MFA students brighten local Athens shelter

In a city whose name is synonymous with the University of Georgia, it can be easy for students to overlook the community that resides in and experiences Athens beyond campus or the football stadium.

With a desire to have a positive impact on and relationship with the local community, Benjamin Britton, an associate professor of painting at UGA, met with the Executive Director of Bigger Vision of Athens Ryan Hersh to discuss potential opportunities for collaboration. Bigger Vision is a community shelter close to campus that engages in efforts to support locals experiencing homelessness with dignity and kindness.

At the conclusion of their meeting, Britton and Hersh decided on creating a series of onsite murals to bring greater awareness to Bigger Vision among student volunteers and to bring an uplifting and vibrant backdrop to life at the shelter. Britton began recruiting undergraduate and graduate students in the Lamar Dodd School of Art to be part of this experience.

Student Perspective: Jason Rafferty

Among the many students involved in the process of painting murals at Bigger Vision, third-year MFA student Jason Rafferty took a lead role as project coordinator. After hearing about the project from other students, Jason joined as an organizer last spring with hopes of gaining experience with murals and community work. In the summer of 2022, he enrolled in the course Critical Multicultural Studies in Art Education with Associate Professor of Art Education Christina Hanawalt, in which he learned, “the importance of giving things a go to enact the theories into the real world, trusting that dialogue and flexibility would yield fruitful results.”

By last fall, the official project team was established, including MFA students Jasmine Best, Caitlin la Dolce, Lucas Eytchison, Hayden Maltese, and Jason Rafferty. The team visited the shelter, helped serve dinner to guests, and invited guests to share their ideas for the murals to integrate what they envisioned into the final designs. They continued their communication, planning, and execution with the help of more than 50 volunteers.

“Working as a team was so important to getting this thing done,” Jason stated. “There was a lot of groundwork, from [the] design phase to the lead-up, with generating excitement, getting volunteers, supplies, and everyone fed, and our team made it happen through to completion.” He went on to share, “having that reliability and a small team to hold the vision was crucial to the project’s success.”

After initially worrying about the project timeline, Jason expressed gratitude for the surprising support and turnout on MLK Day 2023, the first day of the 4-day project. Everyone that lent a hand “in big ways and small ways,” really made a difference in completing the mural. Just according to plan, the mural project was completed on Saturday, January 21.

Impact of the project

The Bigger Vision mural project consisted of both interior and exterior work. From an “icky green color”, to a beautiful landscape, the mural team was able to transform the environment for those who work and live there. In place of a plain fence and building, people can now drive by and see bright, vibrant colors and detailed work featuring butterflies and flowers. First-year MFA student Caitlin La Dolce says that the inspiration for the butterflies came from a Bigger Vision guest. “When we asked what she would be excited to see in a mural, she immediately exclaimed, ‘butterflies!’,” which became the focus of the project. Caitlin also shared, “It was incredibly important to us when creating this design that it wasn’t ‘ours’ but was a public piece of art that we were facilitating and reflected what the Bigger Vision community wanted to see.”

Through support from Ryan Hersh, the Lamar Dodd School of Art Graduate Office, Lowes, and the many graduate and undergraduate volunteers, the team successfully completed the project with a little paint to spare at the end. Fellow MFA student Lucas Eytchison also wanted to extend a special shoutout to Marquis, the store manager at Baxter Street Papa John’s, for donating ample food for both the volunteers and shelter guests. The importance of teamwork was at the core of the entire project and helped them achieve success.

This work shines a light on student-led collaborations between the School of Art and the local Athens community that center equity in the arts and champion building and creating together.

Reflecting on the need for and impact of supporting our unhoused community, Caitlin shared “The fact that residents saw students coming in and spending their time to do the work to beautify Bigger Vision with artwork based on the feedback of residents on their weekends off is meaningful and empowering. It creates an incredibly important bridge in our community when more and more folks are falling in the gap created by the housing crisis daily.”

Jason adds, “Community outreach is so rewarding. I love the world of fine art, but we can be guilty of being cloistered in the studio and having this mass of creative energy sort of self-contained. Bridging out to the community with a collaborative project such as this creates excitement and momentum for an organization such as Bigger Vision, and it provides a tangible and enduring result that will last much longer than an art exhibit.”