USF Mash Up

"I Love to Watch you Fall Apart"

This quote can be seen outside of Crossroads Cafe at the University of San Francisco on a mural painted by students for a class assignment. On Wednesday, March 21,2007 Painting 2 and Drawing 2 students joined together for a class project called "Mash Up." Professor Hongisto and Professor Siskins gave their art students a chance to express themselves in a project a little outside of the norm.

Five blank white murals were hung in a highly-populated campus hallway, and students were given the chance to draw, paint, and write about any issues felt were important. Consumerism, the Iraq War, President Bush, Dick Cheney, guns, bombs, SUV's, "crack", and "aids": were just a few of the issues the students chose to address with their 'freestyle' and 'freehand' assignment.

Serina Dean, a USF senior, double majoring in Communications and Business Administration with a minor in Fine Arts, shed some light on why the "Mash Up" is very different from their day to day assignments. "This project is great because it is not so focused on artistic detail, and it is more focused on students getting the point across through art," said Dean. As Dean worked diligently on painting flowers she explained that her piece did not have a specific theme and was more freestyle, as opposed to for example the political piece's. However, Dean said that because it was an ongoing project and many different students would end up working together that, "it was important to correlate each part as we go, so that the artwork flowed together in the end."