The Expressive Arts Project

The Expressive Arts Project (EAP) at Pikes Peak Community College is dedicated to community building and student success through shared creative experiences. The community anticipates EAP’s seasonal events like the ART Seedlings Festival, typically held in the spring but canceled this year due to campus-wide coronavirus safety measures. 

Professor Laura BenAmots is an ART faculty member with an MFA in painting and printmaking. She shared the following about the EAP Mission (in the time of COVID-19): 

In the spirit of the Expressive Arts Project (EAP) mission of empowering Student Success through Creative Engagement, we want to make sure we are a resource for our students and faculty as they maneuver the unusual stresses of these times. 

As you all know, in the fall semester, we bring you the Combat Paper opportunity for co-curricular student engagement and experiential learning. In the spring, we bring you the ART Seedlings Festival supporting student success by showcasing creative ways that one can engage, express and release tension through ART while also showcasing new fields in creative therapies for students to explore.

Obviously, we have had to cancel this year’s Spring ART Seedlings Festival, but two of our facilitators have shared some easy, satisfying, “at home” activities you can engage in on your own, with your children, or with your students! Please enjoy.

In addition, our fall Professional Development Week (PDW) will be a partnership between Center for Excellence in Teaching & Learning (CETL) and EAP as we create a unique, meaningful experience to Revive, Reunite, and Reinspire.

 

Try These Activities At Home

EAP Seedling Facilitators Ashley Cornelius and Hellen Dunn offer simple, no-cost ways to add creativity to your day.

  1. Garden Sculpture:

    Rock Stacking. Collect a small group of rocks that “speak” to you. Start stacking them paying attention to their planes and angles of balance. When you get a stack you like, take a photo and share it with family or friends via email or on social media. 

Contributed by Hellen Dunn, PPCC Adjunct Instructor, sculptor. 

  1. Wiring: Create a chapbook.

    Each poem is a love letter to a part of your body. Sometimes it’s hard to love yourself fully, so these exercises help you break it down. It can be a small part of your body like a pinky toe or something big like your arms.  

Contributed by Ashley Cornelius, Poet, Therapist and C0-director of Poetry 719. 

Stay tuned to EAP news in the fall for the Combat Paper, an international project founded and run by Veterans to turn old military uniforms into art and paper.

Post images courtesy of the Expressive Arts Project. Featured image by Chris Barbalis on Unsplash.