Happy Chaos as Students Prep Winter Arts Walk

IMG_1443The Grubbs Gallery was bustling with dozens of arts students on Thursday. Some wielded hammers, others used levels to straighten photos, and one was using fishing line to hang a jellyfish from the ceiling.

The artists, some 30 students from Arts Intensive class, were bubbling with questions about their displays: Did someone have a mike for a live performance? Was a particularly large canvas staying upstairs? What was the best way to center a nail for a heavy chicken painting? Could you put a row of light bulbs up using a stapler?

IMG_1439Fine and Performing Arts Teacher Susanna White was the calm epicenter in the middle of it all. Check with Matt Spearing in Student Activities for the mike, she said. Yes, the canvas would stay upstairs. Use painters’ tape to center the nail and get a perfect hole. Don’t use a stapler; use a staple gun for the lights.

Including those in Grubbs, artwork from roughly 120 students is going up around the Reed Campus Center this week. The work will be on display on Monday, March 3 from 5:00-6:30 p.m. during the public Arts Walk show. Until then, a form of happy chaos is taking place around the building.

This is the second time students have put on such a show—the first Arts Walk was in the fall—and Ms. White said the event is already expanding.

“The hype about this has been growing,” she said. “It’s exciting to see that develop in the student body.”

IMG_1430While Arts Walk gives the wider community an opportunity to view art created during the last trimester, Ms. White said it’s also an opportunity for student artists to learn about exhibiting and promotion. Arts Intensive students, for example, must write an artist statement to hang with their displays.

In one such statement, Ben Chmielewski ’16 explained how he used a projector to draw larger-scale drawings of trucks and planes.

“I did this so that I would have an idea where different details of the truck and plane went. It was easier to tell the perspectives,” he explained. “Throughout Arts Intensive, I have gained self-responsibility and a lot of different techniques of drawing.”

This Arts Walk will also include musicians, who will be performing in various parts of Reed. Ms. White said she eventually hopes to include dance and other performances in future events.

“We’re trying to eventually get the whole building to be exciting,” she said.

One thought on “Happy Chaos as Students Prep Winter Arts Walk”

  1. Thank you for your question, Ms. Shicoff. We’ll have Natania Hume, who directs the Grubbs Gallery, be in touch with you shortly. Thank you for your interest!

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