"Without Words", an exhibition at the Kennedy Museum of Art, showcases a collaboration between Ohio University art students and Scribble Art workshop students.
Without saying a word to each other, children ages four to eight-years-old and students studying art at Ohio University, exchange thoughts through artwork.
“Without Words: Bringing the Big Apple to Appalachia” is a program designed to encourage young artists to be creative and to give experience to art students in college. OU students studying art collaborate with students from Scribble Art Workshop in Manhattan, New York to create a drawing.
The program is called “Without Words” because each artist uses iconography, or symbols and images in art to create a larger meaning — to send a message without explaining it further.
The program was initially an after-school program created by a former student of John Sabraw, a professor of painting and drawing, until it turned into something bigger. One of Sabraw’s goals, he said, is getting out of the “same old trace-your-hand-and-make-a-turkey-out of-it for arts education.”
“We don’t care if they have talent or whatever you want to call it, but what we want to do with that is we’re really about getting them to be in touch and to have confidence in their own ability to be creative makers and thinkers,” Sabraw said.
The process of creating the artwork is a back-and-forth exchange between the students in New York and the students in Athens. The two groups create art through sending it to each other, adding color and symbols with each interaction.
When the expedition is over in about a month, the art students at OU will send the artwork back to their paint pals for them to keep their pieces of art.
Clarissa Gucwa, a student involved in the exchange, said her favorite part of the program is working with students in a different age group.
“It really brings it back to where we come from as artists, because as a younger person you do different types of art than you do in college,” said Gucwa, a junior studying photography and integrated media, with a business minor. “It was great to see that perspective … their artistic style verse my artistic style or the classes artistic style.”
Gucwa said she thought the program was a great experience to work with students who have a different perspective based on cultural differences and age differences.
There are 10 pieces that are finished and displayed in the Kennedy Museum of Art, located at The Ridges in Lin Hall at OU.
“The works are hanging together on a board that have a highlight of what looks like, in a distance, the New York skyline and the Athens landscape,” said Petra Kralickova, the curator at the Kennedy Museum of Art.
This program helps both parties gain experience, and Sabraw said there’s two aspects he hopes the organizations take away.
“One, we hope to get the kids to actually be excited that other people are also being creative and feel that what they have to say is valid beyond a little classroom,” Sabraw said. “The other thing for my students, I want them to see how important their role is going to be out in the world shaping young lives.”
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