Four white walls covered in art pieces were placed in the Snow Family Grand Atrium on April 16, along with hanging poems and handmade rings.
The rings, placed near the stairwell to upstairs Schar Hall, were made by Elon sophomore Noah Elliot. His ringwork displayed materials such as moissanite, Australian opal and synthetic rubies.
When he was still touring collegesElliott said he made an effort to visit local jewelry stores.
“I sometimes stop in the local jewelry store and just kind of see what they have,” Elliott said. “I'm in the area. It's 15 minutes ’till my tour. So I stopped here, and they said, ‘You know, if you come to Elon, you can have a job here. Haha, just kidding, right?’”
When Elliott received his acceptance to Elon, he immediately sent the shop a message — and the rest is history.
Elliott showed off his work at the BROdly Elon Art Crawl on April 16, which was sponsored by the Elon Healthy Masculinities Initiative, which might have a new name in the upcoming years, according to the initiative’s coordinator Andrew Monteith.
“It precedes me. I kind of want to rename it,” Monteith said. “I'm not sure that particular name resonates with students here anymore.”
According to Monteith, the initiative strives to create a culture where men can make space for thinking about masculinity as a set of gender norms.
“Why don't we ask people who they want to be, which is usually something positive, and then help them think through how to become that person that they want to be?” Monteith asked.
The BROdly Elon Art Crawl was a pun created by Monteith to blend together the term “bro” and Boldy Elon, the name of the university’s strategic plan. The goal of the art crawl was to make space for creativity, particularly giving men the opportunity to showcase their art. However, the showcase included work from other artists as well.
“The goal here was really about fostering community creativity and just doing something new,” Monteith said.
Elliot said he submitted to the crawl because Monteith was his professor and had mentioned it to him during office hours.
“It seemed like the perfect challenge, as guys making art,” Elliott said. “He reached out, and I was more than happy to submit these.”
Prizes were awarded for works including best craftsmanship and most creative use of the Maker Hub.
Aside from ringwork, Elliott also does martial arts. He said he views both ring and martial arts as art — because, to him, art can be anything a person wants it to be.
“I view an art as anything you dedicate time to suck at it first, and then you get better and better and better with it,” Elliott said.
Elon senior Hank Heimlich is the healthy masculinities coordinator for the Coalition for Learning Empowerment and Anti-violence Resources, a group within the Elon Gender and LGBTQIA Center that specifically focuses on sexual violence awareness and prevention.
To Heimlich, healthy masculinity means being authentic, and the art crawl did exactly that.
“It's really just to show that there are people making art and things about masculinity,” Heimlich said. “There's a traditional feeling among some people that art is more of a girly thing, that it's not for men to do, that these sorts of subjects should not be tackled in art, and this is just sort of an installation to push back against that.”
Monteith said that people who submitted their work to the crawl were excited to see their work displayed.
“To me, that's the sort of positivity I really want to see as encouraging,” Monteith said.