Alum Michael Carney reflects on his time at the Society of Arts and Crafts to leave a legacy for future CCS students

When Michael Carney attended what was then known as the Society of Arts and Crafts from 1968 to 1972, things were a bit … different.

The Yamasaki building anchored campus — the Kresge-Ford Building wouldn’t be completed until 1975, the same year the school’s name was changed to Center for Creative Studies-College of Art and Design. For Carney and his classmates, the Detroit Institute of Arts served as an auxiliary space of the school, both intellectually and socially.

“There were benches all around the side of the Rivera Court with ashtrays, and you could smoke,” said Carney (Fine Arts ’72). “Between the Rivera Court and the Kresge Court downstairs, we could get a coffee and pastries. That was like a living room.”

Those experiences enhanced the feeling of intimacy at the school during the 1960s, as did the smart, passionate faculty members who helped form the young Carney.

Like Sam Pucci, chair of the Fine Arts Department at that time. “I remember him assigning us to read George Bernard Shaw as part of the coursework, which was kind of unusual for a painting course, but there we were,” he said. “His idea was that an artist should be well-rounded, and you should really think about the humanities in a broader, intellectual way.”

Or Brenda Goodman, Carney’s first-year painting teacher who also focused on materials preparation. “Her idea was that an artist must be grounded in things like stretching canvas,” he said. “We would stretch canvas in class, and she would critique and overlook everybody’s work and make sure you had that as part of your education.”

He recalled how Nicholas Snow, his art history professor and the school’s assistant director, would lecture both on campus and in galleries at the DIA. “He was one of those few instructors that one has in one’s life that just throws light on a subject, makes it come alive,” he said.

Although admitting he could go on and on, Carney couldn’t help but also mention Tony Williams, his life drawing instructor, who hung a sheet on the side of a house on campus and projected a Kurosawa film for the class. Or the Raku kiln the ceramics class built outside for a firing session that went well into the evening hours.

“Those were some of the things that just formed a lasting impression on me, in terms of community,” Carney said. “Community is a word, I think, that’s so overused today. But it identified for me very early on who my people were. The Yamasaki building was just such a nice little refuge in the city for that kind of expression.”

After graduation, Carney had what he calls a “Jack Kerouac era,” during which he worked odd jobs. But in 1977, he packed up and moved to Seattle, where he quickly built on his passion for construction and carpentry.

“I was working for a company that identified that I might have more value to add to the project other than just hitting my thumb with a hammer,” he said.

Carney enjoyed his role so much that he pursued more education and exposure, eventually becoming a capital projects manager. He spent half of his 40-year career in facilities with a defense contractor, and the other half with Fred Hutch Cancer Research Center.

Throughout his tenure, he leaned into his fine arts background, especially when dealing with a project’s many stakeholders.

“Not being purely an architect or purely an engineer but being able to broker consensus from a disparate group that you need to lead along and bring along for project success — that’s the sticky part,” he said. “There was also a common thread of creativity, in that both the engineers and the scientists were striving to make new discoveries, solutions, systems and therapeutic products.”

Still, Carney kept his hand in art over the years, sometimes just as a “Sunday painter,” until remote work in 2020 put him on the path to retirement. As he reduced his schedule to a few days a week, and then two, he took advantage of his newfound extra time by sketching. Those sketches ended up stuffed on his mantle, until a longtime writer friend challenged him to a virtual workshop. The two began trading what they had worked on during the week — she would send him a few pages or a chapter of her work in progress, and he would show her a new sketch or progress on a painting.

Three years later, the two continue to send pieces back and forth, and Carney credits the virtual workshop for helping him reconnect even more with his creative muscle.

“A certain amount of the creative part, I think, lies in the actual work,” he said. “I had this real tendency of being a navel gazer. I love the conceptual and abstract parts of the surreal motifs that my work is involved with, but I need to draw, I need to produce. I actually need to get in the studio and do something — put pencil to paper. The challenge really enforces that.”

Carney has also stayed connected with the College for Creative Studies from afar through CCS alumni activities, newsletters and other outreach, as well as maintained his membership with the DIA.

“My earliest memories, growing up in Detroit, were all about art,” said Carney, who took classes at the DIA during junior high and at the Society of Arts and Crafts in high school. “My parents were art adjacent, kind of more bohemian almost, and always supported that interest.”

He received a half scholarship to attend the Society of Arts and Crafts, with the remainder of his tuition paid for by an advertising agency he interned with during summer breaks.

“The foundational aspect of the physical school itself and the psychic protection, the growth, the challenging, the critiques, the community, the fellowship, the intellectual awakening, the newness, all of that was kind of in that little big bang of those Arts and Crafts years,” Carney said. “It was half the scholarship from the school, and half the scholarship from Campbell Ewald that allowed me to have these experiences, which are so central to the way I look at the world even today and have been really important in creating that inner life.”

Carney would like to provide that same opportunity to future generations, which is why he has included CCS in his estate plan. His legacy gift will establish a scholarship fund, which he hopes will help more students find the same oasis in a world that emphasizes sports and business over the humanities.

“That’s worth preserving and fostering in kids, in a protected way, that they can just be there and flourish, focus on their interest, on their work, get the instruction and the growth that they need,” he said. “If I could have a small hand in helping others along that path, expand the social and cultural horizons for students who may not otherwise have the opportunity — I couldn’t think of anything more gratifying.”