Bright Ideas at an Arizona Museum

August 2025

This video is part of a series produced by the College of Fine Arts and Communications. The series highlights students and their mentors and the life-changing projects that are enhancing the BYU experience.

In a unique inspiring learning experience, a small team of BYU students (five art majors and two design majors) taught the basics of animation at the idea Museum, a hands-on youth art center in Mesa, Arizona. BYU has an ongoing relationship with several museums in the Mesa area, and this experience grew out of previous collaborations. Art student Clara Lowder says working in the museum was “the perfect training for me to become an art educator.”

Clara Lowder, a BYU art student
Clara Lowder recently returned from serving as a missionary in Viña Del Mar, Chile, and will resume her BYU art studies.

The first step in the animation process was simple: the children drew animals with markers. Next, the children cut out their drawings. Then, the BYU students worked with each child to turn the drawings into puppets, which helped the young artists see which parts of their animal moved and how. Finally, the children and their mentors used simple animation software to bring the drawings to life.

“There is a spiritual nature to this work—learning to be together [and] work together,” says Fidalis Buehler, a mentor on the trip and an associate professor in the Department of Art. “Experiencing what you learn in the classroom in a real-life setting—there is no better way to learn. When you are in the actual environment, what you do matters.”

Buehler says the students he took to Arizona are great ambassadors of BYU and the Church. He also sees a bright future for Lowder as an art educator: “She has a natural ability to motivate and uplift students and has demonstrated a proclivity to bring people together.”

Jarrad Bittner, director of the idea Museum, says he hopes the museum’s partnership with between BYU continues for years. “The families and [children] that come through our doors see these BYU students as mentors. The children are really excited to engage with the [BYU] students, to look at how they can become these students.”

 

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