Lawns to Legumes: A Collaboration Across MCAD

During the Fall 2019 semester, Arts Entrepreneurship Department Chair Stephen Rueff discovered Lawns to Legumes, a call to action in saving the Rusty Patched Bumble Bee from going extinct.

Work by Kaila Larson

With Lawns to Legumes being a statewide initiative through the Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources (BWSR) and the non-profit Metro Blooms makes it a great client project for many departments at MCAD. In addition to Rueff’s Client Studio class work on a marketing campaign to raise awareness to the cause, Benjamin Kjos's Copywriting class and Advanced Illustration classes taught by Jaime Anderson and Allegra Lockstadt helped with the project as well.

The students in Kjos's copywriting class created a variety of ideas to help further this message through a large range of advertisements to be used on social media, newsletters, and even lawn signs.

Work by Amy Yang

Work by Becca Albert

The advanced illustration students created paintings, drawings, and prints to be used as posters and for editorial purposes.

Work by Kaleigh Miller

Work by Jamie-Lynn Tietz

“To see the clients excited about everyone's posters and actively talking about the work makes me feel like I'm doing something right as an illustrator," illustration student Jamie-Lynn Tietz said of the project.

Work by Arie Ksenia

“Sustainability is such a large focus in the Arts Entrepreneurship department and this project was a great way to really make an impact in the world we live in. Which is in and of itself the role we all have as artists whether your focus is fine arts, graphic design, or photography.” - Stephen Rueff

With a total of four classes and forty-three MCAD students all participating in this movement, they created a phenomenal amount of work for BWSR and Metro Blooms to pull from and use to help save the Rusty Patched Bumble Bee from extinction. Becky Rice, executive producer of Metro Blooms stated, “The MCAD students in all of the classes have really captured the spirit of the intent of this program, and I really want to thank the MCAD students and faculty for the amazing work they produced to help us all save this essential species from extinction.”

Work by Cameron Kim

Work by Paige Polzin

Work by Katie Sartor-Duchene

Work by Sue Vue