"Project Series Stars Youngblood," by Carlisle Micallef, The Student Life
A plastic bag with the words “thank you” hangs on a wall in the Pomona College Museum of Art. The piece, aptly titled “Thank You,” is a visitor favorite. Elena Scott PZ ’18 felt the piece “is hinting at how ungrateful some would say our society has become."
"It reminds me of emptiness," Scott continued. "Then you have this 'thank you' in a warm red and orange statement—what does 'thank you' even mean? There's a void in our gratitude.”
Artist Brenna Youngblood is one of this semester’s featured artists at the Museum’s Project Series 50. The Project Series brings together focused exhibitions that seek to expose The Claremont Colleges to diverse artworks while supporting Southern California artists. This semester’s Project Series was organized and curated by Pomona College’s Rebecca McGrew, focusing on artists who play with words and phrases and experiment with found objects.
Youngblood's point of view came across as hands-on and involved a process of reinterpreting ordinary objects. While installing the exhibit, a student worker was in the process of scraping off letters used for a previous exhibit. As Youngblood looked on, she watched how these letters fell and accumulated on a piece of cardboard below. The pile caught her eye. Inspired, she asked to take the materials home to potentially use for a new piece.
Many students, including Scott, were inspired by this artistic process.