Library mural in progress Artist chosen to liven up empty library walls

Author: Margaret Ray

Finally, something else to look at besides all that blank space. Fine, maybe that hasn't been the most pressing issue on everyone's mind recently with the spring workload piling on, but rejoice! We're getting a mural in the new library.

The mural, to be called "L'Art d'Ecrire" ("The Art of Writing") by Matt Mullican, will hang from the second and third story wall that rises above the information desk in the main entrance of the building. The mural will be installed this summer and is part of a combined project of the Middlebury College Committee on Art in Public Place (CAPP) and the Edwin Austin Abbey Memorial Fund for Mural Painting in America, which is part of the National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts in New York. CAPP was founded at Middlebury College in 1994 and stipulates that one percent of the cost of all building projects on campus be set aside and used for the acquisition and care of works of art in public spaces around campus.

Mullican won the commission through a contest that began in 2003. More than 70 artists entered the competition to have their work hung in the new library. In 2004, the three finalists came to campus to survey the sight and submit a proposal of their work. Mullican won the commission.

Mullican was born in Santa Monica, Calif. in 1951, and now lives in New York. He studied with John Baldessari at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, and has had his work exhibited all over the United States since the mid 1970s, and even all over the world. His pieces have been shown in several well-known galleries in New York City, Boston, Vienna, Dallas, Paris, Geneva and Warsaw.

The artist's chromatic palette most often draws upon black and white to represent language, as well as the primary colors red, yellow and blue to create complementing blocks of color and pictograms. For "L'Art d'Ecrire," Mullican has chosen only the colors black and yellow. The mural will be composed of 64 individual panels created using the artist's transfer technique. This process and final character of the piece can be compared to how one makes charcoal rubbings from old gravestones.

Various themes of knowledge and even a few references to Middlebury College itself will be found in the mural upon close scrutiny. It will likely be a welcome stylistic addition to the spacious new library.