physically Reinhardt University is an intimate campus wherein students get to know their professors in a way that I do not believe is possible in a larger university. I, for one, constantly attempt to get my students to think beyond what they already know and to attempt new approaches and concepts.”
This relationship between the professor and students is important, and Mullinix does a great job of assisting students in their creative process. He leaves them to create freely within the guidelines of the given task. For artists, this is important for it helps build the confidence that they need to produce quality work.
Outside of the classroom, Mullinix is active in the art world. He has had a number of solo and group exhibitions, as well as commissions, on display all throughout the country. When it comes to his philosophy on how an artist should approach their creative process, practicality, reasonability and resourcefulness are three key points.
“It is one thing to have great, creative ideas. It is quite another to bring those ideas into a tangible, formal incarnations,” Mullinix said. “An artist has to understand material in order to use it resourcefully and successfully. An artist has to be practical in how he/she approaches a project or he/she will waste too much time on random ‘stabbing in the dark’ attempts at solving visual problems. And I think most importantly an artist must be reasonable in his/her approach to being a creative individual. Not everyone will understand what I or any creative individual will make, and that is ok. It is reasonable to accept this and to not let it interfere with the act of making.”
