Renowned Industrial Hygienist Monona Rossol to Teach Winter "Art Safety & Health” Course
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This January, students will have a rare opportunity to learn from Monona Rossol—noted chemist, artist, and industrial hygienist specializing in visual and performing arts hazards for more than thirty years—as she teaches a special, intensive winter course called Art Safety & Health (LLART 101).
The course, offered by the UMass Amherst Department of Art, will provide students with a comprehensive guide to safety and environmental laws for visual artists, designers, art educators, theater technicians, builders and safety professionals with a focus in arts.
Rossol, who first came to UMass Amherst in 1991 as a featured speaker, has spent her career actively pushing for safe working environments for herself, her colleagues, and her clients.
“It is crucial to teach this course in an art department that is a model of safety,” says Rossol, who worked with Gund Partnership Architects in 2006 to help develop plans for the UMass Amherst Studio Arts Building. She was instrumental in creating a safe, hygienic, and well-equipped building for student and faculty artists, and went on to call the Studio Arts Building an embodiment of “how things should be done.”
A pioneer in her field, Rossol taught the very first course on art safety on record in 1980 at the University of Wisconsin Madison in 1980 and has since perfected the curriculum, keeping it current with OSHA standards and EPA regulations. She has been hailed as one of the heroes of the environmental aftermath of the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center by investigative journalist Juan Gonzales.
To protect both artists and the earth, the Art Safety & Health course focuses on using art materials in compliance with OSHA and EPA regulations. Materials are studied for their applications in all art disciplines. Safety requirements for professional studios and classroom requirements for all student populations including children, college-age, seniors, and art therapy patients will be discussed.
The month-long course will offer participants a rare opportunity to interact with Rossol, as well as the tools to assess risks and provide appropriate precautions and strategies that will enable them to work in the arts, safely, for a lifetime.
Students who pass the final exam will receive a letter from Rossol certifying their training in certain OSHA regulations. These letters have qualified many individuals for jobs in arts practice or education, including in several theatrical unions where these letters are often accepted in lieu of OSHA training.