ArtsFest Schedule

ArtsFest 2025 - April 7 to 11

Events are open to the public unless otherwise marked as Wilson College community only. Some events require reservations

Ongoing Events

Wilson College Student Juried Exhibition - Bogigian Gallery, Lortz Hall
The show provides a venue for Wilson students to share their work with the community. 

Wilson College and HCC Faculty Exhibition - Cooley Gallery, JSM Library
An exhibition featuring artwork by visual arts and graphic design faculty from Wilson College and Hagerstown Community College. This year’s exhibition will center on Wilson’s spring ArtsFest ’25 theme, Shared Stories. As part of ArtsFest ’25, our Cooley show will center on community Shared Stories through shared experiences, participation, practice, cooperation, collaboration, presence, and engagement. Artists will address the human experience, the stories of who we are, what we are, shared hopes, dreams, anxieties, perspectives, etc. As we all know, art is central to creating and reflecting community.  For this show, artists were invited to reflect on and share collective stories & experiences, whatever those may be. Visitors can expect to see work in a variety of media, including drawing & painting, photography, design, sculpture, and more. 

The Art of Farming - Owens Barn, Fulton Farm (M-Th. Noon to 7 p.m. and Fri. Noon to 5 p.m.)
The community is invited to Fulton Farm to chronicle the Art of Farming through photography, drawing, painting or other creative means. Entries will be exhibited in the Fulton Farm's Owens Barn during ArtsFest. 

FA 206 Painting Class Exhibition - Room 300, Lortz Hall
During this open studio students will exhibit artwork produced during the course of the semester in the Lortz Hall painting/drawing studio.

Multi-artist Gallery with MFA Exerpts - Room 024, JSM Library
This year, in addition to our regular gallery series, we are excited to host a multi-artist gallery open to the community in John Stewart Memorial Library classroom 024. The gallery will feature works from students, faculty, alums, and community members.

Sunday, April 6

5 to 9:30 p.m.
Muhibbah Dinner - Jensen Dining Hall 
An annual celebration of our international students at Wilson College, this event brings together the campus community to share in unique foods and international experiences. Attendance by invitation only.
 

Monday, April 7

10 to 11:30 a.m.
Painting Without Sight - Room 200, Lortz Hall - Reservations requested, register here.
An immersive, hands-on workshop where participants paint while blindfolded, challenging their perceptions and encouraging them to rely on other senses such as touch, intuition, and spatial awareness. The goal of this experience is to provide disability awareness and to allow participants to explore how art can be created without visual input, emphasizing emotional and sensory connection.

11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Suncatcher Make and Take - Lenfest Commons
Choose a suncatcher that tells your story and add color to it for display as part of your artistic expression. 

Noon to 12:30 p.m.
The Art of the Hardy Boys: Nearly 100 Years and Counting - Patterson Board Room, Laird Hall & Zoom at https://wilson.zoom.us/j/98479613868
The venerable Hardy Boys series is approaching its 100th birthday (started 1927), with new volumes still being produced. This presentation looks to explore the series’ various cover arts, with an emphasis on the early years of production. The presentation will explore the manner in which the cover art reflects common elements in the series and how these covers aid in telling the story of the Hardy Boys series overall. 

5 to 7 p.m.
Ceramic Wall of Wisdom - Outside of Lortz Hall
Students will be able to add brief stories or designs that tell stories, to ceramic tile for installation on campus. 

Tuesday, April 8

11 a.m. to Noon
Common Hour: "Singing Each Others Songs-Tightening the Weave of Community" with Melanie DeMore - Lenfest Learning Commons, JSM Library
The Wilson College Common Hour lecture series is dedicated to fostering inquiry and conversation across the campus community. For ArtsFest, Grammy-nominated singer Melanie DeMore will talk about the effects and influences of sound and music in our lives. The Common Hour event series is open to the public and will be held throughout the academic year.

Noon to 1:30 p.m. CANCELED
Tangle and Take: Zentangle Art - Lenfest Learning Commons, JSM Library
Watch local artist Kayley Mertz create beautiful zentangle art designs and learn techniques to create your own work of art! 

2 to 3 p.m.
Tea with Wes - Lenfest Commons - Wilson College community only

4 to 5:30 p.m.
Poetry and Politics: ArtsFest Poetry Reading - Sarah's Coffeehouse - Wilson College community only
Features poetry related to politics, history, memory, conflict, and peace in the world.

6 to 7:30 p.m.
Community Sing with Melanie DeMore - Laird Hall
Join Melanie DeMore in a one of a kind community sing. This event is for any individual of any musical experience to join together in harmony. No prior rehearsal, preparation, or music reading ability required. Don’t miss this event with multi-Grammy nominated artist, Melanie DeMore!

Wednesday, April 9

11 to 11:30 a.m.
Scenes from Greek Tragedy - JSM Library Patio - Wilson College community only
Students enrolled in AWS 120: Classical Mythology will performed selected scenes from ancient Greek tragedy.

Noon to 1 p.m.
Exploring Neurographic Art - Lenfest Learning Commons, JSM Library
Demonstration of what neurographic art is. This form of art is therapeutic and focuses on enjoying the process more than the final piece. A piece of art that is made while in meditation on thinking about nothing at all in particular helps one understand their story and share it by seeing the piece as it is not made to be visually pleasing as much as it is to enjoy making the marks.

3:30 to 5:30 p.m.
Moving Stories: Integrative Movement Practice & Collaborative Dancemaking - Appenzellar-Buchanan Dance Studio - Reservations requested, register here.
We'll start with a feel-good progression of breath, bodywork, articulation, activation, rhythm, and release - getting fully INTO the endless possibilities of our moving, dancing bodies. Then, we'll create, learn, explore, deconstruct, and reconstruct guided phrasework to collaboratively devise a new creative piece within the classroom community.

While it may sound complex, this workshop is open to and appropriate for movers of all levels and all kinds. No experience to professional experience - all are welcome to come explore and create through the possibilities of our moving selves. 

Thursday, April 10

11 a.m. to Noon
Circle of Perseverence - Room 024, JSM Library
The Circle of Perseverance exhibition and discussion is based on the ever changing relationship of an artist through time. As artists, our work is constantly evolving through every life experience, which leads to changes in our artistic style.  Sometimes, the changes are unexpected and makes it physically or mentally difficult to create art.  Although the path is difficult, finding the way back enables the artist to find creativity again. 

Noon to 4 p.m.
Printmaking with Sue Coe - Lortz Hall - Lower Level
This special event will allow participants to learn how a relief print is made and produced. During the event we will use one of Sue Coe’s relief blocks to print a small edition of her important work. Participants will also have the chance to screen print a t-shirt that features an image made by Sue Coe!!!!

Noon to 4 p.m.
T-shirt Printing - Room 300, Lortz Hall
The Wilson College community is invited to create their own commemorative t-shirt for ArtsFest 2025!

2 to 4 p.m. NEW!!! - Room 102, John Steward Memorial Library
John Stewart Memorial Library Pop Up!
Journaling/Scrapbooking and Blackout Poetry. 

2 to 4 p.m.
Shared Visions-Foundry Workshop - Room 306 Lortz Hall
The Foundry Art Market, Chambersburg’s cooperative downtown art space, represents 30+ regional artists creating work in a wide variety of media.

Volunteer artists will host a collaborative art project for Wilson College’s ArtsFest ’25, inviting Wilson students and community members to work together to create a large mosaic panel.

Each participant (not limited to those considering themselves “artists”!) will create an individual design of their own choosing on a small canvas that will be combined on a 40-square-foot panel, "Shared Visions”.

4 to 5:15 p.m.
Artivism Poetry Reading with Dominique Jordan - Sarah's Coffeehouse
Sir Dominique Jordan visited campus in February to talk about his "artivism" and do a poetry workshop with students to get them thinking about how their art can be activism. He is returning for ArtsFest to do a reading of some of his work and also have students read their work that resulted from his February workshop. 

5:30 to 7 p.m.
Sue Coe Lecture - Lenfest Learning Commons, JSM Library
Since the 1970s, Sue Coe has worked at the intersection of art and social activism to expose injustices and abuses of power. Born in England in 1951, she moved to New York City in the early 1970s and made it her home. In 2012, she became an American citizen. Coe has always been ahead of the curve on social issues, with her art serving as a conduit for her progressive politics. Thinking of herself as an activist first and an artist second, she has focused her attention on a wide variety of issues, translating diverse topics such as the perils of apartheid, the life of Malcolm X, and the horrors of the American meat industry into artworks, exhibitions, and books. Coe’s graphic art, filled with unapologetic political commentary, struck a nerve when it appeared throughout the 1980s and continues to resonate today.

Working as an illustrator since her move to the United States, Coe’s growing reputation over the next two decades allowed her to set her own agenda with her editors. Her politically pointed illustrations appeared in a variety of prominent publications, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Nation, Rolling Stone, Esquire, Mother Jones, Entertainment Weekly, and The Progressive, among countless others. While she managed to get a fair number of uncompromised images into print, she also grew frustrated by the increasing corporatization of the American publishing industry. She began creating her own body of work, seeking alternative outlets for publication, and soon developed a working relationship with Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly, co-founders of the groundbreaking Comics magazine Raw (1979-1991). Not only was Coe’s work featured in almost every issue, but Raw also published her books How to Commit Suicide in South Africa (1983) and X (1986). In the mid-1980s, Coe became a contributor to the left-wing comics anthology World War 3 Illustrated, a relationship that continues to this day. Her work has also appeared in numerous Blab! anthologies published over the past two decades. She is widely regarded as one of the best and most scathing political artists of her time.

Aware of the rarified air of the gallery and museum world, Coe remains committed to making art accessible to the masses. Through printmaking, she found a way to serve a broad audience, disseminating her messages through affordably priced prints accessible to people of all financial means. Numerous books and visual essays published over the years have served a similar purpose. Over the past two decades, her book projects have included Bully: Master of the Global Merry-Go-Round (2004), a scathing critique of the Bush administration, as well as Sheep of Fools: A Song Cycle for Five Voices (2005), which provides a broad history of sheep farming and highlights the abuses of the animals for human gain. Cruel (2012) offers a continued, critical look at the animal industry, building upon her groundbreaking book Dead Meat (1996). The Animals’ Vegan Manifesto (2016) features close to 100 original woodcuts and linocuts advocating for animal abolition, while Zooicide: Seeing Cruelty, Demanding Abolition (2018) uses original drawings and linocuts to demonstrate why zoos should be abolished. Earlier publications include the aforementioned How to Commit Suicide in South Africa (1983) and X (1986), as well as Police State (1987) and Pit’s Letter (2000).

Coe’s newest book, A Young Person’s Guide to American Fascism (2025), weaves together punch-packing art and powerful, precise words to expose the authoritarianism, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, and misogyny that populate the political landscape of the United States today. Designed especially to inform and activate younger readers, the book’s pages pay particular attention to the threats facing the most basic tenets of American democracy.

7 to 8:30 p.m.
"Rooted in Soul: Embodying the Dunham Technique" Dance Workshop - Appenzellar-Buchanan Dance Studio - Wilson College community only - Reservations requested, register here.

Friday, April 11

11 a.m. to Noon
Will's Creations: Jewel Crafting and Autism Awareness - Room 200, Lortz Hall
Will is one of our favorite classroom visitors to EDU-215, "Students with Special Needs".  Will has autism and one of his favorite things to do is to create "jewels" as a means to help him feel productive and to reduce his anxiety.  He and his mother, Sandy, and Dr. Janet Foor, will help others create their own unique "jewels" that they can take with them.  Throughout the session, participants will learn more about Will and Sandy's outreach efforts to increase awareness of autism and supports available in Franklin and nearby counties.

Noon to 2 p.m.
How to Be a Good Ancestor: Civilly Sound & Rooted in Community - Appenzellar-Buchanan Dance Studio - Wilson College community only - Reservations requested, register here.

4 to 4:30 p.m.
Orchesis Work-in-Progress Dance Showing - Appenzellar-Buchanan Dance Studio - Reservations requested, UPDATE: reservations are now full. 
The performance is a work-in-progess showcase of Wilson students' choreographic work. It ranges in dance styles and music with an opportunity for Q&A and audience feedback following each piece, creating an immersive experience for all who attend. 

6 to 7 p.m.
"We Are The Harvest" Camille W. Dance & Co. Performance - Appenzellar-Buchanan Dance Studio - Reservations requested, register here.

Saturday, April 12

8 p.m.
The Pollenators Art Club Art Sale and Concert - Sarah's Coffeehouse
Hosting the local band, The Cicadas. 

Image

ArtsFest was partially funded by The Palmer Family Foundation, a fund of The Foundation for Enhancing Communities.