A Fresh Batch of Mayhem: MetroArts 2017

MetroArts is a program through Quad City Arts (https://www.quadcityarts.com/), which provides paid summer apprenticeships for students ages 15-21.  This summer, MetroArts offered four different projects/experiences for students to pursue.  They could choose between: working on a large painted mural in a public space, a series of graphic design projects geared towards showing them professional practice, learning improvisational comedy, or working on a sculptural relief/mural.

Even though MetroArts 2017 is nearly coming to a close, we still have a great deal of work to complete before the end of this week.  Here are a few images of our progress over the last 4 weeks.

Our work space this year was inside one of the classrooms at the Figge Art Museum.  We had the opportunity to help fabricate one of the summer exhibitions for the Figge.  We spent a portion of our first two weeks helping New York-based artist, Jean Shin, fabricate her project, Maize.  To read more about Maize, please click this LINK to the Figge Art Museum's website.

Here are a few shots the MetroArts apprentices working on Maize.

The rest of the time, the students were drawing up proposals for a relief mural inspired by the book, "Do Not Bring Your Dragon To The Library".

Between the smiles, there was a lot of thinking and sketching going on.

Once we had presented the proposals to the library and a winning design was selected, it was time to enlarge the whole thing onto cardboard and begin fabrication.

Laying out the design

Beginning the work!

Once the cardboard shapes had been created, it was time to cover them with various fabrics.

Here is a taco-loving dragon.....

We also had a guest come and visit our work site at the Figge Art Museum.  None other than KWQC's very own Fran Riley came to film and interview the Metro kids working on our wall-relief/mural!  Fran stayed and chatted with the students for over an hour.  He is as nice in person as he is on the air!

If you missed Fran Riley's segment on our MetroArts project, please take a moment to check it out by clicking this link: http://www.kwqc.com/content/misc/Dragons-In-The-Library-431738453.html.

Once the bright lights of celebrity had faded, it was time to get back to work.  We had a lot of tasks to complete and a dwindling amount of time in which to get them done.

When working with hot glue and X-Acto knives, there are bound to be some injuries.  Fortunately, we had top-notch healthcare available for the wounded.

Anyway, in the words of Jesse Ventura, "we don't got time to bleed.....".  Back to work.....

That's it for this installment.  Next time we'll take a look at the panels coming together and see them get painted.

Until then, peace out.