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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 22, 1996)
t Page 3 Tuesday • October 22, 1 996 cholars duringjii noon in the Cla®! r. Alumni Center, r studies a e collisioms N, N.H. (AP) -DrJ geon and chief of fc iuth-Hitchcock Me:: carved a niche fori lyzing the injuriespe; sn their cars anotri a moose, s colleagues calii found that 23 litalized at Dartmi Maine Medicaltd n Maine Medica ; Ci'| l years for injure si oose-vehicie acccrt : them died of teij :nty percent of thostl lied suffered head) . and 26 percents* njuries. said most moosed lemolish the car ad Moose have no n'j n northern New Ena run from a car’s la can also grow rm and weigh more:■ ids. ound that cars often under the belly, liftirj and onto the passe'S is crushed by tliel dvice: When a collisi se looks inevitable,? [quarters, lopes his work will la rooms deal bettertf Highs & Lows Foday’s E 63°F bnight's Expected^ 40°F Tomorrovi't HxpectedHI 73°F 'IbmorrowNipli F'xpectedLo't 57°F ion courtesy of TAMSC* s and The benches of Moore Hall serve as a place for on-campus residents to win friends and influence people. By Shea Wiggins The Battalion T he sun comes down over Moore Hall. One by one, the stu dents emerge and gather on the benches in front of the dorm. Cigarettes are lit, Slurpees are drunk, discussions are started, and time ticks on till dawn. These “bench bums” have congregated to contemplate. Moore Hall, a Northside' dorm, has four wooden benches that face Moses Hall. The bench bums are about 10 students from Moore Hall and Davis Gary residence halls, who sit on the benches all night to talk and smoke. The students who live in Moore said they can go out any hour of the night and find the bench bums doing their thing. Ryan Reeh, a Moore resi dent and sophomore con struction science major, said the bench bums are an under stood tradition. “They congregate to smoke,” Reeh said. “There are more cigarette butts out there than rocks.” Reeh said he sees them every night. Dave House, The Battalion “They let me into the dorm Casey Goodner, a senior English when I don’t have my ID, usu- majot/Smokes on the benches. ally at two o’clock in the morn ing,” Reeh said. “One night they serenaded me with the hidden song from Alanis Morissette.” Greg Howard, a Moore resident and sophomore business major, said the students stay on the benches until eight in the morning. “They range from freshmen to fifth-year seniors,” Howard said. “They were here when my older brother was a freshman. I guess it is like a legacy.” Howard said many of the bench bums have nicknames. “There is Jiffy, Wild Bill, Corkie, Sober, Luckie, Stretch and Rat Boy,” Howard said. He said there is no rush, hazing or initiations involved in be coming a bench bum. The bench bums said they do more than just smoke on the benches. Brent Taylor, a bench bum and sophomore zoology major, said they have deep conversations. “I stay out just until two or three in the morning,” Taylor said. “We sometimes get into long talks about politics, religion, racism and social stuff. We like to analyze and criticize people.” Taylor said it is a good place to relax after studying. “They trap you,” Taylor said. “Once you come down here you can’t leave.” Taylor said the meetings at the benches die down in the spring, after the bench bums have received their fall grades. “I think we have the lowest GPRs on campus,” Taylor said. Jennifer “Jiffy” Patterson, a bench bum from Davis Gary and sophomore elementary education major, said she stays on the benches all night at least three or four nights a week. Patterson said pastimes of the bench bums include throwing rocks at light bulbs, writing phone numbers down on the bench es, and yelling at the other dorms. Badi Klem, a Moore resident and sophomore psychology ma jor, said the bench bums are interesting to watch. “They decorated the outside of the doors with scarecrows and deer,” Klem said. “We don’t know what the purpose is, but I think it is some kind of Halloween thing.” Clayton Kindell, a bench bum and sophomore civil engineering major, said 40 people congregated on the benches one night. “You think you would run out of things to talk about, but we never do,” Kindell said. Kindell said sometimes old bench bums come back to Moore. “Guys from the ’80s come by here, and we sit and talk,” Kindell said. “They tell stories about when they were here.” Kindell said it is a different way to get to know students. “We meet people on the benches instead of at parties,” Kindell said. Dave House, The Battalion "Bench Bums" gather at the Moore Hall benches for compan ionship. Up to 40 students have gathered there at one time. e Lines ^Artistic Encounters 17 try cruising^ 5 per person if or seven niglifi 18-4890 iers.com [ON Rasmussen, ChyEdiW y, Sports Editor Iilne, Visual Arts EdP 'ung, Web Editor og, Photo Editor raeber, Cartoon Ediw Hausenfluck, Christie W';' tVi Jith Stewart,CourtneyM 10 * 'er Huff, John LeBas,W sl ' T g, Jeremy Furtick, Coll)) 1 avid Boldt, Bryan Go#',. ard, Mason Jackson, Se!#' <& Angie Rodgers : Matt Weber all hael Depot, Ed Good*""' tityin the Division ofSto# cDonald Building. Ne** 5 '' dress: httpi/Zbat-weliW* 1 ■yThe Battalion. For camp 45-0569. Advertising offi* 55 ' ay. Fax: 845-2678. ick up a single copyR 1 ®^ •Jo charge by Visa, zfie fall and sprint and exam periods) Send address changest® 11 ' '843-1111. ormer professor's still-life sculptures defy reality By John LeBas The Battalion => 19 1 figi life 60s aul Suttman: Encounters in Bronze, a col- \h' lection of a former Texas A&M artist-in- -L residence’s bronze sculptures, is on display through Dec. 14 at the J. Wayne Stark Gal leries in the Memorial Student Center. Catherine A. Hastedt, curator of the Stark Galleries, said Suttman, who died in i93 and taught sculpture at A&M in he College of Architecture in the arly 80s, was one of the most prominent American sculptors of fiis time. From the rough looking ures of his early career to the still- and surrealistic creations he made later in life, Suttman’s work is abstract and Emotional, she said. “Suttman’s figurative sculptures of the combine impressionistic surfaces with ileep emotional content,” she said. His objects, ranging from the “Javalina” to a Oman “Combing her Hair,” gave way the 70s to still-life settings of fruit and wine. "He places fruit, bottles and other familiar still-life forms in precari- balanced or unbalanced arrangements, full of implicit move- toent,” Hastedt said. “Objects take on Qualities antithetical to their essential natures: Irapery stands by itself, bronze paper bags pile Up like boulders, apples and pears grow to Monumental sizes.” Suttman’s work changed as he mastered the art of bronze casting, Hastedt said. “Pieces like ‘Javalina’ are his very early Works,” she said. “They were like his student rejects, and they have a heavy feel to them. Later, he mastered his technique.” Hastedt said the artist learned to sculpt us ing the lost-wax technique: Clay is placed over a wax sculpture of a subject, the wax is melted out of the hardened clay, and molten bronze is poured inside. Much of Suttman’s early work is characterized by rough surfaces, Hastedt said, which were in tentional. “He always liked rough, quick texture,” she said. “In ‘Combing Her Hair’ you can see his thumbprints. It was all intentional.” As Suttman honed his skills, Hast edt said, his work became more abstract and contained more el ements of architecture. He used abstract elements to get the viewer to look more deeply into the meaning of a piece, she said. “How Time Passes on a Cloudy Afternoon” incorporates such elements and actually shows time passing, Hastedt said. For example, a cloud appears in the frame of the relief sculpture and then again outside of the frame. “You can imagine how diffi cult it is to show time passing in a sculpture,” Hastedt said. Suttman also brought his knowledge of architecture into his work. According to an exhibit brochure by Suttman’s wife, Vir ginia Bush Suttman, the artist’s “Arc-I-Tek-Tur” is a celebration of architectural design. “The statics and dynamics of ar chitecture are emphasized by the pyramid — the most stable of shapes — resting on spheres — the least sta ble,” she said. “The pedestal shows a range of architectural vocabulary: the capital and entablature with engraved let ter; the open colonnade; the rusticated and quoined enclosure below.” Artist depicts vibrant landscapes in watercolor By John LeBas The Battalion M ax E Mayer (1887-1947), a collection of watercolor paintings by one of the first Texas A&M graduates in architectural engineering, is on display at the J. Wayne Stark Uni versity Galleries in the Memorial Student Center through Dec. 19. Thirty-eight of the late San Anto nio-born artist’s colorful depictions of mesas, mountains, buildings and the sea are in the exhibit. Arthur J. Mayer, Ph.D., the late artist’s nephew, said his uncle was born into a culturally-oriented family that put great emphasis on art and music. The artist loved to play the violin and paint in ad dition to his architectural work. But Mayer’s fondness for architecture came out in his painting, Arthur Mayer said. “The architectural background dominates [much of his work],” Arthur Mayer said. “But there are still quite a bit of artistic characteristics.” A 1906 graduate of A&M, the elder Mayer be gan working as an independent architect in Little Rock a few years after leaving school, and quickly gained prominence as a residential designer. His love for art also spilled over into his career: Mayer would sometimes give watercolor paintings of the completed houses he built to the owners. But the Great Depression put his architecture career on hold and Mayer returned to San Anto nio. He began to focus more on his painting and violin playing. In this period, Mayer produced watercolor im ages of his city in paintings such as “San Antonio Cityscape.” A preservationist and a researcher, Arthur Mayer said, the elder Mayer worked to capture the deterioration of the missions and sur rounding jacales, small hut villages, before the structures were restored. “San Antonio was the ideal location for an artist who wasalso an architect,” Arthur Mayer said. The artist also loved to paint the southwestern landscape, Arthur Mayer said, and turned out many images of nature such as “Power of the Mesa” and “Mountain Majesty.” “He took his nieces and nephews to the Gulf Coast where he fished and painted while they fished and swam,” Arthur Mayer said. Catherine A. Hastedt, curator of the Stark Gal leries, said he used colors that do not usually ap pear in nature, like purples and pinks, and the na ture of watercolor paint gave his paintings a fuzzy, impressionist quality. “But he wasn’t a true impressionist,” Hastedt said. “He was more muted and more documentary.” By the end of the Depression, Arthur Mayer said the artist had a large collection of paintings of missions, seascapes, landscapes and industrial areas. He started to get architectural work again in the late 30s and returned to Little Rock. There Mayer was commissioned to design and oversee the restoration of the original capitol block in the city. Mayer transformed it from a block of “bars and flophouses” to what now is “much like what they did with Williamsburg,” Arthur Mayer said. “The Arkansas Territorial Restoration became Max Mayer’s grandest achievement,” he said. Mayer remained in Little Rock to practice ar chitecture and died there in 1947. Landscapes are characteristic of Mayer's artwork.