The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
LEAF art makes for a rainy day showcase
An old adage may warn against opening umbrellas indoors, but those on display at Lake Erie College are there for a good cause.
Lake Geauga Educational Assistance Foundation, or LEAF for short, is a non-profit that provides college and financial aid guidance to prospective college students throughout Lake and Geauga counties, and it is holding its Singing in the Rain Umbrella Project, an art show and auction.
The event showcases student-designed umbrellas adorned with one-of-a-kind artwork, which will later be auctioned off to the public to further LEAF funding.
The art display began Feb. 3, within Lake Erie College’s Royce Hall in Painesville, with student-designed umbrellas hanging from the rafters and walls. According to the college’s website, over 120 students in Lake and Geauga county art classes participated.
“The last three years I was teaching in Arizona,” explained LEAF Executive Director Dave Munson in a video highlighting the event. “The art teacher was doing this project where students were coloring umbrellas. It turns out he was doing the umbrella project and the money went to help a school program.”
Munson took the idea east when he relocated to Ohio and integrated it into LEAF’s fundraising operations.
“They’re all, actually, usable umbrellas. This is a high-end umbrella and now you have the unique, one-of-a-kind talented artwork on it.” — LEAF Executive Director Dave Munson
Not limited to LEC’s Royce Hall, the umbrellas will next be displayed within Mentor’s Great Lakes Mall until April.
Great Lakes Mall Marketing Director Kate Miller said Munson’s initial idea was to display them in various storefronts. “I said, ‘let’s hang them from the ceiling’,” she said.
This allowed participation to expand to design and engineering students, like those taught by Mentor High School’s CAD Engineering teacher Michael Prochaska.
“My role for the project was to actually come up with the design to hang the umbrellas from the ceiling in the mall,” he said. “We had six teams that worked on the project with six completely different designs. They had to make their designs relatively easy enough that the mall personnel were able to hang them.”
Once their display within the mall runs its course in mid-April, the public will have a chance to bid on the auctioned umbrellas in order to support the students involved and LEAF.
“Between the umbrella and their materials, it’s all waterproof,” Munson states in the same video.
“They’re all, actually, usable umbrellas. This is a high-end umbrella and now you have the unique, oneof-a-kind talented artwork on it.”