Last week, Bethany was gone on vacation so she gave me a couple things to research. I spent my free time looking up ideas for activities to do with teens that involve both art and exercise and options to put trail signs at the Doris Leeper Trails near New Smyrna.

For the first part, Bethany told me that there is some sort of recreational center being built in the area that will offer teens a place to hang out after school and offer resources. She is hoping to set up some sort of workshop with them at some point that not only includes art, but also exercise since that is a big part of wellness, especially for teens. Some ideas I came up with to share with her are to take a walk around the area and sketch what everyone sees, a game where students have markers accessible at different parts of the room to draw and once music stops or a while blows, they run to find a new location or different marker, and alternating physical activities with small art projects. I’m not exactly what direction she wants to go with this, so I’ll show her my ideas and see what she likes.

In terms of the trails, this is a more complicated situation. Basically, the founder of the trails is also the founder of ACA so they are connected. The trails do not have good signage and it’s easy to get lost (plus there’s no service to look up directions). I tried to look up criteria for trail signs, examples of ones in other locations, and found information about these specific trails online that could be used on signs. 

We also hosted the Spotlight workshop on Saturday. This week was a small turnout, likely due to spring break. We discussed Brice Marden, who is a minimalist abstract artist. Some of the paintings we observed by him included grey, dull backgrounds with brights lines curving around the page. Bethany discussed the paintings and the idea of abstract minimalism before turning things over to the group. While there is always a theme, Bethany makes sure to let everyone know they have creative freedom when it comes to their art and everyone is welcome to take a different direction. I personally took the central idea but did not try to imitate the artist in my painting. I was able to have conversations with a few different people about my major and how I’ve been able to pick the classes that best suit the direction I want to go.