I walked out of my last class of the day determined to procrastinate on studying for my upcoming exam, so I texted my roommate, begging for a much-needed distraction, to which she responded, “Okay. Meet me at the giant picnic table.”
“There’s a giant picnic table?”
“Yeah. Walk to Barefoots.”
As I walked out the doors of the PAC, I saw a group of students clustered around a six-foot picnic table outside the SUB taking pictures and asking if anyone knew the purpose behind this mysterious creation, but no one had an explanation.
The table has served as a prime hangout spot for students, and it has even been used as a sun-bathing location for those trying to squeeze in some last-minute tanning sessions before spring break.
It has been a few weeks since the table appeared, and the shock of the giant picnic table (which still stands outside Barefoots) has been replaced with many more strange and curious projects placed around campus like a multitude of shirts hanging throughout the Bowld, a line of plastic bags wrapped around the trees outside of chapel and a perfectly stacked line of rocks surrounding Jennings Hall.
It has caused many Union students to wonder what exactly is going on, so I asked some students to tell me their theories on the appearances of these multiple artworks.
“The rocks around Jennings were to keep the sea bears away,” said Ashley Cook, a freshman worship leadership major.
Sadly, the answer is a little less glamorous than the “Spongebob Squarepants” reference, but the actual purpose for these projects is to serve as a canvas for Union students to creatively express their thoughts and feelings, even if they look a little peculiar at first glance.
Students in 3D Design, a class only offered in the spring semesters where students can learn aesthetic problem-solving skills with the three-dimension areas of texture, form and space, taught by Aaron Lee Benson, professor and chair of the art department, can be the ones to thank for the abundance of artwork around campus these past few weeks.
Kiley Wilson, a freshman psychology and art therapy double major, is the mastermind behind the six-foot picnic table (that took 21 hours to complete) and the multitude of plastic bags hanging in the trees outside chapel.
She says, sometimes, it is easy to be tempted to just go through the motions while she is building a picnic table for 21 hours or wrapping 2900 feet (1594 bags) of plastic bags around trees. It is tempting to get into the mindset of half-heartedly completing these projects, getting a grade and taking them down immediately afterwards, but then she remembers why she is here: to glorify God through her artwork.
“It was wearisome, but it also gave me energy to keep going even though it was hecking 32 degrees outside, and I was running around trees with a line of plastic floating behind me,” said Wilson.
The thought of hanging up 2900 feet of plastic bags might sound like an extremely daunting task, but it can actually save you the time and money of getting a manicure. Wilson said tying the plastic bags together sucked the water out of her hands, but as the plastic rubbed over her fingernails, it made them silky smooth (I can testify to this; they were very smooth).
“I was like ‘my hands are super dry, my cuticles are peeling off and my thumb is bleeding, but wow… my nails look really good,’” said Wilson.
Along with Wilson, Abigail Jameson, a junior psychology major, contributed to the long hours of work in order to create a project that she had a personal connection with.
After four hours of individually hanging up each card, the hallway to the SUB was lined with nearly 250 cards that were stamped with Jameson’s fingerprint to symbolize her life with Type 1 Diabetes.
“[The project was] a bit of a reminder to myself of how much living with this disease takes out of my life because I often overlook how much it really does,” said Jameson.
If you are like me and think of creativity as a foreign language, it is easy to wonder how these students are motivated enough to spend many hours and tons of energy designing, building, hanging and making these magnificent pieces, but for these artists, using their hands to create works that glorify God and to see people interact with it is what drives them to continue.
“I don’t make art to sit it in my room; I make art to share it with other people,” said Wilson. “I want them to enjoy it, evaluate what my project is saying and see how I worked through my emotions with it because maybe the effect it had on me will reflect how others think about it, and people can see the project as more than just a line of bags hanging in the trees.”
