By 6 p.m. Tuesday night, Creative Campus headquarters Maxwell Hall will be completely transformed. For one night only, Maxwell Hall won’t just be an office and workspace for the Creative Campus interns. It will become an art gallery for all kinds of student and faculty artistic talent.
Sponsored by Creative Campus as a part of Student Involvement Week, the second-annual Get Creative Night will showcase a wide range of local artistic talent. Those in attendance will have the opportunity to see submitted photography, paintings and ceramics, as well as dance, theatrical, musical and spoken-word performances.
Andi Johnson, a senior majoring in English and a third-year Creative Campus intern, called Get Creative “an open-call, open-mic event” that is truly “open to everybody.”
For one, students and faculty members of all ages and disciplines are invited to display their art. Secondly, there is no audition or scrutiny involved in the “application” process, only a written statement of intent and a detailed description of the piece.
Johnson said the main goal of Get Creative is to get everyone, not just art students, involved in the arts and to “make the arts more accessible.” This is why the event is so non-discriminatory, she said.
Joseph Wood, instructor of English at the University and poetry festival and event coordinator for Slash Pine Press, will be performing excerpts from his soon-to-be published poetry manuscript. He said he is particularly excited about the audience being a “mixed audience” because he rarely gets to read to non-writers.
Although Wood will be a first-time performer at Get Creative, the event also has several returning artists who performed at last year’s event, including Bowen Robertson of Callooh! Callay! and Ryan Davis of Kadesh and the Perfect Strangers.
In addition to seeing “awesome artistic performances,” Get Creative is also a great way for students to learn more about the Creative Campus organization, said Alexandra Tucci, a junior majoring in advertising and international studies and a second-year Creative Campus intern.
As a student not majoring in the fine arts, Tucci said she “missed being involved in theatre and the arts scene” after coming to college, as these things were a big part of her life in high school.
“Creative Campus has offered me a way to get involved directly with the arts even though I’m not an art major,” Tucci said. She invites anyone interested in learning more about Creative Campus to come mingle with the interns at Get Creative.
Although the event will take on the same form as it did last year, which means that attendees will again have the opportunity to “engage in art-making” at the event, the interns are much more relaxed this year than they were last year, Johnson said.
They showcased more than 80 works of art and more than three hours of live performances at last year’s Get Creative, she said, so they are certain that this year’s will be even bigger and better.
“Get Creative is a wonderful conglomerate of what students are capable of,” Johnson said. “Anyone looking to see amazing student artwork should attend.”
Get Creative is free to the public, and anyone still interested in performing or displaying art has until 5 p.m. tonight to submit the necessary information. E-mail [email protected] for more details.
