Every year there are two walls on the outside of the Miller Fine Arts Center that are painted by Linfield students.

One wall is located on the side of the building facing Keck Drive on the way to Albertson’s. And the other wall is located in front of the art center.

Totem Shriver, the adjunct professor of 3-D design in the art department, had three of his classes working collaboratively on painting the walls using primary and secondary colors this year.

The assignment for this project was to paint a mix of organic and geometric shapes.

To make the colors pop, the students also added tertiary colors—colors made from the mix of from the primary and secondary colors.

The students worked on the colors, forms and shapes they used throughout the piece.

“It’s supposed to look like a bucket of worms,” senior Ben Stuart said.

This was the prompt Shriver gave his students to give them an idea of painting organically. The project began with each student painting his or her idea on a section of the wall.

Since beginning the project, students have worked collaboratively by building on each other’s ideas until the designs formed one big mural.

“Every day is different, depending on where you were last,” Shriver said, referring to the students’ artwork on the wall.

The painting of the walls has encouraged students to let their creativity and ideas flow, which come out in the murals.

“The murals gave us an opportunity to paint what we felt,” sophomore Madeline Bergan said, who is taking her first art class with Shriver.

Both of the walls are colorful, but each of the walls has a unique design.

The wall on the side of the art building facing Keck Drive has a more organic design, compared to the mural in front of the art center that is made up of half of geometric shapes and the other half organic shapes.

Shriver took a vote with his students on the wall in front of the art building about which side the students liked better: the geometric shape side or the organic shape side.

He said that in each class the vote was about half and half, which could suggest an insight to the way people the students think.

“There is no initial structure [to the murals],” sophomore Grant Smith said. “It’s supposed to be a mix of color and shapes.”

In past classes Shriver has also done 3-D art collages. The collages contain photos of the students along with cutouts of magazines and other items that contribute to the 3-D effect.

Also, the collages are gender specific, meaning male students  made their work masculine, while female students made their collages feminine.

Mariah Gonzales / Culture editor

Mariah Gonzales can be reached at [email protected]

Erin Heltsley/Freelance photographer

Students taking Introduction to Studio Art spent the past few weeks painting the walls outside of the Miller Fine Arts Center. There are two murals that were painted: one
facing Keck Drive while the other is on the front of the art building facing the Library. Painting the murals were a way for the students to express themselves through art.