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‘Wall’ adds new outlet for artistic expression

By Michelle Martínez, Gavel Media Senior Staff, on January 29, 2010 12:05 AM

O’Neill Library has undergone many changes this year. Not only was a new entrance added, but also a new way to express creativity in the form of the Living Wall.

This public sketchbook, located in the bottom floor of O’Neill, consists of a significant display space where student artists can place drawings, paintings, poetry, or any other form of creative expression that can be physically tacked up on the cork wall. In hopes of achieving a larger presence of the arts on campus, the Boston College Art Club started approaching several university administrators since last year to push for this goal. According to Margaret Mansfield, vice president of the BC Art Club, in one of their meetings with University Librarian Thomas Wall, they learned that Kevin Tringale, a librarian in O’Neill, was also working on getting more art displayed on campus. By working in conjunction with Tringale, they began to discuss the different space possibilities within the library, finally deciding upon the walls of an open study room on first floor of O’Neill.

In creating the Living Wall, their intention was to create a “real life blog that could frequently get updated by any student,” Mansfield said. But unlike a blog, it would finally be a step away from the virtual world that essentially dominates students’ interactions these days. “The hope was that people would put down their laptops, look away from their BlackBerries, iPods, cell phones, etc. and communicate with one another in a creative way,” Mansfield said.