“I’m gonna build a boat!”

Greetings! I’m Alexa Pagan, I’m a senior at Penn State Abington who’s majoring in Psychology and Social Sciences and minoring in Fine Arts. My future career goals are become Environmental Psychologist as well as an Art Therapist!

This blog and digital portfolio is dedicated to a course I’m taking known as Art 269, Intro to Boat Building, that is being held at the Independence Seaport Museum (ISM) in South Philadelphia. Our overall goal of this course is to build a wooden duck boat! I will be posting weekly updates on the progress of the boat, itself, as well as any other works of arts I’ve created within the course.

What I’m most excited about learning and doing during this upcoming experience at the boat shop and museum is the creative and physical process of building a boat. I’m very eager to learn woodworking from trained and specialized woodworkers since it’s a craft I’ve been wanting to try and learn for a while now so it’s the perfect opportunity! I’m also thrilled to work with everyone in the class as a whole team to create a wonderful duck boat by the end of the year. It’s going to be a great time to learn about how to work in a workshop with others for a long term project such as this boat!

I’m honestly a little anxious to see how things will plan out this semester. I’m nervous that covid might cause another shut down and we won’t be able to complete this course or we might have to push it back a following year. I’ve been looking forward to the course for quite some time now so I would hate for it to be cancelled mid-semester due to the pandemic once again. With that said, I’m going to be hopeful and appreciate every class we have regardless!