Using art and font design to reflect on the joys of climbing and to encourage new climbers
We expanded our partnership with Scrapyard Climbing Collective this summer to provide 7 workshops for 88 participants in their Urban Adventure day camps, including 2 free workshops for Boys & Girls Clubs campers. This summer we considered the power of words by exploring the font design, inspired by the illustrations of Lisa Congdon and Morgan Harper Nichols.
We began by asking three questions when students arrived:
- What is your favorite thing about climbing?
- What advice would you give a new climber?
- What does climbing mean to you?
After a week of climbing at Scrapyard, these campers had some great advice for new climbers. Some of their responses were:
- “You can do hard things.”
- “Don’t force yourself to do things you don’t feel comfortable doing.”
- “Say thank you to your belay partner.” and
- “You got this!”
We introduced students to the work of Congdon and Nichols before heading downtown to explore the variety of fonts used at businesses along Eight Street. Students returned to the studio armed with clipboards full of gathered visual inspiration, and used Sumi ink, natural inks, colored pencil, and watercolor to create their own hand-rendered fonts in relation to words of encouragement that can be given to fellow climbers, or climbing phrases. They also each added their answers to “What does climbing mean to you?” to a large-scale collaborative piece that will be displayed at Scrapyard beginning this fall. If you are a novice climber or simply need encouragement, feel free to check it out.
