Semester 2

Arts TRYathlon #1: Craft & Chat

Event Logistics: 13 February 2025, Bel Air Hall, If You Can Think It, Shrink It

#visualart

I’ve always wanted to find a way to make my own key chains, so this event was right up my alley! Going into it, I knew that I wanted to make two chains: one for me, and one for my friend. Unfortunately, his broke, so now he’s getting both of them! What I’m trying to get out of that little story is that this craft & chat reminded me of the importance of community in art, and how art can serve as conversations without words. Some people, like me, were recreating logos from popular shows and movies, while others were making their own designs. Looking at each little craft, the size and design of it, it all helped me understand more about the people who were making them without having to ask about it. What it really reminded me of was the gallery we had hosted at the end of last semester, and how everyone had such different interpretations of the same set of questions. Looking at those pieces gave a glimpse at the personality of who was making it, and what they valued. Also, like the keychains, both events have shown me that I haven’t even left the tip of the iceberg of the various forms that art can take. I knew that the shrinking plastic could be used for a keychain, but I hadn’t even considered them being used as earrings! Just like I had never considered adding 3D elements to a canvas. Overall, art thrives in a community, and art is much more expansive than just color on paper.

Arts TRYathlon #2: Craft & Chat

Event Logistics: 7 March 2025, Bell Air Hall, The Art of Block Printing

#visualart

I remember one particular unit of the Art Scholar’s colloquium very fondly: vogue. Not only the dancing part of it, but the history behind it, and how the black queer community in New York took traditional ballroom dancing and made it something for themselves. Vogue evolved from that, and became something special to people of different ethnicities, genders, and sexualities all over the USA. Thinking of the community and how fondly they felt about their creation, and how our own group of people felt about our dances after our workshop, it’s a part of Scholars that holds a special place in my heart. This tryatholon had nothing to do with vogue, or dancing in general. It wasn’t even a medium based on physical activity! But, the art form has a history: it originated in India and has been preserved and reconstructed and evolved over many generations of people, lending itself to our use today. When I was doing my prints, I could only think about how I remembered doing something very similar in middle school, when we were painting the negatives of cutouts to create newspaper images. From what I’m assuming, the practice from India made its way over to the states, and since we’ve adopted it and changed it to fit our own culture, just as Vogue had been adopted and changed, and just as we had adopted and changed through our art scholars workshop!

Arts TRYathlon #3: Craft & Chat

Event Logistics: 26 March 2025, Bel Air Hall, Paperclip Jewlery

#visualart

This craft & chat was one that I was extremely excited for! …And unfortunately, extremely bad at. I have been getting into jewelry more and more as I’ve spent time at UMD because before college, I had never worn anything beyond a cheap set of earrings and the occasional necklace. So, the idea of getting extremely accessible materials and turning them into jewelry struck my mind like lightning! I had an idea in mind with my first ring, but after 30 minutes of pounding into the paper clip with a glue stick and jerking it around with some pliers, the result I had resembled little more than a malformed spring. The second ring, which is the one higher on my finger, fit my vision even less so. Unfortunately, I had to leave that craft & chat a bit disappointed; however, failure is one of the most important parts of growth, and it allowed me to reflect upon my time in Art Scholars. Over the course of colloquium, we had tried a great deal of different artforms, such as slam poetry and vogueing. In both of those trial-runs, I basically failed at the artform! My body wasn’t made to dance, and my rhythm is too non-existent for poetry on the fly; however, what did for me was introduce me to other artforms that worked for me. With Vogue, the workshop taught me that I could use dance in general as a stress-reliver, and with slam poetry, I learned that I find rapidly producing a short-form story to be quite fun! The long-winded point I’ve been trying to make is that with Art Scholars, I haven’t always succeeded, but with those failures I’ve been able to find other pathways that are tailored to me.

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