As students ride an Orbit bus towards South Campus, the Cedar Street Art Building may be overlooked, but Troy Wingard, a second year graduate student, might as well call it his second home.

Originally from Lexington, S.C., Wingard graduated from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 1992. To pay off school loans, Wingard returned to his home state and worked as the Art Director for the Department of Public Safety for 10 years, all while working on his art.

Now, a student studying for his Master of Fine Arts through the University, Wingard gets the opportunity to concentrate solely on his art in his studio in the Cedar Street building. The studio has been given to him while he works through graduate school.

The building resembles an abandoned warehouse with art hung on walls, and explosions of paint on the ceilings and floors.

Artists working there are limited to one makeshift room where their creativity blossoms and only a sheet hangs to separate their “studios.”

In Wingard’s room, there are drawings and sketches scattered everywhere, some framed and some hung on the walls. Working mostly with chalk pastels, Wingard focuses his art on observations of people.

“I really like people,” Wingard said, “Especially the uniqueness and diversity that I see in everyone.”

Wingard mostly works at night, grooving to loud, punk music — like Bad Religion. He rarely uses his apartment on campus — just to sleep, Wingard said with a laugh.

As far as his inspirations for each drawing, Wingard said sometimes he gets friends to pose and then adds certain symbolic objects: for example, a plastic pumpkin from Halloween that he has had from childhood.

Other times, his subjects trigger his vision for his next piece of work.

“To me, art is a process,” Wingard said. “When you sign it, it becomes an artifact.”

Teaching a Drawing I and II class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Wingard leads a very laid-back class.

He tells his students that their best experience is practice — a philosophy which he truly follows since he himself uses class-time to also work on sketches.

To further his art career, Wingard shows his drawings as much as possible. He has shown in North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.

He also has a solo exhibition of recent drawings called “Acquaintances” which is about to be unveiled in Atlanta from April 2-30.

Getting as much work done as possible is vital to Wingard as an artist.

He graduates in the spring of 2005, and he is required to show his work at the Candidate Exhibition.

“This exhibition is extremely important as it showcases the best work of the exiting graduate students,” Wingard said.

So as a result, Wingard is working more than ever before next spring.

“My art feels more important right now than ever,” he said. “The more I do, the more I do for myself.”

As somewhat of a symbol of this motivation, Wingard has a plastic skull he bought from eBay that stays in his studio.

“It’s a reminder for me to get busy because it’s later than you think.”