Random acts of vandalism

By Josiah Stewart
Critic Staff

Several acts of vandalism involving paint that had been stored in ACT 210 have plagued Lyndon State College over the past two weeks.

The room that was used to store the paint has seen the worst from the vandals.
“Those rooms are usually locked, and it wasn’t locked, and the paint that the students were using to do their ‘illegal’ artwork was in that room, and it is my responsibility because I thought that it was secure and it wasn’t,” Elizabeth Norris, department chair of music and performing arts, said.

Norris received a report on Dec. 2, and believes that it was a janitor who discovered the first bit of vandalism: yellow paint that had been dumped into the chalk board tray in ACT 210.

“That afternoon a student from my class said ‘oh look someone dumped paint into the heating vent’ so someone had taken the yellow paint and poured it down the heater, and it dripped through to the ground below,” Norris said, “I thought that I better also check the piano, so I opened the top of the piano looking for yellow paint and did not see any. I thought that it looked a little bit odd but I didn’t register what I was seeing because I was looking for yellow and I just looked real quick.”

On Monday Dec. 8, while Norris was having her departmental recital, she discovered that the piano she had checked earlier had been a victim of the vandals as well,

“I went to use the piano and it felt like I was playing on a table, and when I opened it I realized the whole inside was filled with brown paint so it blended in right over the hammers. So they lifted the top and poured brown paint all over the inner workings. I don’t yet know if the piano is salvageable. I still have to talk to someone about that,” Norris said.

Norris explained that although the Shelter Showcase was not greatly attended, people from off campus were free to come in, “so it could have been anyone.”

Another bit of vandalism on campus occurred on the bottom floor of the Vail building in the same spot that previously held three pieces of artwork that had only recently been painted over. “Someone took a black marker and wrote ‘Erase lies, not art,’ which I thought was very interesting, and it looks like someone tried to scrub it off and it isn’t coming off,” Norris said.

Norris also explained the reason behind the three paintings in Vail being painted over, “I found out that it was on account of supposed hidden drug messages in the paintings, because the one that said ‘Keep Lyndon Green’ had mushrooms in it and apparently someone from administration thought that it had to do with hallucinogens, and the other was an image of spray cans and this was thought to deal with inhalants.”

“Tenure or no tenure, I still would have done this project because in my brain it doesn’t really hold a connection to the project,” Norris said, “but I am on the other side of tenure now so I can’t say for sure, but the bottom line is that we are here for the students and for student education and I will do whatever it takes to teach my students something important.”