ArtX, WSU Vancouver’s student-organized art club, encourages students of all skill levels to practice or learn various art techniques while meeting other students interested in art.
Elsa Temme, senior DTC Major, is the president of ArtX. Temme wants students to freely create whatever they choose using the tools provided by the club and sees ArtX as a way for them to build an art focused community.
“[ArtX] is for all skill levels, so you can just walk in… we try to build a community to reach out to other art students, or just people that are interested in doing art at all, but maybe don’t know it as good, or if they do it really well they just want to hang out,” Temme said.
ArtX holds a workshop for students every week, focusing on a new project during every meeting. For example, in an October meeting, ArtX held a screen printing workshop for students.
Kevin Lennon, senior DTC major and design officer for ArtX, printed posters to promote ArtX using his own art technique.
“I just opened up [Adobe] Illustrator and then started making shapes, picking colors… I think color schemes kind of guide the entire thing because I just use Adobe Color and then get cool color schemes from that. … I genuinely don’t have an intent when I start any of them… I just kind of see where it takes me and then I’ll build a poster around what it looks like,” Lennon said.
According to Temme, ArtX faced many challenges during the pandemic, but has managed to continue scheduling workshops and events. In November, ArtX took club members to Seattle, where students visited the Seattle Art Museum and Frye Art Museum.
Navleen Kaur, freshman computer science major and vice president of ArtX, said the club’s activities and student involvement have been growing steadily this semester. The club gets anywhere from seven to 20 participants in their weekly meetings.
“For a watercolor workshop, we bought a bunch of new materials for everybody to use, we had a bunch of food and there were a lot of people,” Kaur said. “We do a lot more workshops now. … More people have been coming, it’s really nice.”
“[ArtX] is for all skill levels, so you can just walk in… we try to build a community to reach out to other art students, or just people that are interested in doing art at all, but maybe don’t know it as good, or if they do it really well they just want to hang out.” – Elsa Temme
Kaur encourages interested students to get involved in ArtX and try their hand at creating, and meeting other students. Temme and Kaur are currently building a schedule for spring 2023.
“It’s a lot of fun,” Kaur said. “You don’t have to be super good at art, it’s a really fun time to come here and create stuff with other people.”
Norman is a senior majoring in Integrated Strategic Communications and Digital Technology & Culture.