I was apprehensive at first about working with Silverclub and Elderberry. The staff member had made several remarks about how excited everyone was to be working with right-brained creative types, which I don’t consider myself at all. I’m a designer, a problem solver, and when I can’t approach things in a calculated, analytical matter, I’m frozen. And now I wouldn’t just be frozen in my inability to get my own work done, but I would have someone counting on me to navigate the scary world of “fine arts,” and I’d let them down too!

My Elderberry Club partner frequently mentioned that she was “no artist” but this turned out not to be an impediment to our collaboration, but a blessing. I told her I wasn’t either and we relieved her fears of not being talented enough to do artwork and my fears of not being creative enough to do artwork. Together, we did the projects each week without getting too serious about them and enjoyed each other’s company. The greatest benefit of this prolonged exposure became obvious with the final, individual project, when I told her to tell me what she wanted from the vase we would design together. “Tell me if you think it looks right; tell me if you think it doesn’t,” I told her. And she did. I think this was really important because it became clear that you didn’t need to be “an artist” to be creative. All you needed was to want to see something be created, whether thats a vase, or a painting, or a piece of music, and everyone has that somewhere inside of them.

~Ian, Senior, Art & Design