The Visual Arts Student Association’s art and baking hauntingly brilliant idea to support student artists.
The spirit of Halloween is often suffocated by mass-produced costumes that lack originality and cheap candies. To reconnect with the ethereal, haunting, and mysterious spirit of Halloween immersing yourself in intentionally created art and homemade treats is the way to go.
The Visual Arts Student Association’s (VASA) Halloween art and bake sale on Oct. 20 provided this opportunity to students on U of O’s campus. The student-organized sale was located in the Visual Arts building…finding the building’s entrance is similar to navigating a haunted house.
Once I did locate the entrance, it was unclear where to enter, as the side of the building is currently covered by black material draped over metal scaffolding. Under construction or haunted? It’s more fun to imagine the latter. I stepped gingerly into the metal scaffolding covering the stone doorway. Up several flights of stairs, I found the art sale.
The bright room radiated excited energy as students called into the hall to draw people in. There was a selection of prints, stickers, bracelets, and original works for sale.
Bachelor of Fine Arts students who were painting upstairs in the studios spoke to the Fulcrum regarding the opportunities created by the sale.
Erin Szturm, a fourth-year student in fine arts with a specialization in painting and drawing, contributed a mix of prints, paintings, and other items to the Halloween sale.
Szturm is inspired by absurd horror, nature, and melancholy domesticity. Her paintings and drawings employ comedy and the concept of the opposite to evoke a satirical and thought-provoking effect on viewers.
Szturm said that the student-organized sale “[is] a wonderful opportunity to sell art and just kind of get your work out there. It gives us the taste of organizing ourselves I suppose. As well as organizing our tables, talking with customers, making money where we can so we can feed it back into our art process – and meeting new people who might be interested in our progress and art down the line.”
Emma Gauthier is also a fourth-year fine arts student. Gauthier contributed several photo prints to the sale. When asked about the Halloween sale, Gauthier said “Anytime you can get your art out there, it’s always a great thing. Even if you don’t sell anything, people are looking at your work. [And it is] just always great, you know, making a bit of money.”
If students would like to support Gauthier, they can visit her Instagram page or take pottery classes with her at The Gloucester Pottery School.
