campus-community project

As 2013 winds down, I am taking time this month to recap several large-scale collaborative art projects I have spearheaded over the past year.

In the summer of 2012, I received a Campus-Community LINK program grant from the West Virginia University Center for Service and Learning, through the West Virginia Campus Compact. This pilot program, funded by the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation in partnership with The West Virginia Community Development Hub, was designed to connect community groups and faculty members throughout West Virginia to facilitate dynamic service learning projects.

This project was initially focused on creating an artisan co-op in Elizabeth, West Virginia, which would enable community members to sell their locally made products. Due to space and logistical issues, this part of the project never came to fruition. Instead, we focused on the secondary aspects of the project, which involved refurbishing local business signage and building a kiosk for sharing historical and community information. The Sign Factory in Morgantown did a great job printing both the historical and the business signage, and fabrication of the kiosk was finished this past summer. After the kiosk was delivered to the community members, they installed it this fall on the town square in Elizabeth.

This project also generated a great deal of conceptual drawings and unrealized plans, and I have included these images in the slideshow because they are interesting artifacts of the process. This project went on much longer than I anticipated, but I am pleased with the results, and I think the community members and my students both learned a great deal.