About

This experience will revolve around the creativity and community engagement pillars of the UHP. A small group of honors students have designed this experience together and plan on working on it in collaboration, while still setting individual personal goals.

The basis of the project involves working on weekly themed art projects with the goal of improving our individual competence and comfort with a variety of materials, as well as our ability to express and reflect upon the self through creative endeavors. We will do individual pieces for the first couple of weeks, following the same prompt or theme and sharing our results at the end of the week. Once we have found materials and themes we all seem to be comfortable with we will start to consider designs for a final product. This will be a large piece that we work on designing and completing together.

Ultimately, we would like to meet with Monica Human from The 86 Coffeeshop to design a piece we can donate. Our hope is to work with her to design something representative of community and other themes that The 86 represents as a hotspot for students to gather. After brainstorming ideas with Monica and others at The 86 we will meet with our experience advisor to seek guidance for the actual design process of the final product. We will spend the remainder of our time designing and completing the final product and will allow a week to actually get it placed. As a part of the community engagement aspect we hope that the crew at The 86 will allow us to host a special event to debut the piece and draw in students and other community members with whom we can discuss our piece and our design process.

Possible risks involved in this experience include the staining or ruining of clothes and surroundings by paints and other materials. Oil paints are known to heat when drying and in extreme cases may even spontaneously combust. With the use of pyrography as a medium, there is an inherent fire risk. Additionally, when creating a mosaic, proper gloves and protective eyewear should be worn to protect against sharp fragments. There is potential for discomfort as beginners experiment with various materials and fail to successfully produce the results they are hoping for. Reflecting upon the art and the results as a manifestation of self-expression might be beyond the comfort zone of some parties involved. We plan to safeguard against these risks by keeping sufficient cleaning supplies on hand and a cool and clear environment for the drying of materials. In the case of fire risks, workspaces will be kept clear, and work will be completed in a well-ventilated area. The personal risks will be addressed with the use of online resources and tutorials for unfamiliar media, as well as through maintaining a positive environment. As a group we will be sharing our art and helping our peers make connections between the art and the self that might not be seen by the artist.