Amanda Hulbert is a success navigator and an admissions coordinator at SUNY Jamestown Community College who also happens to moonlight as an artist.
When the idea of painting a mural on the walls of the college’s new meditation rooms on the Jamestown and Cattaraugus County campuses was proposed, Hulbert jumped at the chance.
“They mentioned that the Jamestown room might have a mural and I was just starting to want to get into more large-scale projects like that,” she said. “I was like, ‘Well, I can do that one. I could do it here. Let’s figure out how to make it work.’”
While advanced art students are set to complete the mural on the Jamestown Campus in the coming weeks, Hulbert painted the Cattaraugus County Campus mural during JCC’s employee winter break the week of Christmas.
The design, which was approved by the college’s president’s council, is a blue and gray landscape, featuring mountains with a moon and sky.
“I wanted something that was going to be serene and help enhance that calming energy we’re going for in there,” Hulbert said. “That’s why I went with the blues and nothing too intricate or crazy. Just kind of mellow.”
While she has no formal art training, Hulbert said she was an “artsy kid” growing up. After taking a leave of absence from a previous job a few years ago, she said she “got back into art as a way to keep myself busy but also to get to know myself again. I’ve been in it ever since.”
After completing a master’s in adult learning from Empire State University, Hulbert plans to pursue a Studio Arts degree at JCC and build a small business selling her work.
The meditation room project was her first public mural, and she would like to do more paintings around campus. Hulbert also has a gallery exhibition of her work coming to the Olean Public Library in February, with a reception set for 6 p.m. Feb. 6.
“Currently, I’m doing mostly fluid art,” she said. “Really abstract stuff and focusing on learning and getting better.”
JCC recently added meditation rooms at each of its three locations in Jamestown, Olean, and Dunkirk to prioritize student, faculty, and staff mental health and wellness. The spaces include yoga equipment, weighted blankets, comfortable furniture, soft lighting, aromatherapy, calming music, adult coloring and painting books, puzzles, self-help books, and more.