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Art Installations Club hosts Dye another Day

An astute observer with night-vision walking down campus from Howe Center would have seen three especially bright lights colored red, blue, and green on Palmer Lawn. As one would have approached closer, they would have heard the “generic reggae music”, as an e-board member of the Stevens Art Installations Club noted. Said music hinted at the content of the event. They then would have spotted the candy scattered across the table surrounding said neon-colored structures, which happened to be SOL REPUBLIC headphone cases. All who signed up for the event were entered into a drawing for the chance to win a pair of the headphones.

All of this served to attract attendees to their tye-dyeing event.

Students signed in on an iPad and received a wet t-shirt of the desired size. Tens of bottles of dye, some capped, some not, were located on the next table for use. The tye-dyeing process went as follows. Students were given rubber gloves for protection against the dye and pinched the centre of their shirt and twisted it either clockwise or counter-clockwise until it resembled an enormous, circular honey-bun.

They subsequently retrieved two rubber bands and criss-crossed them on the shirt preserving the shape of the circle. Students were advised to go wild with the color afterward on both sides of the shirt. Dyeing the shirts in coherent patterns as well as fully proved difficult due to the random nature in which some bottles outputted ink. If one was aiming for the center of a shirt, the ink would outpour from an angle and land in a corner of the shirt. However, this did not prevent people from making spectacular patterns with the ink provided. For example, one Art Installations Club member, Rita Jackson, dappled her shirt with blue, pink, and purple dots creating an effect pleasing to the eye. After they finished dyeing their t-shirt to their hearts desire, attendees were given plastic bags to put their creations in. They were advised to leave the shirts in for four hours, then wash and dry them alone afterward before wearing.

The hosting organization, the Stevens Art Installations Club, is funded by the SGA. According to Club President Julian Chaves, the organization lost their advisor during the semester. This bamboozled their event schedule so that most of their events are being held late in the semester. Their events either display art which the club has made for appreciation or allows the Stevens campus to learn and interact with art. A popular event of theirs, “Light Writing”, which teaches long-exposure camera techniques has been postponed until May 1 of this year.

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