Last Saturday, Feb. 4, teams of students gathered behind the broad glass panels of the SDC to participate in this year’s window painting competition. The object of the competition was to paint a mural on a window that represented the participating organizations, Michigan Tech as a whole and 2017’s Winter Carnival theme, “Snow Cascades Across the Decades.”
One participating organization was the West End Girls, a group of female students who call “West End” hall their home. Of all the beautiful and creative murals, the West End Girls pursued an idea that topped the charts in ambition. They started with dry erase markers to outline their complicated image before moving onto the window paints.
“We had the idea to do different Disney princesses from different decades,” Anna Ellis, a first year environmental engineering major, said as artists Sarah Wayward and Cora Jarman worked fervently on their mural. “It’s a cooperative effort.”
Savannah Fowler, a first year environmental engineering major said, “We used Snow White, who was the first Disney princess, then Ariel, who was in 1989, and then Anna from Frozen in 2013. We wanted to incorporate Michigan Tech into each princess, so Snow White’s scarf, Ariel’s seashell bra and Anna’s cape are black and yellow.”
“I’ve never done something like this before,” said Sarah Wayward, one of the main artists among the West End Girls. “I do some sketches on my own, but I’ve never made public art.”
Other murals featured Star Wars themes, hippie aesthetics and even the characters of Winnie the Pooh. One painting cleverly depicted a game of Pac Man in which Pac Man was a Husky and the ghosts were rival schools NMU, FSU, LSSU and BGSU.
The impressive murals created by the West End Girls and other Michigan Tech organizations will only be on the SDC windows for a short time, so be sure to stop by the SDC to see them for yourself! Let us know which mural was your favorite and why at ajpatter@mtu.edu.
