Your Blank Canvas
(04/16/14 7:30am)
Now that tattoos are erasable, why are current clients more cautious with their body art than they were 20 years ago?
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Now that tattoos are erasable, why are current clients more cautious with their body art than they were 20 years ago?
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Among the many privileges that Duke offers its students, one is the opportunity to dance openly, drink and party in the middle of the library during the annual Library Party.Since 2007, Perkins Library has been one of the only university libraries in the country to host an annual grand-scale party, said Aaron Welborn, director of communications of Duke University Libraries.Some decorations from past library parties still adorn Perkins. The "Duke is for Lovers" and "Duke Arts" posters that hang behind the research desk in first floor Perkins were decorations for the first library party, Welborn said. “The theme has always had some relation to library collections,” Welborn said. “The first one I worked on was Mad Men and Mad Women in 2011. That was a lot of fun, partly because I was really into the TV show. We happened to have one of the best collections on the history of advertising in the world, here at Duke. So we had a lot of really cool material to draw on for decorations and inspiration.”The Rubenstein Library’s extensive comic book collection inspired the Heroes and Villains theme in 2012. This year's theme was Life is a Cabaret, which featured an exhibit on 19th- and early-20th-century Parisian cabarets. “It is a high-dollar event, but it’s one of the only events at Duke that is free and open to anyone,” Welborn said. “Just like the library is open to everyone, that is kind of the spirit of the thing.”For past three years, the average budget has fallen between $50,000 and $60,000, Welborn said.Six students from the Duke Marketing Club as well as representatives from Duke University Libraries plan the majority of the party.Pulling off the party itself, however, requires more than just a few people. Decorators, caterers, lighting personnel, multiple bands, library staff and Duke police also partake in bringing the party to life.“You spend months and months planning this event, and thinking about all of the details, and then its only a three-hour event,” Welborn said. “For those of us who are involved in it, it goes by so fast, and then once its over there's all the clean up that has to happen.”Having the process down to a science, Welborn said his team can have the library back to normal by 8 a.m. the following morning. Welborn noted that no other institutions have anything close to Perkins’ library party. “We’ve been contacted by our peers at other institutions to ask, ‘how do you do this, how do you pull it off?’” Welborn said. “We like the fact that its something unique to Duke, and for the students who come, it’ll be a fun memory that they have of being at Duke…. It’s just something that’s part of the experience of being here.”
“It’s a big deal and we have a really good time doing it, but it’s nice when it’s all done,” junior Julian Salazar said.
A comfortable distance from the hustle of the center of Duke’s West Campus, the Sanford School of Public Policy offers not only a palliative change for the overworked Duke student, but also a new eatery—Saladelia.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Attending too many Greek date functions or wasting food points at the Washington Duke Inn can get stale after a few years, so we ventured into Durham for a fresh night out.We entered the top loft of the West End Wine Bar on Main Street to find smocks, brushes and individual canvases scattered among the alcoholic beverages. The painters were an eclectic mix of dating 20-somethings, mother-and-daughter pairs or groups of friends looking for a way to spice up their Tuesday summer nights.Created as a way to draw the 21-and-older crowd to local pubs, Paint Nite “makes art accessible to people who don’t consider themselves artists or creative in any way,” according to the company’s website. We hadn't painted since high school, so this was a test of how much those skills had deteriorated. For convenience, we picked an event in downtown Durham, but Paint Nite hosts events in bars throughout the Triangle Area during slower weeknights.For many, it was their first time painting. But Krystal Kerns, a local artist and our teacher for the night, eased many of our fears by providing step-by-step instruction for creating our own sunset scenes.“I created all of [the example] paintings with my Paint Nite classes in mind, because I’m going to be teaching people who have never painted before,” Kerns said. “It’s something that comes easy to me because I’ve done it for so long, so I have to think outside of the box a little bit, take really good paintings and simplify them.”Kerns led the group with two canvases: one completed sunset to model the collective goal, and a blank one on which she recreated the sunset. She patiently explained her process of blending colors, utilizing different brush strokes and how to get the most out of combinations of black, blue, red, white and yellow—the seemingly limited palette available to us.As the evening progressed, so did the mishaps. An amateur brush stroke resulted in a stain on Sharif’s pants. Ashley’s attempts at palm trees looked more like shish kebabs. Across from us, our fellow painters were having some of their own problems.“Your painting is looking good, mine is jacked up,” the woman across from me told her friend. “Oh man, I just jacked my sun up!”In between various stages of the painting, Kerns walked about the room and gave us suggestions on how to “un-jack” our paintings when necessary.Though the booze provided an initial lure to the experience, after the first hour the participants became so engrossed in their paintings that most ignored the bartender's invitations for more drinks.As the night dwindled down and our canvases began to look like masterpieces, Kerns gave us a chance to move about the room and check out everybody else’s paintings. No two pictures were alike. Some painters added starry scenes or tiny birds, while others frantically added more paint to cover up small mistakes.“My favorite part is definitely the end when everyone is done,” Kerns said. “Then you get to see how everybody actually did put their own little input into everything and no two pictures look alike. That’s really the most fun of it all because when you’re done and you’re looking around from your seat at what everybody else has done, it’s a really cool experience to be a part of—you all collectively created something different.”Despite the group's general lack of painting experience, the inevitable mistakes and the constant feeling that we were about to damage our work irreparably, no one walked away from the experience without a smile. Somehow, we managed to create two decently executed tropical sunsets to display side-by-side on an apartment wall. Now it's up to guests to figure out who painted which.“I would love to be able to paint something by myself but I can’t, so [Paint Nite] allows me to have some guidance while I created it,” said Nancy Williams, another Paint Nite patron. “[I loved] hearing people go ‘this is awful, this is awful,’ and then their finished product looks awesome.”Paint Nite tosses some spice into Durham's social scene. If you need something new in your life, grab a brush and a beer and see what you can make.