Laycock Center for Creative Collaboration in the Arts THE LAYCOCK CENTER- A STUDENT LABORATORY FOR REAL-WORLD, INTERDISCIPLINARY

COLLABORATION Tucked away behind a stairwell in a corner of the Harris Fine Arts Center, a group of enterprising students and faculty are making things happen. Big things. Animators are working meticulously with illustrators to bring characters to life in a digital storybook that will reach millions of American school children. Advertising students and media arts students are teleconferencing with a high-profile client whose innovative company provides microcredit loans that make college affordable for students in developing countries. A composer is working with a student film production team who will engage more than 200 students in an upcoming film shoot of his new musical. This hive of innovative, interdisciplinary endeavors is known as the Laycock Center for Creative Collaboration in the Arts. Under the guidance of director Jeff Sheets, the Laycock Center brings together students from different disciplines within the College of Fine Arts and Communications and across campus and provides them with opportunities to collaborate on real-world projects. These ventures are as varied as the students and faculty who plan and carry them out. With the help of the Center, they are constantly cooking up projects that range from fostering cross disciplinary arts explorations to solving world problems. The experience is one that transcends what any of BYUs programs could accomplish individually. 2013 marks the 10th anniversary of the Laycock Center for Creative Collaboration in the Arts, a landmark undertaking that embodies the use of creativity to enact positive change in the world. The Center began as a generous endowment to honor the George Elijah and Fern Redd Laycock and their children, and has blossomed into a model for excellence in cross-disciplinary collaboration. The Laycock Center was created to develop the next generation of creative leaders, whose spirit, intellect and character will influence and inspire the world through creative collaboration and are taught to develop creative ideas that promote the good, the true, the beautiful, serving God and humanity. Over one hundred and forty projects have been executed with well over one million dollars of funding, creating unparalleled opportunities for students to develop and excel in collaborative environments under the tutelage of master mentors. The Laycock CenterIt has truly has begun to see the fulfillment of one of the its key missions, which is to facilitate an unprecedented culture of mentoring, creativity, and collaboration in the College of Fine Arts and Communication through innovative curriculum where students receive increasingly elevated roles of responsibility and creative ownership. As the world continues to change and evolve,

the Laycock Centers purposes will become even more relevant and impactful at a global scale. Read more at. Library of Congress (Part of Laycock story) Research indicates that if children ages 8-11 learn to enjoy reading books, then they are more likely to stay in school, stay out of gangs, avoid drugs and generally be more successful in life. Because of these effects, the Library of Congress to begin its lifelong reader initiative and, along the way, recruited BYU to help in the cause. The Library of Congress came to us with a problem said Jeff Sheets, director of the Laycock Center for Creative Collaboration in the Arts. How do you get 3rd to 5th graders to want to read? Well, weve lost them to the screen, so maybe the solution is we use the same technology that got them out of books to get them back into books. Sheets and the Library of Congress recognized that entertainment like video games, apps and YouTube is already being adopted by toddlers and is even more prevalent with older children. To address the Library of Congresss question, students at BYUs Laycock Center assembled a team of student collaborators from the fields of illustration, animation, film, music, advertising, and computer science. Pooling their talents, the group pictured a mix between Mad Libs and Choose Your Own Adventure in digital form. The result was Readers to the Rescue, an interactive storybook website, the featured activity on read.gov. Read more at .. Sacred Gifts The BYU community has always fostered a deep appreciation of religious and spiritual artwork. This is exemplified by the bustling patronage of the new Museum of Art exhibit Sacred Gifts: The Religious Art of Carl Bloch, Henrich Hofmann and Frans Schwartz. The Laycock Center played an integral role in the presentation of the new exhibit of European masterpieces, new Museum of Art exhibit Sacred Gifts: The Religious Art of Carl Bloch, Henrich Hofmann and Frans Schwartz. This exhibit includedsome of which are onmasterpieces on loan for the first time in North America. The Laycock Center sent a team of collaborators from multiple disciplines to many of the castles and churches where the artwork resides to gain a more personal, sacred connection with the artwork.

The introductory film that visitors watch when attending the exhibit was planned and produced by students from the Laycock Center. Their team also assisted with putting together the iPad app that provides patrons with information about the artwork and the artists. The Laycock Center sent a team of collaborators from multiple disciplines to many of the castles and churches where the artwork resides to gain a more personal, sacred connection with the artwork. Not only was it an interesting cultural experience, but also was very spiritual, said Kelsie Moore, a recently graduated Theatre and Media Arts student. I had the opportunity to visit churches and see the works of Christ literally come alive. Jeff Sheets, director of the Laycock Center, emphasized that throughout the course of their experiencefrom filming on site in European churches, to writing the musical scoresacred gifts were showered upon us. Read more at .. BYU Virtual Ttour Friendships and collaborative relationships are at the heart of the Laycock Center experience. Fifteen students, from communications, theatre and media arts, information technology and music majors, had just such an experience in producing a unique virtual tour of BYU. The virtual tour project at the Laycock Center, which began in May of 2013 and was finished in October, offers a unique blend of multimedia and cultural elements that highlight the gamut of BYU experiences. Perspective students and others interested in BYU can step onto campus from anywhere in the world and get an in-depth look at Each student on the team had the opportunity to expand their creative understanding through cross-disciplinary collaboration to produce the interactive map. The product of thiseir creative force includes video walkthroughs of campus paths and historic buildings, classic pictures from BYUs past, and even a music video parody that crystalizes students feelings on the testing center. Through this virtual tour, prospective students and others interested in BYU can step onto campus from anywhere in the world and get an in-depth look at life at BYU. While the results of the teams collaboration are spectacular, Laycock Center director Jeff Sheets affirms that the process is at least as valuable as the final product. This project really stretched the students and provided them will handson learning they wouldnt have been able to experience otherwise.