{"id":613,"date":"2026-06-29T13:16:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T17:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/visual-and-performing-arts\/?p=613"},"modified":"2026-07-08T14:28:42","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T18:28:42","slug":"the-embrace-project-art-as-a-way-of-belonging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/visual-and-performing-arts\/the-embrace-project-art-as-a-way-of-belonging\/","title":{"rendered":"The Embrace Project: Art as a Way of Belonging"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-group alignfull split-background-75 has-dark-orange-background-color has-background is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\" style=\"margin-top:var(--wp--preset--spacing--40);margin-bottom:var(--wp--preset--spacing--40);padding-top:var(--wp--preset--spacing--50)\"><figure style=\"aspect-ratio:auto;\" class=\"wp-block-post-featured-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" src=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/visual-and-performing-arts\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/134\/Wynne-Dromey-Studio-Art-Thesis-NH-00-2.jpg\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Wynne Dromey stands before her honors thesis project\" style=\"width:100%;height:100%;object-fit:cover;\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Wynne Dromey \u201925 started with a single painting: her adoptive mother holding her for the first time as an infant. \u201cIn the painting, my mom is physically embracing me, but she\u2019s also embracing the fact that we have different identities,\u201d says Dromey, who was born in China. That image became the seed of something larger \u2014 a sustained body of work and community practice she calls The Embrace Project.<\/p>\n\n\n<div><div class=\"\">\n    <lite-youtube videoid=\"gBJlQNyGy8s\" playlabel=\"\" js-api>\n        <button class=\"close\"><span>\u00d7<\/span> Close<\/button>\n    <\/lite-youtube>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-element-caption\">Video by Natalie\u00a0Hoang \u201925, MBA \u201926<em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The project has taken Dromey well beyond the studio. Funded through the Sara Bickman Arts Award, she led painting workshops at Abby\u2019s House, a Worcester nonprofit serving women and children who are unhoused or survivors of abuse \u2014 many of whom had never picked up a paintbrush. She volunteered with Net of Compassion, distributing meals while talking with community members about creativity and their lives. The work earned her a Newman Civic Fellowship, awarded to students making meaningful change in their communities, with a nomination from Clark President David Fithian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Her studio art capstone brings it full circle: a series of portraits of community members she met while volunteering, incorporating recycled materials and trash through a process called bricolage. \u201cI want to show beauty in objects that are originally deemed as not valuable or discarded,\u201d she says. A double major in studio art and marketing \u2014 and host of her own podcast \u2014 Dromey is already thinking beyond graduation, toward an art caf\u00e9 and gallery with affordable living space for artists. \u201cI think that everyone should consider what kind of impact they want to make with their artwork.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"arrow\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/2024\/12\/11\/embracing-the-beauty-of-our-differences\/\">Read the full story in Clarku News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wynne Dromey \u201825 turned an image of her own adoption into a community project \u2014 paintings, workshops at a women&#8217;s shelter, volunteering, and a capstone that asks what it means to belong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":251,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[15,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-homepage-news","category-visual-arts"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v28.1 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Embrace Project: Art as a Way of Belonging | Department of Visual and Performing Arts | Clark University<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/visual-and-performing-arts\/the-embrace-project-art-as-a-way-of-belonging\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" 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