University students give new spin to old artform

By Taylor Cheney

As part of their Introduction to Painting class, 60 USC graduate students created a "reliquarium garden," a modern spin on a traditional Indian floor painting made with an assortment of donated and recyclable materials. The project is a model of a 300-square-foot mural that will be displayed on the future homeless shelter "Transitions" on Main Street, which is expected to be displayed by the end of August.

USC graduate assistant and instructor for Introduction to Painting Khaldoune Bencheikh introduced the idea of a "reliquarium garden" to his class, but said he does not take full credit for its creation. According to Bencheikh, much of the materials were donated by the community after the project was posted on Facebook.

"I can't say it's my project, everyone worked on it," said the Moroccan artist. "The whole point of this was to make the community involved and social media allowed that to happen."

Katie McAdory, 33, gained experience in working with different mediums while participating in the project and said she looks forward to using these types of projects as an art educator. To collect materials, McAdory asked her three children to find things around their yard in Columbia and said it made the creation more worthwhile.

"To see that my kids had a hand in this is the most enjoyable part of it all. This was such a fantastic experience and I'm so glad to see it all come together," the art education student said.

While on display, visitors were given the opportunity to create their own piece of the mural with pieces of popcorn, shredded paper and pinecones.

McAdory's youngest daughter Collins followed in her mother's artistic footsteps by using plants to personalize her own piece of the mural.

"I like the pink flowers that I collected the best," the four-year-old said. "This is really fun." RCT