This semester there’s a course being offered on the art, architecture, and spacial studies of Ancient Rome. It’s a Connections course that culminates in one particularly awesome thing: an ACTUAL trip to Rome!!

For the first three weeks of summer, our small class will be staying in Italy and visiting all sorts of incredible cities, museums, and landmarks. We’ll be staying at the university of Washington’s Rome Center which is in a courtyard where a lovely market is held, and using their studio space to study and create art.

To prep for our trip, which is going to be pretty expensive, our class has decided to do a bit of fundraising. Our first endeavor was to open a table at last semester’s student market! Since the class is heavily centered around art, there are a lot of creative people in the class who volunteered to make stuff to sell at the market. We had people contribute with baked goods and other treats; Sam Swain’17 even sold handmade lipstick that smelled awesome and was made with crayons!!

As a printmaking major, I decided to contribute in the way I know best, so I led a mini printmaking workshop with my classmates and we made some holiday cards to sell at the table. Here’s some photos of us in action!

Marissa Irish’16 screen printing some Logger-themed holiday cards designed by Carly Brock’16!

Folding the cards with Marissa and Rachel Kalman’16

Another one of our designs: this intricate snowflake designed by Rachel!

Prepping the ink for our gradient “rainbow roll!”

A color variation in the snowflake design

All of our finished cards!!

We ended up doing pretty well at the market; we sold out of the holiday cards and earned at least enough money for a fancy group dinner with fancy wine in Italy! 😉 It was really fun working the student market and seeing what all the other tables had to offer. We’re hoping to host another fundraising event this spring as well. Hopefully it will go just as well!

Yours truly (left) holding down the fort with Ally Suarez’16!