Carefully dipping their paint brushes in the brightly colored paint, they stroke their brushes in circular motion, letting their creativity and mind run wild.
Starting off as a simple gallery and management course developed into something so much more.
As of this fall semester, the new club on campus, Studio 2 Street, has taken strides to becoming one of the top clubs on campus for EC artists and local talent.
“Our gallery management professor, Michael Miller, encouraged several of us to start a club that promotes local artist,” Charles Nygen, club president and photography and accounting major, said about the birth of the club.
“We have to support the arts or else we lose part of our souls,” Cynthia Silverman, reading professor and club member, said. “This club allows us to consider marketing our art and taking it from the studio to the streets and make people aware of this program and how many gifted and talented students there are.”
The purpose of the club is to encourage artists to promote their work and allow the public to see their art while at the same time gaining support from the local art community.
“The one thing I love about this club is that it gives you the platform for you to help build connections to close the gap between the local artists and the community,” Terell Black, photography major, said.
With the art community being very close and tight knit, it is difficult for new artists to show their work, Black said.
Studio 2 Street gives many artists the tools needed to be working artists and learn several of the basics, such as how to hang a painting or how to market their art.
“The club is pretty much focused on the artists side of art,” Nygen said. “We show them the basics like how to create a blog, hang a painting, or do a collaboration.”
The name of the club stemmed from the idea of taking the artist out of their studio and showing their art in the street and encouraging the students involved in the club to promote their art.
“The artist is always so busy in their studios that they need to move to the street and promote their art,” Silverman said. “You have to put it out there.”
Although the club has only been official for a few weeks, the impact Studio 2 Street has had on its members has been tremendous.
“It’s a great environment for people to give their opinion about your art and give you necessary resources for different connections and collaborations,” Black said.
The club’s first exhibition will take place at Crafted at the Port of Los Angeles, until Nov. 4 and will showcase a wide variety of art that will be up for sale.
“I’m usually the person who likes to show their art and this time around I helped curate for two of my friends,” Black said. “I am so happy about it and the opportunity to help other people out, especially my friends.”
Crafted is open to the public Friday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. with parking costing $5.
Although the impact of the club has been great, the founding members faced several roadblocks on their way to becoming an official EC club.
“We found that unless we were a formal club on campus there would be roadblocks,” Silverman said. “We had enough students who wanted to participate in the club but not enough of them had ASB stickers and we had to drag some of the students to the activities office to get them.”
Several of the club members have been actively working on making the club official since the summer time and to their excitement, Studio 2 Street has finally become an official EC club.
The final exhibition of the semester will take place at Sacred Grounds Coffee House in San Pedro on Dec. 6.
The club members encourage students to take a break from finals to enjoy a little bit of the amazing art that is still to come from Studio 2 Street.
