Art on the Edges

by David L. Zellmer
September 2, 2004

We are faced with a new challenge on our Walk in 2004. Howard Latimer and Sy Mack are faced with what could be a serious--maybe even dangerous-obstacle on the Walk. This picture was taken a only a few feet Northwest of the Henry Madden Library. Is it about to be inundated with lava, even before we begin a major new addition to the Library? Should students and faculty begin running for their lives? Will there be film at 11? (For a closer look at the full sized image, click on the picture.)

Don't panic. It is just Your Reporter playing with his image editing program. What we have here is a mysterious new art form that has appeared over the summer on The Walk. We have made various interpretations of the meaning and purpose of this art.

Some of this art is very minimalist in nature, perhaps by a follower of Paul Klee.

Or perhaps these are signs left by alien creatures attempting to communicate with us.

Howard and Sy (now full sized) enlist the help of a passing student in an attempt to decipher a possible meaning. Are these strange cyphers left behind by an ealier civilization or species, and only now beginning to surface? Perhaps Homo sapiens litigatensis?

The Walk is covered by these strange signs. Sadly, we find that the brilliant colors are fading with each passing day. Perhaps a Commission could be formed to preserve these before they are lost to human history.

On a somber note, we must report that The Prisoner Tree has passed on to that Great Aboretum in the Sky, joining Tree I, Tree II, and other victims of age, drought, misdirected sprinker systems or Progress. (Given the brown edge around the grate, a more sinster possibility comes to mind as well.)

Alone, its fronds reaching vainly for those last few bits of sunlight, existing on what meager rations of water that might dribble through its grate, the Prisoner Tree succumbed sometime this summer. Sy, Howard, and Bruce Blackerby (and your reporter behind the camera) pause for a few moments of reflection.

But we are of good cheer! A new semester has begun. A new generation of students has joined us on this campus, and we have had many much happier Moments of Silence in the more traditional sense.

September 2, 2004