PHOTOS: FIT Students Turn Seventh Avenue Into Public Art Gallery

CHELSEA, NY — Seventh Avenue has been transformed into an open air art studio this week, as dozens of illustration students take the walls of the Fashion Institute of Technology to paint outdoor murals.

The annual project for the school's senior illustration student brings dozens of colorful murals to Chelsea. This year, students are creating their works on the exterior of the Pomerantz building, along Seventh Avenue and West 28th Street.

The project originated in 2013, said Dan Shefelman, the students' professor. Shefelman told students to "draw literally on the city," and had them creating images and murals on sidewalks in Chelsea. Next year, the project became more formal, and moved to the walls of FIT buildings. Now, it's an annual project for senior illustration students at the school.

As students drew their murals on Wednesday, passers-by stopped to take photos and watch as the designs changed from sketches to complete murals. (For more information on this and other neighborhood stories, subscribe to Patch to receive daily newsletters and breaking news alerts.)

"For the students, it's about overcoming their insecurities and their fears about people seeing their art," Shefelman explained.

The project helps students to escape the "academic bubble," he says, while also serving as a confidence-booster for their work.

"The responses that they get from the passers-by, the praise they get, it's crazy," he said. "As a professor you don't ever want to give a critique that's not hard or tough, but out here, they don't get that. They just get sort of universal love and praise and it's incredible."

This year, the murals are centered around the theme of dreams and dreaming.

Senior Sammi Chan, 21, said she spent weeks designing her mural before stepping onto Seventh Avenue to paint. Chan's mural features a woman with branches stemming from her head and a dress made of roots who is holding the world in her hands.

"She's holding this world with people sleeping on it, and it's just an idea of what I interpret what dreaming is about to me," Chan said.

About 75 seniors are participating in the project this year. The murals, which are painted using pastels mixed with water, will be able to withstand most weather, Shefelman says, and will remain in place for months until the canvas is cleaned for next year's seniors.

Shefelman said the project worked because it allowed students to see reactions and talk with viewers of their art in realtime.

"Even for professional artists you don't really get to see honest everyday reaction to art," Shefelman said. "It engages them."

Images by Ciara McCarthy / Patch