Nora Meeks, Staff Writer–
On March 29, The Hoaglin Wellness Center hosted its first Spring Art Fest. The event included build-your-own bouquets, create-your-own tea blends, therapy dogs, book binding, customizable essential oil blends, and a community art wall. The festival aimed to celebrate the coming of spring and art through wellness.
Anastasia Wood, ‘25, is the head program coordinator and a wellness ambassador at Hoaglin. She says while this is their first ever art fest, they hope to make this an annual event.
“Art is one of the biggest ways that I practice wellness and have promoted wellness at the wellness center…we really wanted to give people an outlet to be creative and figure out how to do that for themselves,” said Wood.
Despite the cloudy weather, students still stopped by to participate in the plethora of activities. Denison Hospitality provided a parfait and smoothie bar as well as a mocktail station featuring juices from Tractor Beverage Co.
The essential oil station was run by a massage therapist from Columbus. She provided essential oils so students could create different blends to relieve stress or muscle aches.
There were also therapy dogs present for students to pet and cuddle with. One of the dogs was a 10-year-old golden retriever named Cooper, who got plenty of love and attention from the students in attendance.
Aside from the dogs and the flowers, the bookbinding session led by Wood also drew many students. Wood does a monthly event called Art and Chill at Hoaglin that allows students to decompress with art. She took inspiration from this event to bring bookbinding to the art fest. Students sat around a table in the multipurpose room as they meticulously stitched together their books with blank pages to fill with whatever they desired.
Another unique activity was the community art wall, a canvas with a blue background waiting for students to come and add their art to it. Throughout the event, students came over and used paint pens to turn the canvas into a mosaic of different pieces of art.
As the weather begins to warm up and spring arrives, more and more students are able to go outside and practice wellness in nature, and this event celebrated that.