Tag Your It! Community Art Project

This Saturday - February, 20th

3:00PM-7:00PM

Powerhouse Community Arts Center

Join six artists as they create a mural for the Powerhouse Art Center and invite those observing to be part of creating the mural.

The event will feature students and community members painting a mural and a $5 art sale of student art work.  The students will be selling their art work in $5 increments.

This event is free and open to the public

The value of art beyond its ability to express creativeness, beauty, and communication with an audience is often measured in terms of how it enhances our quality of life.  Quality of life is a hard topic to quantify.   The latest trend in measuring the creative class is to look how they impact jobs.  Companies that once looked for access to large pools of cheap labor and distribution services now consider moving to regions where they will find a knowledgeable  workforce. These businesses recognize their fuel to thrive now depends on the creative class of writers, artists, engineers and entertainers.

Communities have started to recognize the value in attracting and retaining the creative class as part of a strategy to attract businesses.  Oxford and Lafayette County are in a unique position as our community is a center that creates the creative class.  The University draws and attracts students seeking any number of degrees at various levels of expertise.  We have the “raw resources” of desire, eagerness, and creativity ready to be mined.  In this case the mined resources won’t be used up but rather will remain fuel for steady growth in our community.

We don’t even have to wait for the students to acquire knowledge or graduate to tap into their ability.  Many of the students are looking, even encouraged by instructors and administrators, to work on projects to enhance their education at the University through practical application.  This Saturday a student lead project to enhance our community will occur at the Powerhouse Community Arts Center.  Several students in the art program have been following the Arts Council’s work to renovate the Powerhouse into a focal point of the community.   These students created ideas on how to impact the building now through a community art project.   Ten art students will create a mural that will hang on the side of the Powerhouse helping to enhance the building facade, identify it as an art center, and create a public piece of art.  The most unique feature of this project is that they are inviting the community to participate.  The project as an opportunity to teach the public about art by letting them be part of the experience.  Members of the community can come and work on the mural with the students.  The students will demonstrate the techniques they have learned at the University to the public; then provide materials to members of the community to help complete the mural.

Many communities have community art programs but they consist of an artist creating a sculpture, painting a mural, or designing a green space which is unveiled to the public.  This student lead project invites the community to be part of the process, invites you to be part of the creative class, and is a small step to finding ways to engage and inspire students to become rooted in the community.  Simple projects of this nature will encourage them to stay in our community once they complete their education and help it grow by starting businesses and attracting employers.