EJ JACOBS
Life & Arts Editor
In the corner of Thompson Hall, there is an office that keeps the school’s online uses going.
This place is the Information Technology Service Center (ITS).
These past two semesters, all of the Technology staff on campus moved into Thompson Hall. This meant that many people got new offices.
A new computer lab was also made. With this new addition, there was a lot of blank wall space. This is where Makayla Neilson, a senior graphic design major who has been working as a student technician at ITS since January 2021, came in.
“They [Manager of the ITS Service Center, Tylor Cardone and the Residential Technology Coordinator, Mark Mackey] told me they wanted a mural done and they gave me artistic freedom to do whatever I wanted,” said Neilson.
The staff chose what they liked after looking at a few draw-up concepts done by Neilson.
When talking about how she came up with the idea for the mural, Neilson said, “This idea came about because I wanted to do a type of collage. Instead of one big image of a singular thing, I wanted to do something that was technology versus nature.”
The making of this mural took the whole Spring 2023 semester.
This is her first mural ever, as well as her first ever public art piece.
“I actually hate painting. I prefer digital work or pencil or colored pencil,” Neilson said. “So when they wanted to do this, I felt a little intimidated.”
The mural is very personal to Neilson. It shows how she views the ITS Center and the connections she has made during her journey working there.
Making a mural is a very permanent thing. To some, that fact may be daunting, but not to Neilson.
“It will be nice to have something that is left behind from my time at Fredonia,” Neilson said. “We do school work and [the] projects that we have in class but nothing will be remembered on campus made by the art students. We don’t have opportunities like this [on campus], so we have to find it elsewhere.”
If you are ever in Thompson Hall come to 203D in the Information Technology Service Center to check out Makalya Neilson’s mural.
EJ Jacobs, the writer of this piece, works for ITS.