Art Minor in Ireland: Coloring with Classmates
During these two months here, we’re staying in a quaint yellow cottage just 5 minutes outside of the center of Ballyvaughan, which is located in the County of Clare in western Ireland. The cottage has four bedrooms, two doubles and two singles. There’s a nice open living room and skylights all around the house. We have an adorable little kitchen with barely any counter space for two people to cook at the same time. My favorite part of the house is the backyard. Since our cottage has yellow doors, whenever you open the back door to go to the backyard, a stream of bright yellow light flows effortlessly into the house because of the sun shining on the door and into the house.
Since there are only twelve of us on this dialogue during Summer 1 and only four of us during Summer 2, it’s been really easy to get to know everyone. The group art projects that we have had during our first week here have definitely pushed us to get to know each other quickly, which I’m pretty thankful for. Additionally, we all work in the same “barn studio” at the college, so although we have just met each other at the beginning of this trip, it’s been really easy for us to spend time together. Our favorite way to procrastinate from working is walking around the studio to talk to each other and look at everyone else’s projects.
One of the most amazing components of this Art minor dialogue, in my opinion, is the opportunity to be surrounded by other Northeastern students who share a similar interest and passion for art. It’s so cool to sit in a living room with five or six other students, discussing different drawing styles, sources of inspiration, and also artistic hopes and ambitions. Coming from a STEM major and a high school that didn’t focus much on the arts, I’ve never been so surrounded by people who are just as interested in art as I am, if not more. I love seeing everyone’s different styles of art and hearing about how everyone else balances art with their major. There are a lot of STEM students here, which is really interesting. Sharing a studio space with all of these people and seeing everyone’s amazing artwork has been extremely inspiring and creatively invigorating.
