Different Strokes, the MacArthur art club, made its debut on campus with a colorful display during the Spring 2005 Club Fest.

“We had a standard flip-out poster boards, a bunch of decorations, CDs, all sorts of different types of artwork,” said Echo Keif, president and founder. “To the side we had a canvas for everyone to paint on. Every person that came by painted a stroke on there so you had a different stroke on the canvas, which is how we came up with the name.”

The club’s creative display, encouraging participation from the students, earned Different Strokes the award for most creative display at Club Fest.

“[The canvas] is actually in the glass case out here [in the Burrow student union], and if you look at it there are some very odd things on it. There’s everything from Superman, a flower, initials, I mean, everything’s on there, even if it’s just a big swirl. It was just paint[ing] what was in your head.”

Since then, Keif has developed two other canvas paintings during events for the campus’ division of Amnesty International, one of which is on display in the Burrow.

Recently, she and other students also completed the new mural in the dining hall, a project that was part of her work as director of Students Advocating Volunteer Involvement (SAVI) at the MacArthur Campus. The mural consists of a blue background of water with black human shapes swimming across it.

Keif is currently determining what events to put on for the club in order to discuss the importance of art. “The goal for that is just to set up an artistic environment, not even for just artists but for everyone who appreciates art. One of the goals is to have forums where you can talk about what is art, what is expression and things like that.”

Prompting Keif’s goal for artistic appreciation was the theft of Anchor Baby, a sculpture of a baby painted with the design of the American flag, which hung tethered to an anchor. The artwork was on display at the MacArthur Campus when it was stolen.

“I was very upset, and I wanted to make this club for that purpose so that we could all discuss these things and so that it wouldn’t come to that,” said Keif.

“A future event I want to do this semester is ‘A Day without Art.’ That in particular I want to do because of Anchor Baby. The goal is to conceal all the different pieces of art with a tarp or garbage bag or plastic so that you can’t see it. I’m sure the arrangement will be strange to people, but I think it will be important in the long run for people to think, to consider what it would be like without art.”

Keif does not want to focus only on what is generally considered art, however. It’s not an art club in the normal sense either. We have every kind of artist from musicians to cartoonists to painters. Some of them are songwriters. There is a very eclectic blend of artists.

“We would like to have an art magazine, which would include a gallery of pictures, different artwork, even CDs and music, poetry and things like that – everything that you can consider as art.”

Different Strokes meets every other Wednesday. For more information, contact Echo Keif at [email protected].