Jessica Bai ’16, Sarah Barr ’16: Founded in the 2010-2011 school year by Spencer Ivey ’11 and Matt Lasensky ’11, two avid doodlers who could not fit art classes into their schedules, the Da Vinci Club had the initial purpose of providing a casual setting in which students could doodle, relax, and eat lunch somewhere other than the cafeteria. Now, two years later, the Da Vinci Club has much bigger plans. This year, led by Brittany Belo ’14, Brianna Belo ’14, Maria Burke ’14, Julianne Dones ’14, Kira Henson ’14, Amanda Molitor ’14, and Alexandra Silvera ’14, the club aspires to create more ambitious projects and take their creativity not only outside the bounds of the art room but also beyond Episcopal’s campus.
A typical Da Vinci Club meeting consists of creating small-scale art projects while listening to music and discussing future plans with the rest of the club members. “We try to be creative and relax with quick little fun projects because school is so strict and uptight,” explained Brianna Belo.
However, not all of the Da Vinci Club’s projects can be completed in one meeting. Last year, the Da Vinci Club worked not only during their weekly lunch meetings, but also during free periods and weekends to design, create, and put up the decorations that adorned Episcopal’s campus during EA/Haverford/AIS day. The Da Vinci Club was also responsible for the mural of Philadelphia located on the basketball court next to the Athletic Center. The planning, designing, and execution of this project required weeks of tireless effort and a great deal of help from students.
Although the Da Vinci Club has successfully made a name for itself in its first two years of existence, there are more projects that the club wishes to undertake this year. Many of the ideas for these projects were shared with the club in previous years but were never accomplished, including building and racing box cars during Arts Fest in the spring. “The box cars for Arts Fest were originally an idea from the founders of the club [Ivey ’11 and Lasensky ’11]. They wanted to incorporate the innovative side of Leonardo Da Vinci by coming up with designs for a fully functional drag-race car, and building it seemed like a fun way to do so. And, where better to showcase them than at Arts Fest?” commented Brittany Belo.
After two years of “practice,” this third year of the Da Vinci Club is intended to be the most successful year yet. “Last year was the first trial year under our leadership,” explained Brianna Belo. “We’d never run a club before and we weren’t seniors or juniors so we barely had any upper school experience under our belts. Of course, because we’re juniors now and we’ve had a year of Da Vinci by ourselves to sort through, we definitely know more of what to do and what not to do.”
“We want Da Vinci to be bigger and better this year, but not hectic,” continued Brianna Belo. “We want people be able to just relax and get away from the academic rigidness that we go through everyday and to just imagine whatever and then convert it into something tangible and to have fun.”
This year, the Da Vinci Club intends to carry out any partially developed plans, including the box car project, as well as expand and diversify the club by experimenting with projects involving different mediums.
To kick off this year, each member will create his or her own stop motion video. “We just wanted to start off with a fun, easy project that everyone could enjoy,” explained Brittany Belo. “This was a good one in particular because you don’t have to be very ‘artistic’ to just take a picture. It also shows a medium of art other than drawing.”
One of the major goals of the Da Vinci Club this year is to brighten EA’s campus. “We know there’s always that argument on whether EA supports the arts enough. But we’re not going to try and fuel the fire. We just want to add some more brightness and creativity to EA’s upper school atmosphere,” said Brianna Belo. The club plans to brainstorm ways to decorate the plain hallways of the upper school in order to create a more colorful and welcoming environment.
The club does not intend to keep its creativity only within the bounds of the campus. In the spring, the members of the Da Vinci Club plan to visit the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia to make cards with the patients. “As a club, we wanted to be able to give back not only to the EA community, but also to the Philadelphia community. We really wanted to embody the Tom Bowman theme of ‘random acts of kindness’ EA presented to us last year,” stated Brittany Belo, who thought of the idea.
“Da Vinci was a famous painter and really innovative. [The Da Vinci Club] is supposed to represent how art isn’t just drawing. It’s about creativity,” said Brianna Belo.
Leonardo Da Vinci would be impressed and proud to see how the Da Vinci Club celebrates his legacy. “We want to stress to people that this is not an honors art class,” said Brianna Belo. “You don’t have to be super awesome at art. You just have to like it and be willing to be creative, innovative, and have fun!” To join Da Vinci and participate in all the club has in store for this year, simply come to the art room on Wednesdays during lunch.