TRYathlon

Semester 3

As an experiential component of College Park Arts Scholars, I attended a selection of three art events during my third semester. These events ranged in art mediums and each sparked dialogue among my peers.

Triathlon 1: Hirshhorn Museum

Event Logistics: 09/03/2023, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC.

Pentathlon category: #visualart

On September 3rd I visited the Hirshhorn Museum with a group of my friends. This was my first time visiting the Hirshhorn and it has become one of my favorite museums in the DC area. It would be lengthy for me to describe every exhibit I visited, but my favorite exhibit and the one that left the greatest impact on me was Laurie Anderson's "The Weather." The exhibit consisted of one room painted entirely black with writing and pictures hand drawn in white on every surface. The writing consisted of quotes from various sources pertaining to things such as life struggles, politics, emotions, and more. The was very impactful on me as the exhibit was a very immersive experience. The writing and images surrounded you as if you were in the eye of a hurricane, which alluded to the exhibit title and made you feel as though the message was encapsulating you. The deeper context of the hundreds of quotes and images gave the impression that humans and emotions were always changing. Experiences are not linear and organized like we would like to think they are: there are always more layers under the surface. I feel that the completely black and white color scheme was a statement telling the viewer that even if situations appear to be black and white, they are not.

Through this exhibit I feel that I gained a deeper understanding of myself as well as other's perspectives on the world around us. I better understood that it was okay for my life to feel messy or unorganized at times. It is natural for me to be confused, scared, or dissatisfied with aspects of myself, just as natural as it is for me to be happy and content. Talking to my friends they shared their various opinions of the exhibit with me. One felt very similarly to how did, another told me that they found the exhibit visually pleasing and that the message was more political than personal for them. Yet another one of my friends shared that they were minimally impacted by the exhibit, which taught me to that even if I feel greatly affected by a piece of art, others may be affected differently or not at all, which is a notion we have explored a lot during Arts Scholars colloquium. Overall, I found a greater appreciation for myself and my friends through this exhibit, which I think was a meaningful and worthwhile experience.

Triathlon 2: Crochet for a Cause

Event Logistics: 09/22/2023, Crocheting for a Cause Freshman Outreach Meeting, Studio A

Pentathlon category: #presentation #visualart

I have been a moderately active member of Crocheting for a Cause since freshman year. This year, we hosted a workshop in Studio A where experienced members of the club presented their works and demonstrated short tutorials to interested/new members on how to make their own projects. I had the pleasure of giving a quick demo on how to make a netted sweater to new members sitting at my table. I really enjoyed this meeting more than others since I was able to see the techniques and preferences of other people who enjoy the same form of art as I do. As always, I find myself impressed with the various solutions and strategies other people use in relation to my own. I always come out of meetings such as this with new ideas to try and new techniques that improve my own work astronomically. This experience helped me re-realize the true beauty in people sharing and building off each others' ideas. This is how we have managed to refine techniques over time and as a society.

No one is born a master, it is learning from others that makes individuals better at what they do. This is especially relevant in arts as you can see from discussions in colloquium a well as from art all around us that artists are continuously building and using each other as inspiration. People create works for various different reasons whether it holds sentimental value, makes a statement, sends a message, or sparks joy. Crocheting is a wonderfully diverse artform that has gained more interest recently. I am very happy to be able to share a skill that I am proud of with others as well as refine that same skill by using others as my guide. The beauty in art is that there are no boundaries; there will always be room to go up.

Triathlon 3: AAB Meeting

Event Logistics: 10/18/2023, Arts Advisory Board Halloween Decoration Meeting, Bel Air Lounge

Pentathlon category: #ArtsScholars

On October 18th I took one of my friend's from the engineering department to the Halloween themed Arts Advisory Board meeting. There, we had the opportunity to use air dry clay in order to create out of decorations in celebration of the spooky season. I was indecisive on what I wanted to make in the beginning, I found that my original idea would not work using the type of clay we would be given and was left with no direction for a while. My friend, Saanchi, was attempting to make a cat themed tray for her table and I drew inspiration from her and decided to make a small model cat. As anything goes, this cat was looking quite strange so I threw the rest of direction to the wind and gave the cat something resembling a turtle shell. In the end, I was left with a cute turtle cat with a witch hat and it still lives on my dining room table.

I was pleasantly surprised about how many people showed up to this event. It was hard to find enough chairs for people to sit and I really enjoyed talking to the variety of people who showed up. I think the biggest thing that I took away from this event is that art is something that evolves through different people and different situations. Artists evolve their techniques and what you set out to do in the first place is not necessarily what you end with. It's a process that is effected by many different circumstances, which is a big message that we have been exploring in Scholars throughout our entire time in the program. It was interesting to see how everyone else's ideas built off each other during the meeting, including my own. Art is something that is meant to be share, personalized, and enjoyed together.