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QuickTake:
Students take an interdisciplinary class and learn how to design, get public feedback and build a public art project. The project will be an outdoor gathering place aimed at creating community on a commuter campus.
During their Thursday morning class, Erika Beyer and Lee Imonen’s Lane Community College art students are in end-of-term crunch time. Some pull up renderings on their computers and talk about building materials in the design classroom, while others bend and clamp wood to form a lattice-roofed dome model in the sculpture studio.
Meanwhile, Beyer tells students to organize the drawings and sculptures on display in the hallway for the students’ final presentations. These talks will be attended by faculty and students — and also deans, administrators and facility managers.
That’s because students are finalizing plans for a full-scale amphitheater that will be built next school year on LCC’s campus.
Imagining a space for community
Imonen, a sculptor focused on public art, and Beyer, an illustrator with a master’s degree in architecture, are the masterminds behind the course. Their students have designed the Commons Grove Amphitheater, a gathering space that will be built in the heart of the campus.
The two instructors initially dreamed up the course — Designing Art for Public Spaces — as a way to draw students back to the classroom after the pandemic and foster interdisciplinary cooperation.
“We started having conversations with people in other departments and having little meetups over beer and just talking about — are there ways that we could collaborate on projects and have our students collaborate?” Imonen said.
Imonen and Beyer also wanted their students’ work to contribute to the campus. They noticed that because LCC students are commuters, the campus lacks gathering spaces and distinct landmarks, such as public art installations, that help people orient themselves. The two professors wanted their students to create an installation that was usable, where people could meet and sit down.
Beyer and Imonen have received around $100,000 from the Lane Forward Fund to make the course a reality, and they are now three terms into the six-term project. Along the way, several other departments have gotten involved or plan to be involved next year, including students from the drafting, welding, construction, manufacturing, drone and aviation, geology and sustainability programs.
Imonen said in the past, collaboration between departments has not been easy, due to what Imonen called a “scarcity mindset” around resources. Recent faculty hires, however, have been much more open to the idea of collaboration, and Imonen has formed new relationships with other departments. These collaborations give his art students more opportunities and prepare them for the realities outside of LCC’s walls.
“We live in an increasingly interdisciplinary world,” he said.
Skills for the real world
In Imonen’s sculpture studio, students work on a small dome built from criss-crossing wood panels and thicker curved wooden pieces.
The dome, while it contains some elements that mimic the final design, is not a model of what they will build outside. Instead, it’s a structure where students learned lessons about woodworking and patience.
“It’s kind of like our laboratory,” Beyer said.
Noah Russell learned that projects like an amphitheater are much more complicated than he previously thought. Getting feedback from stakeholders and having to go back to the drawing board was sometimes grueling, he said.
“We think that we put all of our hard work into it and that’s the end of everything, and, you know, it couldn’t be any better,” Russell said. “We go back and redo something, it’s even better the next time. Every time.”
Russell, 24, doesn’t know exactly what he wants to use his new skills for, but seeing tangible progress while learning woodworking techniques has given him new confidence.
Students in Beyer and Imonen’s classes are in the class for different reasons. One wants to do public art installations, another wants to do landscape architecture, while another plans to use the hands-on skills she gained to do home projects.
The goal is to give the students the skills and tools to bring their plans to life. In addition to the welding and wood-bending lessons and learning how to use a 3D graphic design program, students have made several presentations to stakeholders and created polls to solicit feedback.
“We’re going to try to teach the level of professionalism that isn’t just kicking an idea around and making it, but actually learning how to talk about it,” Beyer said.
Erin Tomb, 29, took the class because while she is very familiar with the studio side of art, she is less familiar with the public-facing parts. The class has taught her hard skills, including making a plan and budget for materials to present to funders.
“It’s hard to buy an 800 pound stone if you don’t have money for it,” she joked.
What’s next
After students make their final design presentations and receive feedback from stakeholders, they will submit their designs to an engineering firm in Portland that will analyze the structure of the amphitheater and make sure it is sound. The amphitheater will be about 40 feet by 30 feet.
“It’s a very sculptural form,” Imonen said. “I mean, even if you were just building a standard house or a room, you’d still have to have an engineer, but in this case, there’s a lot for them to figure out.”
This may mean students have to change the materials of a beam or alter the design slightly to make it safe for people to use.
After the design is approved by the engineers, Imonen and Beyer will work with LCC to obtain construction permits. Next year, students can construct the project. Many students who are currently in the class, including Tomb, will continue taking the course, to see the project through.
“We get to create something that is lasting, that’s going to be here for a long time,” Tomb said. “It’s a unique opportunity to make an impact on campus — not just a mural or something to look at — but something to use.”
