Students experiment with clean graffiti project
East Carolina University students merged artistic expression and environmental responsibility in a clean graffiti project at Jenkins Fine Arts Center.
Instead of painting on the sidewalk, Dan Elliott’s students laid down stencils they created and then used pressure washers to clean dirt off around their designs. Centered on the sidewalk was the message, “Consider everything an experiment,” from artist and educator Sister Corita Kent’s “Ten Rules for Students and Teachers.”
The result is temporary artwork and an eco-conscious alternative to traditional street art.
Elliott’s graphic design special topics class is built around experimentation, allowing students to test materials, processes and concepts before implementing their designs.
“I’ve used mediums that I’ve never even thought of before, and I’ve made some really cool stuff with it,” said Jamie Antinore, a junior from Greenville. “I think Dan’s done a really good job of encouraging us to step out of our comfort zone without making us feel scared.”
Each student created a design for a 36-by-36-inch sidewalk square based on Kent’s Rule No. 4.
“Some of them are doing something that’s very abstract and no image, and some of them are doing image-based things, some of them have words, some of them don’t,” said Elliott, associate professor of graphic design in the School of Art and Design in the College of Fine Arts and Communication. “The class is about that material investigation exploration.”
Some students had to piece their designs together because of the size of the concrete square and the limitations of the tools they used to create their art. The laser etching machine that graphic design major Emma Baker used produces a maximum size of 12 by 24 inches, so she designed smaller pieces that were connected within the larger sidewalk square.
ECU student Fletcher Gause power washes around a letter next to faculty member Dan Elliott.
“This, for me, is the whole point of the class — to change the way that they have to approach making. If it’s the opposite of what they usually do, they have to re-learn and create something new and special that can only be done here,” Elliott said.
Baker, a junior from Raleigh, said the class has focused more on the process and mediums, from the sidewalk with the clean graffiti project to light and other materials used this semester.
“It’s been a lot more about experimentation and controlling the medium, which has been a little frustrating because obviously it has its limitations. But it puts you much more in the mind of thinking about the process of everything, which is really big in design,” Baker said.
Alex Lobo, a senior from Jacksonville, is majoring in art with a concentration in illustration. He said the class has forced him to think about things in a very different way, to figure out how he wants to do things first, and the concept second.
“In my opinion I think it makes the connecting more cohesive. And I think it has definitely made me, in other work that I do, I’ve started thinking like that,” he said.
Antinore, who is majoring in graphic design and illustration, created an image of a rider being bucked off a horse, to symbolize someone who keeps trying even after falling off and failing.
“I thought it was a perfect analogy for creating and experimenting and even though the composition itself has a lot of chaos to it with all the patterns and design, I wanted to stick to a very geometric style because there’s still usually logic, there’s still form and there’s still some level of specificity when you are experimenting and trying new things,” she said. “I thought it was a cool balance between what I was representing and how I chose to represent it.”
Antinore said she tries to include horses in her work wherever possible because they have been a significant part of her life.
In the class, she has been able to focus more on learning from experimenting, testing and messing up, she said.
“One of the big things is realizing that trying to chase perfection can actually keep you from making something really great,” Antinore said. “I found in this class that some of my better projects were the ones where I just took the first few weeks to really let go and test things out and learn. And then really figure out what I want to do versus trying to start from the beginning with ‘this is what I want to make, this is how I’m going to do it,’ because then you kind of box yourself in.”
The finished clean graffiti project is shown on the sidewalk leading into Jenkins Fine Arts Center. (Photo by Dan Elliott)