Abby Wihl takes a step forward, focuses her eyes on the 4-by-6-foot surface, and steps back again. She tries to figure out how to best transfer the paper draft of a wall painting in her hand to the wall.
Wihl stands in the middle of the fifth floor lounge in Anderson Hall. As she squints at the plain white wall in front of her, her eyes seem to measure it brick by brick. She and her fellow residents plan to paint two murals in the north and south lounges.
This is the first time students came up with such an idea, according to the Erin Genide, Anderson's resident director.
Wihl, the one of the fifth floor's resident assistants and a junior in the School of Communication, said she plans to engage her residents with the new project - murals in the two lounges on her floor.
"Lounges are a central place of resident life," she said. "It is important for students that they are proud of their environment, and murals could help to turn our lounges into a place where residents want to hang out even more."
Two weeks before Thanksgiving, Wihl, her residents and other RAs from her floor first discussed the idea of creating murals together, according to Tamra Fisher, a fifth floor resident and freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences.
"Most of the residents showed immediate interest," she said. "Some of us immediately got together and began working on the drafts."
Now, the fifth floor residents plan to take the project to the next level - the actual painting.
"Currently, we are in the process of transforming the drafts into transparency copies, so that we can project them on the wall," said Maggie Skelton, a sophomore of the School of International Service who worked on the design for the murals.
The carefully crafted pencil illustrations of the murals represent two of the four themes of Anderson Hall, which guide the learning opportunities the RAs provide for their residents. One draft shows letters forming the word "American," aimed to represent the "spirit, pride and tradition" of AU students, according to Wihl.
Another draft, which Fisher created, shows a time line, which represents the theme "academic transitions." The other two themes of Anderson - "civic engagement" and "navigating freedom" - will also be represented by the murals but will not be as prominent.
"Both the letters and the timeline will have symbols and pictures worked into them, so that all four themes of Anderson are represented through them," Wihl said.
"This is the first time that students here have ever tried to start a project of this kind," Genide said. "It will be a great possibility to further develop the community on the floor, to engage residents in their community and to instill a sense of pride and accomplishment on the floor."
Currently, the artists are waiting for the Residence Hall Association to approve the plan and are in the process of picking the right paint.
"But we hope that we can begin wall-painting soon," Wihl said.
You can reach this writer at news@theeagleonline.com.
