By Anna Hanchett

The Visual Arts Guild is delighted to present this year’s Spring Arts Festival theme, Fahrenheit/Celsius. The event is planned to occur on the last day of classes, May 8, on the Commons lawn at 5:00 p.m., if the weather permits. During the event, the Visual Arts Guild will display student artwork, sell handmade stoneware by current ceramics students who will donate all of the funds to Feeding America, and enjoy live music by local musicians.

One of the main purposes of conducting a Spring Arts Festival annually is to bring awareness to the beautiful works that are being created by the Calvin community. Students are not given many opportunities to show off their creations on campus, and the Visual Arts Guild wants to encourage art-making, whether it be visual, performance or written. Spring Arts Festival also allows for students involved in a variety of departments to work together to celebrate a semester’s hard work, which gives both creators and viewers the opportunity to enjoy art. The Visual Arts Guild really believes that art should enrich the lives of all (whether through creation or viewing), and as artists we take seriously the pursuit of cultural production.

I imagine Spring Arts to serve as a revelation of just a small portion of the art happening on campus during the semester that can finally be granted the celebration it deserves. I think I speak for most student organization leaders when I say that planning all-campus events is in no way a tranquil task. Though, as co-president of the Visual Arts Guild, I was humbled during last semester’s Sub_Arts show after seeing the incredible work being made by my fellow classmates and the support involved in the planning, setup and teardown of the event. I am already grateful for the enthusiasm not only students, but even professors, have shown for Spring Arts.

We would like to encourage anyone interested to become involved with Spring Arts Festival! One can contact the Visual Arts Guild through e-mail ([email protected]) for more information on the event or add us on Facebook.

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By Megan Mccrary

My first experience with Spring Arts Festival was exhilarating. I was volunteering, running around, throwing myself one hundred percent into the whole ordeal. I found it inspiring, as well as encouraging, as it was the first college event I was really ever a part of in such an official and committed way. Aside from eating up the entire experience like a piece of pie, selfishly delving into feeling a part of something, I noticed that the very way this festival was set up was begging for people’s participation and laying out intentional unity amongst Calvin College students.

I was a part of the Sumi Ink Club, consisting of a huge sheet of paper, buckets of Sumi ink and timid hands picking up paintbrushes one by one, as students, professors and visitors alike came to paint small sections of this greater mural of sorts, adding on to each other’s doodles and sharpening each other’s ideas via ink.

This hodgepodge of ideas and interaction is really what the Spring Arts Festival is about. It’s a giant Sumi Ink Club: a massive blank sheet laid out and, with some guidelines, allowing for anyone to pipe in, to participate and to glean from the experience. This year, it looks a little different now that I am witnessing the process as a whole, from beginning to end. I have less energy to put in when the planning starts in January, as opposed to one day of running around and passing paintbrushes out to the masses.

This time around it has been much more of a process, one that I have found to be incredibly rewarding, and it has allowed me to see the Festival with a fresh set of eyes. Each year Spring Arts shifts and changes; freshmen come, seniors leave, yet the heart of it stays the same: an evening filled with the opportunity to experience what you would like to gain from it, whether it be a light-hearted painting on a Sumi ink board, perhaps learning something profound and fascinating concerning art, or just enjoying a conversation over great food. It’s a time of sharing and connecting, in beautiful and creative ways.