Sleeping bags, empty flasks and most impressively, fully decorated canvases, were all that remained as De Monfort University Leicester (DMU) Fine Art students overcame temperatures of -5 degrees to complete a 24-hour art marathon in a fundraiser to contribute to their end of year show, writes Jack Brooke-Battersby.
Students and the public alike were invited to attend the Big Draw to help final year Fine Art students raise money to help with the publishing costs of their final group catalogue.
This will then be distributed at their end of year show to showcase their truly impressive work to many potential employers and leading industry members who attend the show held at DMU.
Amy Packham, the mastermind of the event and a 3rd year Fine Art student herself, who battled the conditions throughout the marathon alongside course mates Sally Zelenczuk and Sophie Barker, believes it has been a huge success.
Amy said: “Obviously it has been absolutely freezing, but it has actually been a lot of fun. The cold has made it feel like more of an achievement because everyone from the course has really pulled together and the public have all been really supportive as well.”
Passers-by at the event, which took place outside the Student Union from 10am Thursday 22 to 10am Friday 23 January, obviously recognised the effort that the students had put in.
Amy said: “There have been plenty of people coming along with donations, especially towards the end when they could see we were really struggling, but even the Vice-Chancellor came along which was really nice of him.”
Sophie added: “It’s been a lot of fun but it’s incredibly hard to hold a pen with gloves on and when you’re shivering you struggle with drawing straight lines, but the main thing is we’ll have raised a lot of money towards our final catalogue for the show which will is really important for showing our work to potential employers as we all start to look for jobs.”
Sally, another brave survivor of the 24 hours, said: “We really want to thank everyone that came along and donated or helped with the art work and an extra big thank you to Andrea Jones (Health and Safety) and Andy Price (Head of 3rd Year Fine Art) for really making the event possible.”
The excellent facilities at the DMU campus which has been teaching Fine Art for more than 100 years allow for dedicated studio space throughout the course, as well as opportunities to study abroad, and have work exhibited around the UK including recent exhibitions at Ingenious Media, London.
Posted on Friday 23 January 2015