April 28, 2015
By Jerome Boettcher | Subscribe to Commodore Nation
Like any student-athlete Megan Huebner values her free time.
Between practices and meets for cross country and track and a challenging biology major and study hours, the Vanderbilt freshman knows down time is a luxury.
That’s why she is prepared to fill it when the time comes — with one of her favorite hobbies. An avid drawer, painter and creator of varieties of art, Huebner is constantly thinking about her next project.
“I always have ideas going in my head,” she said. “I keep a constant journal of sketches of different art ideas that pop in my head randomly and store them away until I have extra time, which is not very often. For breaks and stuff for school, the first thing I would do was take my favorite idea and go straight to an art project because it is such a luxury for me to be able to sit down and work on something. That was always one of my favorite parts of getting free time from school is to work on the art projects.”
Artwork has been an outlet for Huebner for as long as she can remember.
“I was always the last kid to leave the craft table,” she said.
Back at her home in La Quinta, Calif., there is a wall dedicated to Huebner’s creativity. Colorful paintings of horses and wild birds stand out, along with owls painted onto a piece of wood, a guitar filled with mosaics and a golden retriever sticking his head out of a car framed by an old Ford grill.
Animals are some of her favorite subjects. She is surrounded by them as her parents have two dogs, three cats, two rabbits and a desert tortoise. She also volunteers at a nearby wild bird sanctuary and eventually wants to become a veterinarian.
“I really like making art for other people,” she said. “I’ve done a lot of pet portraits and stuff for people. Some of my favorites are bird or horses. I think I feel like they convey power and freedom and make me feel good. Something happy to paint and create and I love using color. I really love very expressive color in my work.”
Huebner takes the saying “the world is your canvas” quite literally.
She took an old guitar and rebuilt into a vibrant mosaic with plates she bought at a Goodwill and flea markets and smashing them into pieces. She carved and painted giraffes onto a gourd. Another project involved using an old wooden crate board as the base for a horse-themed piece. Posted on the board was a colorful drawing of a white horse, surrounded by a metal horseshoe, beads, old skeleton keys and shells.
“I love going to flea markets and antique stores and finding weird little objects,” Huebner said. “The process of creating something is a lot of times more enjoyable than even the final product.”
Huebner says she loves to try new things, dabble in new media. Sure, she uses acrylic paint but she has also worked with a power drill. She took a piece of tin siding and used it as a backdrop for a painting of a moose.
So drawing on shoes really wasn’t a weird concept to Huebner. It was a joy.
Huebner was one of 13 Vanderbilt student-athletes who ventured to Costa Rica in December on a trip with Soles4Souls to deliver shoes to children in need. The group distributed 1,263 pairs of shoes at churches, schools, day cares and community centers.
At each stop, they sized the children for shoes, then washed their feet and gave them a pair of black rubber shoes. But the process wasn’t complete. Huebner and a handful of other student-athletes would stencil the child’s name or color on the shoe.
Huebner was a mainstay at the drawing station, sketching butterflies, flowers and soccer balls. She won’t forget when she decorated one little girl’s shoes with a rose and she yelled, “How cute!” in Spanish and thanked Huebner with a hug and kiss on the cheek.
Huebner felt so inspired by the trip that when she headed home for winter break she had to convey what she felt through her art.
She sketched a drawing of two girls, Sophia and Hillary, who latched onto her at the Christmas party on the last day of the trip, and two brothers. The younger brother, NJ, possessed a laughter that was contagious.
“I got back from that trip and I just felt so strongly about the amazing experience and how inspiring the kids were,” she said. “They are a joy in the face of such a different, harsher lifestyle than we’re used to. It is just inspiring. I wanted to pay tribute to the trip and art is one way I know how to do that.”
Calling art a type of therapy, a medium to relax, she also understands the impression it can leave. That’s why, when she has the time, she loves to use one of her favorite hobbies as a way to leave a lasting impact.
“I do like to do art pieces that convey a lot of feeling and are expressive of happiness or remind people of some memory,” she said. “Art is a good outlet for me to express myself and also feel like I can somehow make a difference.”
