Art students overcome a disruption to create new group project
The closures and limitations that COVID-19 triggered have changed the way we work, study and create, but an art class at University Campus just wrapped up a joint project for the Fall Semester that made use of individual projects that had to be left behind from the previous Spring Semester.
Students in Michael Lewis’ advanced pottery class this semester completed and unveiled an 11-foot totem called COVID Can’t Kill Creativity. It stands inside the Fine Arts Building, in a corner near the stairs.
This is not at all what anyone planned back in January and February of 2020, when Lewis was teaching two pottery classes, one at the beginner level and one at the advanced level. Beginning students were working on bowls that they intended to bake in the kiln. And the advanced students were working on a group project with an underwater theme. They were making suitable sculptures for that.
They had not yet reached the point with their various works where the projects would be ready for the kiln when classes had to pivot to an online modality. Partly finished works were left in the Fine Arts Building. Students were given other assignments that they could complete remotely to finish their semester’s academic obligations.
When classes resumed earlier this semester at University Campus, Lewis and his class of eight advanced students met and pondered what to do for their group project. The idea of using the “leftover pieces” came up in the group, Lewis said. With permission from former art students secured where needed, the fall class decided to construct a totem pole and name it “COVID Can’t Kill Creativity.”
Lewis, who has some construction work experience, helped the students create a concrete base. He also helped them through the steps involved in making a steel rod that is 11-feet high and one half-inch in diameter into the internal brace for the various pieces.
The pieces that were once meant to depict life underwater, including a shark, octopus, and a shell, were placed at the base. Students decided to place works that were originally intended to become bowls – they ended up looking like big spools of thick yarn or thread – on top of one another to form the middle part of the totem. They also wanted to paint it in bright colors because it is “more cheerful,” and shows “we’re overcoming this,” Lewis recalled.
The chair of the Department of Language Studies and the Arts, Dr. Chantelle MacPhee, kept monitoring the project as it went along. She and Dr. Mary Spoto, vice president of Academic Affairs, were delighted with the results, the title of the work, and its message.
To see COVID Can’t Kill Creativity, venture over to the Fine Arts Building. It will be a little difficult to move the totem, so it will stay there for the near future.
The advanced pottery student-creators are: Stacey Cerna, Sydney Chase, Victoria Chin, Jordan Kitterman, Jade Ortner, Alexis Schlitt, Jessica Skrelunas, and Alayna Urbaniak. Alexis Schlitt is not in the group shot; she is the student in the photo of the unpainted totem, wearing a blue shirt.
To visit paintings and drawings created over the semester by students, visit our university’s virtual art gallery. The displays rotate, so visit every month or so.
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