SWCC students showcase art

Creston Arts’ May edition of their First Friday Art Reception featured work by Southwestern Community College’s art students.

SWCC professor Kelly Devitt explained this was the first show SWCC has participated in for a couple of years.

“It’s really great that we’re sort of emerging back into the community,” Devitt said. “I know that students that are coming tonight are really eager to bring their families in to show them what they’ve been working on. It’s always great to have people appreciate the work that you’ve been doing and see it in a really professional setting outside of just the classroom.”

Since SWCC doesn’t have an art degree outside of music, many of the students Devitt teaches are pursuing liberal arts degrees. Some of the classes available are drawing, 2D and 3D design and ceramics.

One piece in the 2D art class on display was their “Studies in Paper” project.

“I asked students to go out to find organic materials to make cellulose fiber out of,” Devitt said. “This section here is 100% grass, so we blended it up and made paper pulp out of. As we go down the line, we have a mixture of recycled paper mixed with the grass to create a little bit more substantial or flexible piece of paper. We’ve got corn husks, flowers, leaves. Then we also did just completely 100% recycled paper and binded a book out of that.”

Devitt said this project was especially exciting for the students.

“The days that we did this, they were a little put off by the smells of the things in the room but still had a good time breaking up the materials and actually going out and scavenging for these things,” Devitt said. “The book binding actually went really well as well. They were excited to have something that’s made completely from scratch that they could then go use as a sketchbook or a notebook after they’ve created it.”

One art student will be continuing her art career outside of SWCC. Kate Sutton was accepted into the Kansas City Art Institute, where she’ll be focusing on ceramics.

“That art program over there is super,” Sutton said. “In Kansas City, they have a really good supportive program, for the arts in general but specifically for ceramics over there. I’m really excited to be there, I’ll have a lot of resources at my disposal.”

Sutton only recently decided to pursue art full time.

“My mom is an artist, so kind of my whole life I’ve been doing art. I didn’t decide to major in it until this past December,” Sutton explained. “I’d always been involved in art clubs and art classes and stuff, but I never thought about pursuing it because, you know, mom is an artist so I can figure something else out. It just kind of hit me after 21 years that I could probably do that myself. It makes sense, I love doing it so why not pursue it.”

Sutton will be starting off her art career immediately this summer, becoming Creston Arts’ first artist in residence. Throughout the summer, Sutton will be hosting workshops through the Creston Arts’ Center and Create Creston.

“I’ll be hosting workshops every other week as part of the residency,” Sutton said. “[I’m] provided a space to get rid of all distractions and have time and space to focus on nothing but my work.”

Sutton’s residency will begin mid-May and go into August.

Sutton’s and other SWCC student’s art will be on display for the rest of May. The art gallery at the Restored Depot is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Friday, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturdays and closed Sundays.