This April, DePauw Art Walk is set to take place during the month’s last week leading into the month of May. According to their website, Art Walk was formed in 2020 out of the desire to see live performances and art during the months of the COVID-19 pandemic that brought a halt to the creative world at DePauw University.
From then on, a group of School of Music students came together to create the first virtual Art Walk in 2021. After the success of the first Art Walk, the student organizers set to work on planning a bigger juncture of the event for 2022. Art Walk 2021 was a huge success, drawing in involvement from DePauw’s student community and broader Greencastle communities, and features a host of musical performances, curated art exhibits, live artists' talks and workshops, pop-up concerts, comedy shows, and more.
This year, the organizers of Art Walk are committed to achieving the same success. Paige Burgess, Art Walk’s community outreach coordinator, shared a few details about what Art Walk is for students who may not be aware of the grand weekend-long event.
“Art Walk was a past Honors Scholar thesis by a music performance major who has gone on to music and music and arts administration. It’s a weekend-long involvement of all kinds of disciplines which includes professors, students, community members, anyone really,” Burgess said.
In speaking about the types of involvement to expect, Burgess provided a long list of previous acts from previous years.
“There’s been drum circles, dance classes, photography exhibits, recitals…It’s open to anyone. If [anyone] wants to be involved, there [are] also events that are open to any kind of interaction regardless [of] whether or not you have experience,” Burgess said.
When speaking of getting involved in Art Walk, Burgess had many experiences to share from the performer’s perspective of Art Walk as well as being the community outreach coordinator for this year.
“I was involved in it last year. I was one of the performers in the contemporary ensemble concert [and] performed in some pieces that fellow students had written and some pieces that were written by other contemporary composers, which was a lot of fun,” Burgess said.
They continued, “I also helped out with some of the technical lighting and sound design aspects. I really enjoyed that.”
Now, with Burgess being the community outreach coordinator, there is a slight shift in their role in Art Walk.
“This year, I am the community outreach coordinator. I do a lot of interacting with people in the community to see if they’re interested and how we can best support their creative vision. I’m also still a performer, but I’m working on a more administrative level now, and it’s really rewarding to see people get involved and share their ideas and be really excited to be creative in a new space,” Burgess said.
One of the acts planned for 2023 includes second graders from local schools in the Greencastle community to show off their musical performances and instruments. Though if any student, faculty or staff member, or members of the broader community of Greencastle are interested in getting involved with Art Walk this year, Burgess highly encourages them to do so.
“2023 is still an option if they want [to get involved]. Throughout March, there is a submission form, and this form will confirm a spot in Art Walk’s weekend which is [from] April 28 to the 30. By submitting that form, you have to provide a little bit of information [such as] how many people [will] be there, what type of act it is…This is more for us to accommodate [any] needs [such as] how many chairs might be needed, how big of a space, [and] where you want it,” Burgess said.
To find more information about Art Walk, visit their Instagram page @depauwartwalk, or email Paige Burgess (@paigeburgess_2025@depauw.edu). For those of you interested in being a part of Art Walk 2023, the link to the submission form can be found here.