CLAS alum, faculty member's work lights up Iowa City

Ali Hval, an alumna and lecturer in the School of Art and Art History, brings her public art onto the pedestrian mall with “Scribble Trees.”
Friday, December 22, 2023

Ali Hval hopes to make your winter walk through downtown Iowa City a little more whimsical.

For the second year, the artist and lecturer in painting and drawing at the University of Iowa School of Art and Art History installed a series of Scribble Trees on Iowa City’s downtown pedestrian mall, art that lights up the night along with more traditionally light-wrapped trees.

The public art consists of thousands of feet of rope lights meant to look like doodles on the trees’ trunks.

Hval is from Birmingham, Alabama, and received two art degrees from Iowa (MA 2018, MFA 2019). Her work is interdisciplinary, combining ceramic, fabric, installation, and painting. She also is an avid muralist, having completed more than 40 public murals and projects in communities across the United States.

This year’s Scribble Trees is double the size of last year’s, utilizing 14 trees on both sides of the walkway. While the lighting on the new trees still has a “scribble” feel, Hval says she experimented with new formats, including smaller rope lighting and lights that change color.

“And if the city wants more next year, then I’ll come up with even more versions,” Hval says.

Read her full story: https://stories.uiowa.edu/art-alum-ali-hval-scribble-trees-iowa-city

The University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences offers about 70 majors across the humanities; fine, performing and literary arts; natural and mathematical sciences; social and behavioral sciences; and communication disciplines. About 15,000 undergraduate and nearly 2,000 graduate students study each year in the college’s 37 departments, led by faculty at the forefront of teaching and research in their disciplines. The college teaches all Iowa undergraduates through the college's general education program, CLAS CORE. About 80 percent of all Iowa undergraduates begin their academic journey in CLAS. The college confers about 60 percent of the university's bachelor's degrees each academic year.