After a long week of classes, students can get their creative juices flowing at Art Jam, an event hosted by the Arts Society every Friday.
Held from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at 641 Parsons St., all Lafayette College students are invited to attend and create in any form: from drawing and painting to writing and jewelry making. Students are also welcome to attend simply for the atmosphere, to read a book or to bask in a room bustling with artistic creativity.
“It’s very unstructured,” said McKenna Graf ‘26, the president of Arts Society and the creator of Art Jam. “I’ll have a box of crayons and notepad, coloring books, paint that people can take from, but it’s really very encouraged to bring your own stuff.”
According to Graf, she originally got the inspiration for the event during a winter break viewing of the television show “Atypical” (2017-2021).
“There’s one episode where the main character goes over to a friend’s house and everybody’s just doing drawing exercises and just having fun,” Graf said. “I was in a four-hour long car ride with my mom back from Vermont and I was like, ‘What if I did that?’”
People attend Art Jam with a variety of goals in mind. Some newcomers experiment with the coloring books and writing prompts that are made available to them. Some of the more regular attendees, according to Graf, have a specific interest they come to Art Jam to practice.
“I use it as a space to get my creativity pumping,” said Joanna Howson ‘26, a frequent attendee of Art Jam. “I actually normally don’t go there with a project. I go there to make a project while I’m there.”
Howson typically uses the space to create poetry, crafting her poems from start to finish while at Art Jam. Occasionally, she will get specific writing prompts from Graf to guide her work.
To Howson, Art Jam is “good at putting all the arts in conversation with each other.”
“Being in a community of people who are doing art, be it music, be it writing, be it painting, be it jewelry making, is nice,” she said. “It definitely makes you think of yourself as an artist.”
On the last Friday of every month, there are also workshops hosted by artists on campus who are “distinguished” in their specialties. Past workshops have focused on jewelry making, songwriting, poetry and collaging. Graf said that while the workshops are generally more structured than Art Jam events, how the session operates depends on the preferences of the artist leading it.
Anna Dragun ’27, who led the jewelry-making workshop, provided all of the necessary materials and then allowed attendees to “come sit and play around.”
“I basically brought all my stuff, like the wire, the beads, the little crystals for wire wrapping and some other stuff and I just set it all on the table,” Dragun said. “I wanted people to see that there and then have a vision of what they wanted to make and then just make it.”
The next workshop will focus on technical makeup, in anticipation of Halloween, and will be held this Friday from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.
To Graf, the goal of Art Jam is to see “a very varied group of people” participate in the space, whether they consider themselves to be creative or not.
Dragun echoed this sentiment.
“The main reason that I enjoy the Art Jam so much is because it’s so many different people in so many different disciplines all in one place,” Dragun said. “You really get a taste of everything, and you get to look around and see other people working on projects that you yourself have no idea how to do. I just think that that’s so cool — that’s what makes it so special.”
A correction was made on Sept. 27, 2024: A previous version of this article stated an incorrect address for the location of Art Jam. Art Jam is held at 641 Parsons St.