Art in the Park

One of my goals this year was to get my students to use their art outside of the classroom. I wanted students to use their art to help their community in some way. Students did a great job finding ways to share their art. They rose to the occasion, and I am proud of them.
One group of students started #patriotrocks, and started hiding rocks around the community. Another group created tape murals to help brighten the day of their fellow students. I have written about those previously, but the one I wanted to tell you more about today is our Art in the Park Project.

How it All Got Started

Last year I was honored to have my work selected for the Bemidji Sculpture Walk. The Bemidji Sculpture Walk was designed to bring art to Bemidji and to bring people back downtown. Later that quarter when I asked students to use their art to better the community, they remembered the sculpture walk. They brought it up because Pequot Lakes was about to have the main Hwy bypass the town. People were anxious about the bypass and were trying to think of ways to keep people coming to Pequot Lakes. The students thought we could do a sculpture walk, like Bemidji; since Bemidji uses art to keep people downtown, Pequot could do the same. We weren't really set up to do large-scale sculpture; yet, so we decided to do large scale paintings. We got the idea from work we found when researching. We found cities that had replaced ads on small billboards with art, and thought, "we could do that!"

We Have an Idea, Now We Need Help and Money!

First, we needed to partner with the city, so students found out who the Mayor was, and we emailed her. She met with me, and had some great ideas about funding, and what the park guys might be ok with. She was excited and willing to help with our idea. I then started looking for grants. I found one and started the application process, but after a lot of hours I realized that the grant was going to require a lot of data, resumes, papers, etc, and we were not looking for a lot of money, and already had a lot on our plate. I abandoned that grant. The mayor had a lead that our Pelican Lakes Conservation Club might be interested in helping us because they had been funding some other student projects related to art. They ended up funding our project! The city met and approved our request to add the art to the park.

We Have the Money, Let's Make Some Art!

I asked students to submit proposals if they wanted to create a piece for art in the park. Unfortunately, the students who had the initial idea were now in their second-semester classes and were no longer in art; they were not interested in putting in the extra time to create the pieces. I promoted the idea to my new students and had a few takers. At this point, we had about 6 weeks left in the school year, so I was glad to have some students pick up the idea. Students were able to create their own designs, as long as they followed the guidelines of the city regarding violence, nudity, and religion. Once a few students started painting, more wanted to join in and submitted proposals.

How did we Create and install the Pieces?
First, we had to make sure we had a good grade signboard that was smooth for painting. We also made sure to buy exterior plywood so that it would hold up to the weather. We painted them with blickcrylic acrylic paint and sealed them with a water based spar-urethane. Spar urethane is a marine quality sealant that withstands UV rays, and the rain. We installed them on 4x4 treated posts, that we dug 20'' into the ground. We used screws with a washer head so they wouldn't pull through the wood.

How did we Advertise, Promote and Communicate About the Event?
We were able to have our local Insty Prints donate over 300 flyers that are in the park for people to take. We also painted a sign explaining how the art got to the park, and who made it. Each work has a name tag for the artist, as well as a QR code that if people scan, they can hear the artist speak their artist statement. (one discovery we made was that the printed ink, even when laminated faded fast in the sun). The local paper did a story on the project, and we promoted it on social media.

How about you, have you done any community-based art projects with students? How did it go?