Art students spice up MSU with mural

Over the course of next few weeks, the barren walls of the bottom floor of the Maxwell Student Union will be filled with life and color, courtesy of Valerie Aranda and her Painting III class. The class began painting Wednesday after the project was approved by Auxiliary Services.
“Valerie approached me with the idea last year,” said Kyle Cullars, executive director of Auxiliary Affairs. “It’s a pretty sterile hallway and I think it could certainly use a little color to help move people through the building.”
Aranda has transformed many empty walls in the community with her murals. She directed the murals in the atrium of the Kilpatrick Building and the walls of Sodexho. Aranda also took two GCSU students to San Antonio last year for two weeks to paint murals for inner-city kids.
“The theme for this mural is ‘creating change,’” said Aranda. “Part of the mission statement for this school is civic engagement and we’re trying to show that students can make an impact on campus.”
The design of the mural was a collaboration by the entire class and addresses many issues such as violence towards women.
“Everyone added their own little touch to it,” said Brooke Spivey, a junior art major . “We’ve been working on it all semester and I don’t think we’ll be done for a few more weeks.”
The goal of Aranda’s class is to paint one mural on campus and one off-campus in the community. Possible choices for the community mural include Central State Hospital and the Baldwin Service Center, but Aranda is still open for suggestions.
Art department chair Richard Lou says the project is part of an ongoing endeavor for faculty and students.
“We’re interested in how art can intersect a public space,” Lou said. “We wanted to get students to collaborate and challenge some of the issues in the world around them.”
The art department intends to cultivate the relationship between students and the community in the future.
“It’s important that we teach students that art can be a dialogue between the public sphere and the community,” Lou said. “We want our students to be the design facilitators that make it happen.”
Aranda urges all faculty and students interested in participating in the project to contact her as soon as possible.
“There are no special grants or free money associated with this job,” Aranda said. “We get a small materials cost which is covered by student fees, but we need more man power to get it done.”
If you are interested in helping with the “Creating Change” mural, contact Valerie Aranda at 445-2431 or by email at valerie.aranda@gcsu.edu.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Mar 2 2007. Filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry