A Natural Curtain

As the human population grows, the natural environment around us begins to suffer. With society developing, land and resources are taken away from the animals that live in the forests. That being said, we created a natural curtain that stands between the road and the beginning of the forest near St. Edward's University. This curtain represents the forest protecting itself and the creatures that live within from humans and their destruction. Since the piece is large, it is a physical barrier that cannot be ignored. In order to convey this message, we felt the need to use a natural material, leaves, to represent the forest protecting itself. We gathered various types of leaves from around the area and looped them through clear string that we hung between two parallel trees. 

By: Annie Fuentes and Alexander Sumners

Recycling Seasons of Nature

This piece was inspired by the inevitable cycles in nature and the waste they can represent. We utilized fallen leaves in this project in order to signify renewal and more importantly reuse. The conjoined arrows are our interpretation of the recycle symbol in that it is a never ending process. The leaves' colors cascade naturally as if to represent the changing of the seasons. It is located outside of Huddle Hall on campus.

By: Ryan Harris and Shannon Carter

Cow on the Cob

For our environmental piece of art, we wanted to address the issue of corn.  Since corn has become a mono-crop which a crop that is grown repeatedly on the same piece of land for maximum yield, soil has become depleted because crops are not rotating on the land.  The lack of nutrients in the soil has led to the greater use of fertilizers and pesticides.  There are negative environmental consequences for fertilizer runoff into bodies of water and both fertilizers and pesticides can harm surrounding animal life.   We decided to make a cow out of corn since the increase in corn production has led to the use of corn as a primary feed for livestock even though it causes health problems for the livestock.  We used paper bags we had from HEB as the material to draw the outline of the cow.  Then we used honey to stick the corn together inside our outline.  We chose to put our cow outside of the BMH casitas in order for the squirrels, birds, and other wildlife to have something to eat.  Hopefully as people walk past our corn cow, they might stop to think about corn in general, and maybe even see the environmental connection in our art.

                                                                              

 

- Alexa Ferguson and Victoria Turrentine

Batron Springs Pool Lights

Barton Springs Pool is nicknamed "The Soul of Austin". Unfortunately, thinking of landmarks synonymous with other cities conjures up colorful imagery, while Barton Springs is relatively bland. While the pool is perhaps the most interactive of many landmarks from many cities, it still misses a bit of flash. For example, the designs along the road approaching LAX are synonymous with Los Angeles. The designs consist of many glass columns filled with lights, which cycle through color combinations. In New York, the famous Empire State Building is lit up at night to correlate with festivities in the city. For example, the building will be red, white, and blue on Independence Day; all green on St. Patrick's Day; and will sport the colors of any local team in a playoff run. With the much needed renovations of Barton Springs going on right now, why not entertain the thought of adding underwater lights to the pool? The lights would increase the pools popularity, promote local festivals, make the pool safer to swim in at night, and would solidify the pool's place in Austin's culture.

by Richard Glass

Ryan's Bat Plan

I wanted to keep an austin theme so I chose the Congress Bridge for my Art proposal. To enhance the Austin experience for locals and visitors I'd like to paint bats alongside the congress bridge. A non-toxic paint would have to be used. The idea here is for a fun and iconic image for this beautiful spectacle.

I found this photo of the congress bridge on herronstock.com

The idea I would like to propose is to take a pinwheel, and make it giant. With big decorated and colorful wings, or patterns like origami paper. I want them to be a fun, playful and bright image against the back drop of Austin. I want them to contrast the normal colors of a city, so be visually odd in there environment from afar, like in a postcard of the city view. I want them to be odd and unexpected when people see them from afar but recognizable, because pinwheels are fun objects no matter when you see one. But where they are actually located is in some park (I'm initially thinking Zilker park but am visiting more areas today.) and parks are fun places too, and it could be the focal point of a children s play area or a picnic area. I want them to be enormous. At least to a point where they can be made functional. And you could either operate something local there or feed the energy into the grid, anything that really does something good.

Everlasting Souls

MY public art proposal is to have a large mural placed in the new library depicting the three St. Ed's professors who passed away earlier this year- Doctors Becker, McKemie, and Shirley. My plan is to have the project be a joint effort between students of the art school, who will paint it, and students of the respective schools in which each teacher worked. The art students will take the input of the teachers' former students and use them to show some of the characteristics and habits the teachers were known to have. An example of this is Dr. Shirley's oval glasses that most people remember him to have worn. The point of this work is to allow people to pay respect and remember these teachers, whether they knew them or not. I think it is important that their legacy lives on within our school and this would be a great way to aid in doing so.