Students came together on Thursday, Oct. 19 in front of the Colonades to attend the annual PCAL Fall Festival, hosted by the PCAL Dean’s Council of Students.
This year, the festival’s theme was ‘PCAL Land,’ a creative twist on the board game Candy Land. With many fall festivities to participate in, faculty and students alike contributed to and experienced the festival.
Cassandra Rebman, sculpting instructor and studio technician, handed out scratch tiles to give the students a sense of what they do in the sculpture department, as well as the League of Sculptors and the sculpture club. Once students were finished scratching their designs into the sandy scratch tiles, they got to view and take home their work, which turned into a miniature relief sculpture through the use of aluminum pour. Dressed as Mr. Mint from Candy Land, Rebman was enthusiastic about her role in the fall festival, experiencing it for the first time.
“Working in this festival, the aluminum pour has been pretty awesome. The college is welcoming and open-minded, and are okay with us playing with fire,” Rebman said. “Safely, but you know, it’s a fun and rigorous activity.”
PCAD, the Painter’s Critique and Discussion Group, offered free henna at the festival. With a myriad of designs to pick from, students enjoyed getting to choose henna that suited their personalities.
Kinslei Crouch, a sophomore advertising major minoring in graphic design and sales, felt the fall spirit at the festival, enjoying the activities offered. Getting a vine-adorned mandala on her arm, Crouch was pleased with the henna.
“I feel like I normally don’t put myself as much into these things, but there have been a lot of good things,” Crouch said. “The henna really drew me in. I really, really liked the henna. The artists were fabulous and I think PCAL did a really good job.”
The creator of PCAD, painting professor Yvonne Petkus, first started PCAD around five years ago. Petkus advertises PCAD to not only painters and PCAL but to people outside of the department as well. With a wide range of students in attendance, she stressed that the group was for anyone interested.
“We’re a very inclusive group, and the idea behind it is to create dialogue and community both in our department and across the university,” she said.
Petkus additionally spotlighted what PCAD does outside of their group discussions for the WKU community. For the past three years, they have given henna tattoos at the PCAL fall festival. The year that there was a Spring PCAL festival, they did portraits of people. These events mean a lot to those who participate, as emphasized by Petkus.
“We did portraits, so people came by, and it was a huge line the whole time [and] our student artists doing portraits of people, some cartoony, some more naturalistic,” Petkus said. “So we try to engage the community that way.”
In attendance was also clown Twinkle Jon Stinkle, who enamored their audiences with a mysterious sticker box and fascinating tricks. Knocking on the seemingly empty sticker box three times, Stinkle shocked all by revealing a hidden compartment full of glittery stickers, each participant getting to take one for themself. Cass Resch, the student behind the clown suit, was at the Fall Festival as part of their research for their FUSE grant.
“I got a FUSE grant to clown, and to compare the relation between drag and clowning,” Resch said. “So, this is actually a part of my research in performance. I’m walking around, doing some clown tricks and, you know, talking to people.”
Art department head Kristina Arnold had much enthusiasm for the festival and its longevity. Getting close to occurring for the past ten years, the annual event shows no signs of stopping. Arnold highlighted that the Fall Festival features different eras of technology, with a variety of things shown.
“So, art and design, we’ve been the tea and stem for 5,000 years. So, every year, we have the foundry where they’re pouring hot metal. And over here, we have user experience and computer animation, the technology of the future,” she said.
Featured at the art and design table were Snapchat QR codes for filters designed by a faculty member, Mark Simpson. The filters included WKU face paint, a WKU hat, and the ability to place different types of berries in the photo scene. Students enjoyed using the interactive codes at the table and testing them out with friends.
Arnold harped on the organization of the festival, spotlighting the extensive group effort of the students and its impressiveness.
“This is a huge, giant group effort. But it’s all student-run and student-driven,” Arnold said. “We just show up and like, hand out buttons and stickers.”
News Reporter Apollo Menéndez can be reached at [email protected]
