Art is a very important aspect of IAW in that not only is it a marketing tool, drawing your visitors into the IAW area, but also it is a way to make your program more festive and enlightening to your guests and your team. Arts activities make for an amazing team effort that, if done properly, draw the attention of your visitors to the IAW experience and keeps them there. This Arts section includes the decorations that are displayed for IAW, and it also encompasses arts activities such as henna art and calligraphy. Another very successful option of the arts is setting up an Islamic arts gallery.

Decoration

The area that is to be reserved for IAW at your campus should be a place that draws people in. It should be attractive and inviting. Each year, the theme and all of its relative material (such as posters, flyers, literature) is expected to change. The decorations include what is available by MSA National every year and could also include that which will also go along with the theme of the year. Posters can be downloaded and professionally printed at local copy shops and then displayed. Specific decorating ideas that will go well with the year's theme can be found on the IAW hosting website.

Activities

Different activities can go on during IAW, which may include what is found in the entertainment section of this manual. Other ideas include:

• Henna art: one of the volunteers may already know how to apply henna, and she could volunteer to do so.
• Calligraphy: purchase calligraphy pens and cardstock and assign someone the job of writing names of visitors in Arabic.
• Arts/ crafts projects: Have pictures of mosques at hand, and offer arts supplies on a table for visitors to make their own frames for the pictures. You can be creative in this section, what else can you do?

Islamic art gallery

Ask your volunteers and members of the MSA and Muslim community to bring in Islamic arts and crafts from home to be displayed at IAW.

Items may include:

• prayer rugs
• calligraphy pieces
• pictures of mosques from around the world
• various crafts from the Islamic world

* Please remember to display all the work in a place where it can always be monitored and kept safe from being stolen or damaged, and keep track of which pieces belong to whom, as these pieces need to be returned back to the owner in the same condition as they were given.

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