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Art project symbolizes healing, support
March 27, 2008
Bits of conversation drifted through the Wekell Gallery on March 18 as students, faculty and staff set to work creating artistic masterpieces – or at least attempted to.
All were working on the Community Story Tree event, hosted by the student art club L.E.A.D. to help promote the Men Against Violence conference April 10 and 11. The conference examines men’s role in ending violence against women.
“Art is healing,” said Liisa Nelson, the art club’s creative director who oversaw the March 18 event. “You are making something beautiful out of something tragic.”
The art club has decided to use the talents of its members to support other efforts on campus by creating artwork to help promotes events and causes, Nelson said. The MAV conference is one of the first products of the club’s new direction.
On March 18, participates were instructed to decorate an eight-by-eight-inch square with paint, beads and magazines pictures. The square represented their personal and artistic response to sexual crimes and domestic violence.
Each square – 72 in all – was one part of a larger image of a tree measuring four by eight feet. The lines of the tree and basic colors were stained on the wood before it was cut so the entire image could be reconstructed. Nelson encouraged participants to use the lines merely as a guide.
The project was modeled after a Community Story Tree created by A Window Between Worlds, a nonprofit organization dedicated to using art to help end domestic violence.
The completed tree, made from the pieces painted by individuals, symbolizes the growth and healing that can occur when people are supported and loved in their communities. The competed project will be unveiled Monday, April 7 in the UC gray area, where it will remain for several weeks.
“It’s a representation of how to grow as individual and as a community, and the beauty that can come from that,” Nelson said.
University Communications staff writer Megan Haley compiled this report. Comments, questions, ideas? Please contact her at ext. 8691 or at haleymk@plu.edu. Photo by University Photographer Jordan Hartman.
“Art is healing,” said Liisa Nelson, the art club’s creative director who oversaw the March 18 event. “You are making something beautiful out of something tragic.”
The art club has decided to use the talents of its members to support other efforts on campus by creating artwork to help promotes events and causes, Nelson said. The MAV conference is one of the first products of the club’s new direction.
On March 18, participates were instructed to decorate an eight-by-eight-inch square with paint, beads and magazines pictures. The square represented their personal and artistic response to sexual crimes and domestic violence.
Each square – 72 in all – was one part of a larger image of a tree measuring four by eight feet. The lines of the tree and basic colors were stained on the wood before it was cut so the entire image could be reconstructed. Nelson encouraged participants to use the lines merely as a guide.
The project was modeled after a Community Story Tree created by A Window Between Worlds, a nonprofit organization dedicated to using art to help end domestic violence.
The completed tree, made from the pieces painted by individuals, symbolizes the growth and healing that can occur when people are supported and loved in their communities. The competed project will be unveiled Monday, April 7 in the UC gray area, where it will remain for several weeks.
“It’s a representation of how to grow as individual and as a community, and the beauty that can come from that,” Nelson said.
University Communications staff writer Megan Haley compiled this report. Comments, questions, ideas? Please contact her at ext. 8691 or at haleymk@plu.edu. Photo by University Photographer Jordan Hartman.