For the Art Student Union, a student group dedicated to helping people gain knowledge of the visual arts, it was important that their art show, ‘D-I-Y,’ selected student works, be more critical and cutting-edge than in years past.
I walked though the piles of submissions from USM students in Kidder Lounge the evening after they’d been due. If students were following this prompt, Do-It-Yourself, it was hard to tell. Many were paintings and drawings that seemed miles away from the theme D-I-Y, which isn’t just about your own hand at the paintbrush.
The modern Do-It-Yourself effigy is a product of human efficiency at work, ‘Yankee ingenuity,’ as it might be called in these parts. It’s the working of minds and creative motive to produce something useful, valuable. Much pop-culture attention has been given to D-I-Y, as magazines and television programs hurry to supply tips and trends to the masses.
The 15-day show in the Area Gallery of the Woodbury Campus Center illustrated what the ASU felt about the theme. “DIY subculture explicitly critiques modern consumer culture, which emphasizes that the solution to our needs is to purchase things, and instead encourage people to take technologies into their own hands to solve needs.”
“When selecting the work, we really considered the prompt, in fact, we were critical,” said Justin Levesque, 22, a senior photography major, president of the ASU, “We needed to see the perimeters of D-I-Y were played with.”
The standout submission, if not for it’s color and positioning, was submitted by a USM sculptor, Patricia Flynn, who’s pipe-cleaner and rubbish wall-hanging transforms the dull into something flashy and forward.
The Art Student Union asked for viewer participation through an installation built on one wall, hoping for students to contribute to the show. They asked for additions to a wall of photocopied works that provide commentary on the D-I-Y era, and our role in it.
For more information about ASU, check out it’s page on the USM site, http://student-groups.usm.maine.edu/bso/groups/asu.html