For the third consecutive year, the exterior walls of FIT’s Pomerantz Center will be the blank canvas for the work of Illustration students and alumni. Beginning at noon on Monday, November 2, chalk in hand, the illustration students and alumni will to bring to life the illustrations they have developed on paper.
This year’s theme is “Innovation,” which Illustration Assistant Professor Dan Shefelman says has inspired the students to do the unexpected. “By its very nature the word has broad definitions and possibilities,” Shefelman said. “This is just one of the ways we are working with the students to push their work further.”
Already on display on the wall adjacent to the entrance to Pomerantz building is a piece entitled “Innovation,” the result of a collaboration between 2013 Illustration alumni Angel Garcia and Victor Saint-Hilaire. The illustration depicts a box from which creativity pours out in the form of vines, which are open and point the viewer toward the wall where the students’ work will appear next week. The image is balanced with color and pattern between the vines to guide the viewer’s eye throughout the piece.
“Growth and innovation comes from growing and learning,” Garcia says of the image. “Innovation comes from a specific space.”
In addition to being invited to develop the first image for this year’s Chalk! project, the pair also talked with students about making murals, including how to go from the page to the wall, and worked with them on their sketches as they were being finalized.
“The image on paper is just a guide for what goes on the wall,” Garcia said. “You have to work with the wall and not fight against it.”
“Usually the students don’t get to put their work out to the public,” Hilaire said of Chalk! “Some people who walk by don’t know we’re a school that teaches Illustration, and Chalk! changes that.”
