‘Tis the season for creativity, CBU art students build for festive events

Riverside, Calif. (Oct. 22, 2018) – “Never ever throw anything away,” Kristi Lippire, associate professor of visual art at California Baptist University, advised her students as she pulled out a box of small snow globes. “This could be used for a sculpture,” she added.  

Students from Advanced Art (ART 300) and Special Problems in Art (ART 400) are busy constructing three creative projects. One will be displayed for the Parent and Family Weekend at CBU from Nov. 9-10, and the other two are being designed for the Riverside Festival of Lights that will be displayed in downtown Riverside from Nov. 23, 2018 - Jan. 6, 2019.

The art piece for the Parent and Family Weekend will include four interactive tents with three walls constructed between the tents. The exhibit will represent the college experience metaphorically, Lippire said. For example, one tent will be filled with balloons, representing students wading through freshman year. In another tent, people can bang metal objects, which represents students finding their voice, she added.

The wall portion of the exhibit will provide participants an opportunity to create art. One area will allow visitors to create a gum wall of a Lancer knight. On another wall, individuals can draw with chalk and on the third wall, people can use a post-it note to indicate how they will live their purpose.

Mayuli Lemus, a visual arts senior, came up with the idea for the walls. Lemus said she envisions families engaging with the exhibit. She added that the design process has helped her understand the importance of working together.

“Teamwork and collaboration is a big part of this class. We have to shoot and bounce ideas off one another,” Lemus said. “I like being around people who are very diverse and different from myself. I’m learning a lot from others and professor Lippire.”

For one of the Festival of Lights sculptures, the team will build an object with the overall appearance of an hourglass. The sculpture will be constructed from polished steel rods. The other art piece will be an advent calendar fashioned of wooden boxes. The boxes will be piled up as if they were gifts under a Christmas tree. Students will decorate the interior of the boxes with holiday or winter themes.

The advent calendar is the brainchild of Monica Preciado, an early childhood studies senior. Preciado said the projects helped her develop her creative side.

“There are so many ways you can do something,” Preciado said. “I pull ideas from here and there and then I recreate it and tweak it to make it my own.”

The students have done a little bit of everything in the creative process; they sawed, drilled, glued, scrubbed and sewed, Lippire noted. Along with the hands-on work, they are gaining other skills, she added.

“The students learn how to work with each other. They learn new skills, like problem solving,” Lippire said. “The projects show the benefit of collaboration and group think and bouncing ideas and problems off of each other.”