Last year’s live painting was a hit among audience members.

For the second year in what will hopefully become a long running tradition, student group We The Artists will showcase their work Jan. 19 at TCU Place.

The event, also known as We The Artists, presents art, music and drama from students all across campus.

The group was founded by the head of the Drama Students’ Association, Adam Naismith, in 2011. Naismith approached the heads of the Visual Arts Students’ Union and the Association of Student Musicians as well as members of the faculty in order to shape the collaboration.

“It was really important to Adam when he started this project to actually create something together as a group and not just in our own individual areas,” said Toryn Adams, administrative coordinator for the collaboration.

“The fine arts are so inherently connected.”

Adams said the show is a platform for students to interact with the community and to present their art outside of a scholarly context. By bringing We The Artists to TCU Place, a public venue, the group is hoping to reach a varied audience in the Saskatoon area, outside of the campus community.

A dramatic performance by Jordan Svenkeson.

The show will have music and drama performances as well as a gallery to showcase paintings, drawings, sculptures and even digital media work.

In addition to work from the visual arts, music and drama colleges, this year’s event will include a project from students in the university’s MFA program in creative writing, a program that began in 2011.

In their project, Brushes with Words, the students wrote poetry to accompany paintings made by the residents of the Sherbrooke Community Centre, a special care home in Saskatoon.

Brushes with Words has been featured on transit buses around the city since Oct. 1 and will be available for viewing at We The Artists on posters and postcards. The postcards will be handed out throughout the event and will have raffle numbers printed on the back for a draw at some point during the evening.

“It was a really exciting project. It was the first time [the MFA creative writing students] had ever done anything like that,” Adams said. “Last year was the first year that the MFA was [a program], so it seemed natural to include them this year.”

Patrons browse last year’s event.

Live action painting will be returning to this year’s event. Tyson Atkings, who participated in the live painting at last year’s event, will be joined by painter Jordan Bulgis.

“It was one of our biggest draws last year,” Adams said. The live painting artists start the evening off with a blank canvas and are to complete a work by the end of the evening. Last year the final project was auctioned off, but Adams was unsure if this year’s live painting will be for sale.

“Last year’s painting is beautiful. We have it at the university now,” she said. “Doug Thorpe, who is a faculty member in the English department, bid on it and won last year and donated it back to the university.”

No other artworks in the show will be for sale.

“We made a really conscious decision last year not to sell the art,” Adams said. “We didn’t want this event to come across as a money grab or an advertising scheme. This was just an event to show people what we do at the university.”

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Photos: Brianna Whitmore & Blair Woynarski