Art Club’s Sweet Tradition
Every year, right around Halloween, the PVCC Art Club celebrates Dia de los Muertos with their Day of the Dead Candy-Thon. Members of both the Art Club and the Two-Dimensional Design class at PVCC collaborate in teams to design and create colorful murals of candy wrappers and sugary treats and compete to be named the best art piece.
The tradition began with former Chairperson of Visual and Performing Arts Beryl Solla as a fun way to teach and celebrate the Day of the Dead. After her passing in 2021, the event has continued on with a new addition: an ofrenda, an altar to honor loved ones who have passed.
“We realized, oh, now we have someone in our life that we want to remember. So we created this ofrenda, and now we keep doing it,” said Professor of Art Fenella Belle, a fond smile tugging its way up her lips. Belle took over for Solla as department chair and is also the faculty adviser for the Art Club. Belle admires her predecessor a lot. “She had lots of great, wonderful, crazy, wacky ideas. So we’re just building on them,” she said.
The ofrenda offers small paper hearts and invites students to write messages to their deceased loved ones and leave them there. The altar is decorated with colorful letters written with a love that extends past the realm of the living. Many of them likely bear Solla’s name.
Just a few feet away from the ofrenda, students huddle over folding tables covered in a preview of what will fill the baskets of trick-or-treaters the day after the event. They resist the temptation to snack on their medium—although a few club members hide the telltale crinkle of candy wrappers with their costumes—and instead use the treats to bring their sketches to life in murals made entirely of sweets. The colors pop out with the help of saturated wrappers, brightly-dyed candy, and colored sugar and crushed-up cookies that form a base for many of the pieces.
After two hours of careful crafting, three judges choose a winner among the murals. Additionally, other students and faculty are invited to vote on an audience choice winner. This year, both the judges and the audience agreed on a favorite: a gradient piece depicting a skeleton and a human hand outstretched titled “We’ll Meet Again.” After the winning team has received their accolades, the participants and gathered audience collect their favorite candy from the murals and indulge themselves with some well-earned sugar as they listen to the winners of the Creative Writing Club’s 600-Word Scary Story Contest.
But the fun doesn’t stop there for Art Club. Every year, the Art Club does a themed coloring book. This year’s theme involves scenes around PVCC and setting artists’ original characters in those scenes. Last year, they had a guest artist workshop at the McGuffey Art Center in downtown Charlottesville and had the opportunity to create encaustic paintings, a medium that utilizes melted wax. The club also takes field trips to galleries and art shows downtown.
Belle hopes to bring in speakers to talk to the club about how they bring art into their professional lives. She’s had former students that transferred into universities come back and speak about their transfer experiences and applications to guide club members who hope to do the same. Professor Salvator Moschella, a business professor at PVCC, has also come in to teach how to make a business out of art.
During the Fall 2025 semester, the PVCC Art Club meets on Thursdays from 12:45-1:45 p.m. in room 117 in the V. Earl Dickinson Building. This schedule may change next semester according to club member availability. However, even if students can’t attend meetings, Belle still encourages them to give her their emails for the club email list. The Art Club field trips occur at different times, and participation in the coloring book is open to all.
