An end of an era has come to pass at Eisenhower Auditorium.

For years, undergraduate and graduate students have hand painted the posters that advertise the shows of the season and decorate the auditorium's hallowed halls, but now these student productions are going to be replaced by digitally produced works.

Susan Stockton, the new director for the Center of the Performing Arts, has decided to switch over all of the CPA's advertising to digital, which will end the years of hand painted posters along with the student involvement.

"My idea was to be sure that our labor and our financial resources went into mechanisms that we could use and reuse," Stockton said. "The paintings we have now are basically all in the building until the time they go out front for a show. And my thought was that we were not as visible to our students or the community because we did not have materials out there to the same degree that this formula allows us to have."

Stockton also talked of the virtues of having digital materials for the shows.

"We can reuse them in the lobby for displays, we can use them anywhere. We can go to the HUB for a big sale. We want people to walk in and see a huge poster, and say 'WOW! What's that? What's happening?'" She added, "The painted displays, though very beautiful and very unique, have a wonderful peace to them, but they're static in terms of their equity."

The decision to end the painting of the posters came as a surprise to many. The posters have been hand painted by students since 1987 or perhaps even longer — it is hard to determine when the posters actually began. Jessie Carrier-Field (senior-marketing) was one who was surprised by the announcement

Carrier-Field is not an art major, but she said she has always had a love for art and needed a work study. She read a classified ad online and saw that a graphic designer was needed for the Center for the Performing Arts, so she applied. However, the job was not what she anticipated.

"I originally thought that this was computer graphics. It said it was graphics assistant, so I thought that I would get training in that area, but I came here (the CPA) and they said it was painting, and I was like, 'I can paint'," Carrier-Field said.

So she came to work for the CPA and began painting posters. The children's show Lyle, Lyle Crocodile was the first poster that she did and is one of her favorites. Off the top of her head, she could only recall four of her posters that she worked on along with Karen Gossman (senior-art history). However, she said she was sure that there were several more.

The process for creating a painting was quite involved and could take up to two weeks for just one painting. Urszula Kulakowski, artistic director for the CPA, oversees the work done on all the posters. She explained the process that goes into creating a poster. "They (the designs) were transported from a small format, using a projector, and then traced and painted into the larger poster," said Kulakowski.

Although students with an artistic background were preferred, it was not required to receive the job. Kulakowski explained that the CPA tried to work with the student's strengths and weaknesses.

"If someone is good at painting faces or good at painting letters and has a 'good eye,' then we always try to have a good mix of talent, and all of the students work together in the work study," Kulakowski said.

Kulakowski said she does not have a favorite, but she greatly enjoys the paintings in which students have given their input and made the posters better because of it. Kulakowski said even some of the artists have taken an interest in their favorite posters.

"There were quite a few of them (student artists) who asked to have the posters of their shows. I don't know what they could do with them because they are huge. I suppose they could try to roll them up and put them on their busses if they had the space," Kulakowski said.

Students worked long hours to perfect the paintings before the beginning of the season so that everything was ready to go. However, sometimes they ran into glitches, especially on the last poster, which they worked on for the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra.

"We were pretty rushed. The show was going to open and it was less than a month away and you obviously want pictures up so people can buy tickets and there were just a lot of people in it and a lot of instruments so it was pretty difficult, but we had Anne come in to help us out," Carrier-Field said.

Anne Thompson (senior-theatre arts production) is another student who worked on the posters the past two years. Her specialty was working on faces in the posters. Several productions she's helped create artwork for include Showboat, The Three Musketeers and Peter Pan.

Since she was in kindergarten, Thompson said she has loved painting and is hoping to continue creating more works of art. She is one person who will be sad to see the posters go, because she does not feel that the digital representations will have the same feeling to them.

"I think there is a quality that the painting brings to the posters, which will be taken away with the digital. The painted posters have texture," Thompson said.

Stockton said she believes that this is a move in the right direction. She said this change will be accepted as people begin to realize that, at times, a little bit of change is good.

Stockton said that so far she has not heard of any negative feedback for the switch, but believes it will probably occur when the actual change is made.

"I will probably hear the fallout next year when it's all gone, but I think people were so accepting with what they saw last night," Stockton said, referring to the dinner the CPA held Tuesday night to present the new season and its new digital displays to its patrons.

Stockton went on to say, "To me this is bringing us into the 21st century. They are bright, contemporary, alive and responsive to the moment."