Members use art club for expression and relaxation
Students file in to the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts, dragging out their paint supplies, drawing tablets and large pieces of construction paper. Paint flies across tables, somehow not staining anything, pens and pencils draw elaborate designs and scissors cut out the latest design project. Organized chaos is the best way to describe this event. But this isn’t just any event; it’s an Urban Art Club meeting.
Urban Art Club was established in 2012 to allow students across all majors to express themselves in a creative and relaxing way, while also giving students in the curriculum the ability to extend what they were learning beyond the classroom. It was created for students to express their style without constraint or the worry of grades through graffiti, drawing, photography, words and more.
Each year, between 10 and 15 new members usually join, keeping the membership around 30 students. While some students that participate are visual arts majors, most aren’t.
“Our membership is very broad in terms of majors – people always say they want to join, but aren’t good at drawing or ‘art,’ and we explain they don’t have to be,” Sean Conklin, assistant curator at the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts and advisor of the club, said. “As a group, we’re willing to teach people based on our own specialties or to work on projects people can follow along with and have building even if the results aren’t perfect.”
Urban Art Club’s president Shannon Mitchell, a junior early childhood and elementary education major, said that she originally joined not only for her love of art, but to find a way to destress during the day.
“We’re a good group of people,” Mitchell said. “To be able to just create with such a fun group is really relaxing.”
One event that the club hosts yearly is #TagMe, where all students are welcome to express themselves through spray painting. According to Conklin, #TagMe teaches students how to use aerosol designs to create custom posters. Some students come with their own stencils, some borrow stencils and some create their own custom design.
The current logo for the club was actually produced during a #TagMe event.
In the past, the club has also worked on projects that bring awareness to issues that are important to them. One of the most popular projects over the last few years was adding rap lyrics, as well as rap-styled poems that students have written and found, to artwork. The pain and awareness that writers and rappers point out through their words are then laid over other stencils or custom drawings, Mitchell said.
Along with these events, the club also has created murals for the original Bona Buddies room and the health and human performances lab, designed backdrops for junior prom, created scenery for STEP team shows and helped design photo standees for Francis Week. They also host an event they call “The Great Sticker Bomb,” where students create and release custom stickers into the community, as well as participating in an event called “Trashion Fashion,” in which they create articles of clothing from trash and recyclables.
While the club hasn’t hosted any events recently, they have some projects and events in the works.
“Currently the group is looking to do some larger projects and outreach activities including a community mural project in Allegany, trip to the Street Art Museum, rap/spoken word artist presentation, campus wide yarn bomb, UAC Zine Publication, exhibition of member artwork and a senior care community service collaboration visually representing life with dementia and alzheimer’s,” Conklin said. “They’ll continue to host their annual #TagMe events and are looking to host more step-by-step art activities, including making ornaments for the holidays and ceramics sculptures and vessels.”
The club’s next meeting will take place during the first few weeks of November.
For anyone interested in Urban Art Club or if anyone has an idea, reach out to Conklin and Mitchell at UrbanArtClub@sbu.edu. The club also posts updates on Instagram @UrbanArtClub and on Twitter @UrbanArtClubSBU.
By Natalie Foster, Staff Writer
forstena17@bonaventure.edu
