Melissa Gonzalez-Lopez and Professor Holly Hanessian Collaborate on Hurricane Emergency Art Kits

from FSU Art BFA ’21 Melissa Gonzalez-Lopez:

This summer I had the amazing opportunity of collaborating with Professor Holly Hanessian in the making of a Hurricane Emergency Art kit that will be distributed to families and corporate companies. My responsibilities as an intern included: designing a Mailchimp newsletter, designing the layout of the content for the book included in the kit, researching and contacting suppliers for the kit materials, setting up a budget list for the project, ordering supplies, assembling and binding book mockups, and troubleshooting in the assembly of the kit. While making the kit, every option was consulted and discussed with Professor Hanessian in order to achieve the best result possible. Feedback and communication back and forth were very important.

Before this project, I worked with Adobe InDesign in the creation of a book for my Book Structures class, but my knowledge of that software was very limited. I made it a goal to continue working with this software to further develop my designing skills and this internship helped me achieve my goal. I learned new tools and tricks in order to achieve the best layout for the book. Another valuable experience that I gained from this internship was working with and helping another artist in an outside-of-classroom project dedicated towards helping the community. Previously, I made works for class and for my personal research without collaborating with others or contributing to the community. I am very grateful to be part of this project and to have worked alongside Professor Hanessian.

My internship experience was affected by the current global pandemic since I could not use the school facilities to print and assemble the book for the kit. This situation has partially impaired our work but it did not discourage us from continuing the development of the project. I met with Professor Hanessian once a week in her studio or through a Zoom meeting to work on the project, share our work progress from the previous week and plan what needs to be done next. Unfortunately, the kit will not be finished this summer, but I plan to continue working on it as a volunteer for Professor Hanessian.