The artwork of two Harding students hang on display at the Midnight Oil Coffeehouse Spring 2020. Freshman Anna Westbrook painted the stylized mountain mural that hung on the back of the Nita Cochran Stage, welcoming students walking from campus to the coffeehouse, and senior Ellie Turner decorated the interior beige walls with original art ranging from a chilled alligators to patriotic presidents prints. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The work of local and student artists added to the ambience of the coffeehouse. Eric Mount, Midnight Oil manager, said he looked for artists that had good, quality artwork and enough pieces to cover the walls. However, he said he did not want set parameters on their creativity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\t\u201cIf you\u2019re going to say you embrace creativity, you\u2019re kind of taking a chance, right?\u201d Mount said. \u201cBecause if you\u2019re accepting the artist and saying, \u2018We want to display what you have,\u2019 you don\u2019t want to then say, \u2018Now make it exactly like this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mount contacted Turner about displaying artwork in the coffeehouse after seeing T-shirt designs she created for women\u2019s social club Zeta Rho. Turner began creating prints and paintings over winter break to fill the walls, then hung the artwork in Midnight Oil the weekend before spring semester began. Though she was nervous at first, Turner said the experience has been affirming. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019ve seen other artists in the past and now it\u2019s your art, it\u2019s kind of like \u2026 right after I put it all up, I felt kind of shy about it,\u201d Turner said. \u201cEverybody\u2019s getting to see it up there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Westbrook said she approached Mount about the opportunity of sharing her artwork. With acrylic paint from Walmart and birch flooring from Lowe\u2019s, Westbrook created three individual paintings that harmonized into a single mural for the vacant back of the stage. Her experience with art began in childhood, Westbrook said, and her artistic style began focusing on texture in high school. She said the mountains she saw while traveling during summers with her family inspired the paintings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI love textures and just like nature, so there\u2019s a lot of lines on it,\u201d Westbrook said. \u201cI kind of like the contemporary style \u2014 incorporating texture with more natural forms. And so I do like it to be streamlined to some extent, but I like the free form.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Westbrook\u2019s mural will remain up until the end of the spring semester, but Turner\u2019s artwork will be removed in early April to host a display from an art class taught by Tessa Davidson.
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