Article by James Mason | Photography by John Parks | Owl Staff
With three items: an iPhone case, an iPhone charging dock, and a waffle (yes, a waffle), HCC student Austin Emge designed the “iWaffle” as part of his art assignment.
“Art really can be anything,” according to Emge. Along with the rest of his Art 208 Digital Foundations II class, Emge and fellow students were put to the test to see if they really could make art out of anything.
In the spring of 2014, Professor Kenneth Jones had his students produce a sculpture that would be displayed in Joppa Hall at Harford Community College. For this project, Emge shares that he and fellow students were to take “three random things and make art out of it.”
The students were allowed to use any three things they wanted as long as they came from the Dollar Store. Emge wanted to be even more creative with his sculpture, so he gave his iWaffle “functions.” He states that the purpose of the iWaffle is “a new way of preserving and serving waffles to everyday consumers. The case is to protect the waffle… [and] the docking station preserves the waffle, giving it life and energy to stay edible.”
Others in the class took this assignment as an opportunity to make a statement about present-day society. Artist Bethany Carty made the “Tipped Trashcan Barbie.” She comments, “I don’t believe that Barbie would be bad if she didn’t look so much like an actual person. Unfortunately, she looks a lot like a real person, and this can be destructive to a girl’s, and even a woman’s, self-esteem.”
The class expressed their appreciation for this assignment. “I truly enjoyed this project,” Carty says. “It was amazing to see the pieces that we were able to create when we had such limited resources. I feel that sometimes we forget to challenge ourselves as artists. We tend to focus on one or two areas that we feel comfortable with and wind up growing complacent with our work.”
“Art really can be anything.”
Once the students had their final products completed and approved, the art was displayed in Joppa Hall. Taylor Rhodes, a history major, was fascinated with how creative and unique all of the sculptures were. “I couldn’t get over how original the ideas of the students were… I never would’ve thought of these things,” Rhodes states. “These pieces of art really showed me a different perspective of what art could really be.”
Creativity is something that many people think is lacking in today’s society. These particular art students, however, showed that no matter what the circumstances may be, everyone possesses a creative side.