Spartan Daily

Dirty Brushes spruce up blue construction walls around new SJSU student union

Vernon McKnight, Spartan Daily

Junior chiropractic major Theresa Smith (left) and junior English major Michael Heazlit walk along the murals painted on the blue construction walls near the Student Union Monday afternoon.

Art will continue to go up this semester on the 10-foot-tall blue walls surrounding the new Student Union construction site that started last year.

The group behind these artistic expressions is none other than the Dirty Brushes, a club started on campus a year-and-a-half ago through the School of Art and Design at SJSU.

With an estimated date of completion in 2013, Gale Antokal and the Dirty Brushes saw an opportunity.

“We looked at all this public wall space and said ‘Let’s do something,’” she said.

Antokal is the coordinator of pictorial art at SJSU, as well as the faculty sponsor for the Dirty Brushes.

“It is a wonderfully coordinated project between the art history and pictorial arts students,” she said. “We wanted to show the community our new profile and proposed the idea.”

The idea of painting on the walls went through Cathy Busalacchi, the associate vice president of student affairs at SJSU, who with Brian Taylor, photography chairman for the art department, were able to give the students permission to paint in front of the Art and Music buildings.

Busalacchi said they painted the walls blue to minimize graffiti, but they wanted to fill the empty space with something other than SJSU advertisements.

“We wanted some kind of thought behind it,” she said.

The art on the blue walls began in the spring and are a mix of self-portraits and reproductions of works from sources, according to Antokal.

“We didn't want to paint just anything,” said Miranda Fry, president of the Dirty Brushes. “We wanted it to be a meaningful experience for anyone who walked by."

Fry said that choosing famous portraits with an emphasis on diversity of men and women from all over the world was their main goal.

Dirty Brushes member and pictorial arts major Briana Romero said the groups members wanted to show artwork on campus through portraits of famous artists.

“We felt there hasn’t been any real art on campus,” she said. “We wanted something new and fresh.”

Since then, Romero and Antokal said the club has taken off.

“It started through small events,” Romero said. “It added cultural art and feeling to the university.”

The outside community is excited about it, she said.

Romero said some people and certain departments want the Dirty Brushes to paint in their area of campus, and that the club is more than happy to do that.

The Dirty Brushes have also taken their work off-campus by organizing events to show off their artistic expression and further promote their club.

Their next event is in October and will be a gallery at Café Pomegranate, located on San Fernando street just behind San Jose City Hall.

Romero said there will also be a gallery in the Art building that will run September 19-23.

Currently, the Dirty Brushes are working on a project for the San Jose Family Center, which is planned for February 2012.

“We want (the children) to be able to relate to the murals and learn about the beautiful place they live in, California,” Fry said.

Antokal said the group is always looking for ways to share their art.

“Fine art tends to be low priority,” Romero said. “We want to show that artistic expression is important.”

As for the art on the blue construction walls, that will not stop any time soon.

“We designated other parts of the blue wall to continue to make paintings,” Antokal said. “The goal is to go to the end of the wall.”

Further down the road, the Dirty Brushes are going to wait and see on future assignments around campus.

Antokal said they hope to recycle the paintings on the blue walls at some point before the new Student Union is finished.

The Dirty Brushes meet every Monday to discuss their paintings and upcoming events, and Antokal said they always welcome new members willing to further express their love of art.