by Elise Goitia '18

What started out as a class project evolved into the reinvention of an empty lot in downtown Galesburg when Knox College students planted 1,500 tulips on the site, giving it a lovely new look.

Associate Professor of Art Tony Gant said the tulip project was part of Art Lab, a new course that "is about aesthetics and how we organize the world we live in."

The course "was developed to aesthetically re-envision Galesburg not only with projects that conceptually designed and planned models for the city, but also it had to be a course where students physically engage with a beautification project in downtown Galesburg," he added.

After spending time planning their project, the students set to work to plant 1,500 tulips at the site once occupied by the O.T. Johnson department store. Unfortunately, an early frost made the soil hard and difficult to dig, but the students persevered. 

"A sudden flare of color in the spring in an empty lot that once held a building ... was both feasible and appropriate," said one of the students in the class, Kelly Clare '16. "In the future, the lot can be used again, a new building joisted up. But until then, tulips."

The students and Gant collaborated with College and city officials, working together to research flower options, planting procedures, and other aspects of the project. 

"The design came about through a collaboration with the City of Galesburg and the Art Lab class," Gant said. "We arrived at a design of concentric circles of white, pink and red tulips that were interrupted by paths."

Their efforts were appreciated by people in the Galesburg community.

"A number of times a woman walking to work, or someone who lives nearby, would slow and watch us, with our clumsy shovels," Clare said. "They would ask what we were doing, and (then) say, ‘Oh, thank you. That will be beautiful.''"

"As students, it's sometimes difficult to feel engaged with the landscape, as we so often feel as if we are just passing through," added Claire. "To put over a thousand bulbs into the earth, bulbs that may return nearly every spring, means that we were here, and we cared enough to leave Galesburg something a little hopeful. You live here, no matter how long you stay."