NOTICE TO FRESHMEN: It is safe to go inside the library.
The 'No Trespassing' sign stamped on the picture of Hayden Library that adorns the construction wall mural south of Stauffer Hall, is not literal.
It's just a humorous accident of art and progress.
Last spring, when ASU Director of Public Art Dianne Cripe saw the No Trespassing signs and the great, blank white construction wall they decorated, she saw an opportunity: a 250-foot-long canvas for ASU art students.
"I thought it resembled a canvas," Cripe says. "I thought it would be a good experience for [students] to go through the public art process."
Cripe contacted professor Anthony Pessler of the Herberger College of Fine Arts who posted notices calling for students to participate in a mural painting project.
Several long hot summer weeks, seven students and gallons of paint, donated by Tempe-based Sundt Construction Inc., turned the wall from a blank band-aid over the growing pains of construction to a spectacle of public art.
Cripe says this is not the first time a mural has been painted on a wall at ASU.
"I've been told that about 20 years ago there was a similar project like this," she says.
The wall will remain in place for 16 months until construction on the new Lattie F. Coor Mediated Classroom Building is complete.
Hayden Library is immortalized on the new mural, amusingly beneath one of the construction site's No Trespassing signs. Town Lake is there, too, along with a pastoral view of the desert, complete with prickly pear cacti, red-rock plateaus and bucking broncos.
Some of the mural sections are more abstract: A vision of blue-green waves through stained glass, concentric blobs of red, gray, black, pink and blue, and brightly colored geometric shapes fill the middle portion of the wall.
Finally, near Stauffer Hall, an outer-space scene with planets, bubble-faced creatures and a galloping Yoda-esque centaur completes the mural.
The seven students each had their own portion of the wall to work with. The students worked during the day in June and July.
Painting senior Laura Spalding created the stained-glass scene of aqua waves. She says appreciative comments from passers-by made the hot days spent painting more bearable.
"We were doing this in the middle of the day, in the heat of the summer," she says. "It was good to get feedback. Anybody who walked by had a comment or a 'Thanks for doing that.'"
Spalding says she had never worked on such a large-scale project before. "It was a good experience to work that big," she adds.
Spalding and the six other students who worked on the mural this summer enrolled in an independent study course and received ASU credit for their work. Robert J. Wills, dean of the Herberger College of Fine Arts, then announced that all of the participating students would receive scholarships to cover their tuition for the course.
But the tuition-free class credit wasn't the most important benefit for the student artists.
Dane Hamblin, another painting senior, says the mural's central location provides great exposure for him and the other students.
"I've actually gotten work out of this," Hamblin says, adding that people have inquired at the College of Fine Arts about the artists and asked to commission work from him.
"I've actually been turning people away. The kind of exposure and experience we've gotten by having this so public is amazing."
Hamblin painted the Western-themed panels of the mural.
He says the cacti, plateaus and the abandoned car show the Valley without inhabitants. The cowboy and bucking broncos on the edges of his panel are meant to frame the scene.
"My premise beyond the scene was an abandoned valley," Hamblin says. "It's what the Valley would look like vacant, without people here."
Dance freshman Jenna Wilson contemplated Hamblin's panels on Sunday when she took a break from looking for her new class locations with a friend.
"It's beautiful," she says of the Western scene. "I think it fits well instead of just a plain, old wall."
Kevin Plover, an architecture freshman, says the wall could be a conversation piece for the campus.
"It's a good way to cover some nasty construction," he says. "It gives the campus a little bit of personality. It gives people something to talk about."
Hamblin says he wishes more art students could have such an opportunity to show off their work to the ASU community.
"I think they should paint over it and start over, give other people the exposure, too."
Reach the reporter at sara.thorson@asu.edu.