Item 5: Greek Art, advertising little 500
Artist: Unknown member of fraternity and sorority
Location: Pi Kappa Sigma and Gamma Phi Beta
Context: These works of art can been seen in front of every Greek house on campus. These paintings are just a creative way to show people things like the house pair for a particular event or to welcome incoming brothers or sisters into their house.
These paintings seem to be done with simple latex based paint. These are usually done on banners hung from the house or painted on the sidewalks or walkways up to the house. This particular one done on the sidewalk is advertising their pair for little five, and to wish their riders good luck!
Meaning:
With all of the art on campus, there can be one word that describes it, and that word is “outlet.” I feel that all of these works of art are an outlet for artists to express themselves and their thoughts in a constructive (though sometimes illegal) manner. The graffiti on campus can be found anywhere and everywhere, from walls to dumpsters to chalk on the sidewalk, and it is a way to make a statement. The Greek art is a bit different in that it is a tradition in the Greek system to paint sidewalks and banners to show support for their houses.
Most of the graffiti on campus was done illegally with spray-paint, mostly to make a statement about politics or to tag that particular area with their name. Some of this graffiti was done so nicely and beautifully that it is hard to consider it an illegal act. In any case, it is hard to track down graffiti artists for they usually want to remain anonymous.
The art within the restaurants was very interesting to me because this would have been the last place for me to look for folkloric art. However, when you walk into Big Mouth Sub Shop you can’t help but peer up and see this graffiti on the wall. This art had a purpose — to make a logo for the sub shop — but it also gave the artist a way to express himself and an outlet to do so. And the cookie shop Baked gives anybody the opportunity to tap at the untouched artist within them and have a fun and constructive way to decorate a hot spot for people in a very inexpensive way. The owner of Baked did not pressure people to draw, and did not even hang up the first box for this to be a trend, but by word of mouth and by seeing, this idea caught on, and it became an art project that people talk about!