Sun Print Saturday
In September, a group of first-year Truman students in the Create Symposium teamed up with the Kirksville Arts Association and Kirksville Parks and Recreation to put on a pair of workshops for local children. The workshops, dubbed Sun Print Saturday, took place outside the new Sue Ross Art Center where children and parents learned how to create cyanotypes under the guidance of the Symposium students.
Sun Print Saturday was scheduled for the middle of the day to take advantage of the most direct sunlight, an important ingredient in the cyanotype process. The workshops took place at 11:00 am and 1:00 pm and hosted children ages 5 to 11. Symposium students set up multiple work stations to allow for social distancing and participating children were excited to get their hands on the different items laid out on the tables in front of them. The children and parents received an explanation of how it worked and the Symposium students helped them set up their first cyanotypes. Each participant got to make two cyanotypes; one to take home and one to give to the event workers so it could become part of a collaborative project and put on display inside the Sue Ross Art Center.
Once the children were finished assembling their cyanotypes, it was time for them to allow their work to sit in the sun and develop. To help pass the 20 minutes needed to expose the cyanotypes, Truman event workers entertained the kids with coloring sheets and sidewalk chalk. When the time came for the reveal, the kids were excited and grabbed their art pieces to rush them over to the event leaders who washed their works and presented them back to the kids. It was at this time that they were able to choose which project they wanted to bring home with them and which they wanted to become part of the Community Blueprint which is on display at the art center from November 7 to December 29th.
Sun Print Saturday had a positive impact on the community because it brought people together to create and offered some relatively safe, outdoor programming. We think giving children an opportunity to be creative, showing them a process that combines science with art, and connecting them to the Arts Center at an early age are excellent short-term goals that could have positive future outcomes. Arts education can help foster empathy for others in children and give them confidence to express themselves. We hope that the Art Center will become a common destination for them.
