Each year Pacific University students are given the task of coming up with a senior project and completing that project before the year’s end. Most seniors begin this project and by the end of the year they have already moved on and that’s where the project dies. But for former Pacific graduate Angelica Rockquemore she is hoping her project will become a permanent feature of the Pacific campus.
Rockquemore’s interest in Japanese gardens and her studies in Japan of these gardens are what led to her creation of the current Japanese garden on campus located by the library. Creating a long lasting on campus project is no easy task and Rockquemore could not have done it without the help of Pacific Art Professor Terry O’Day.
“I worked with Angelica to create a proposal to work on this project on campus because I am very interested in working with students who want to do projects on campus,” O’Day said. “Since that time I’ve been working on various ways to allow students to work on these kinds of projects on campus that could be lasting.”
As for the garden itself, it is not fully complete right now. O’Day and Rockquemore are using the help from the students in O’Day’s Sustainable Design class. The class was responsible for coming up with a final design for the garden to submit to Angelica who would take the proposals and comments from the campus community in her final design.
“There were four groups in the class and each group came up with a different proposal that took into account all the comments and research they had done and each one had a different theme,” O’Day said. “The proposals were all submitted to the campus community and we received feedback that was all turned over to Angelica. She’s agreed to take all that information and work with the students in the class to come up with a final design.”
O’Day explained that each student in the class also created a tile foot stone that will be included in the garden once it is completed. There was also another senior project last year that will be included in the garden, which includes a 20 foot tall art mural.
“These projects wouldn’t have even been possible if the student were to do it just by themselves,” O’Day said. “So there are a lot of people putting in their little bits to kind of build this big thing, which is really cool.”
As far as what the time table is for when they expect the project to be completed, O’Day says that she has submitted everything to Angelica, who is an architect in Honolulu, HI, and expects to hear back from her sometime this fall with a final design. Once O’Day receives the final design she will begin fundraising for the project.
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