UpDate - Vol. 15, No. 23, Page 3
March 7, 1996
On the move; Artist takes his creative works beyond the studio

     No one was eggsactly sure if it was an early visit from the
Easter Bunny or a proliferation of eggs from a giant Blue Hen, but
somehow 99 blue and gold eggs mysteriously found their way onto the
campus just in time for the first day of the spring semester.
     The eggs, in three different sizes, all rattled as if
containing... what?... the secret to the universe?
     After some detective work on the part of the UpDate staff,
personnel in the Department of Art confessed that the eggs had been
laid by one Carlos Yepes, a graduate student in sculpture. Here on a
Presidential Fellowship, Yepes is studying with Joe Moss, art.
     Ever since his undergraduate days as a sculpture major at Florida
International University in Miami, Yepes has had trouble keeping his
art within the confines of the sculpture yard. Sometimes, at night,
one of his pieces would mysterious break out of the yard and move onto
the campus-proof of the artist's belief that sculpture needs to be out
among the people.
     When Yepes moved to Newark, he immediately noticed the lack of
sculpture on campus. Wondering how to correct the situation, he
decided to create public art that people could actually pick up, look
at and perhaps take home with them. The idea for the eggs was inspired
by the metal Blue Hen that now roosts on the Laird Campus.
     It took Yepes three months to make the 99 eggs that he, his wife
and friends eventually placed all around campus. The eggs are ceramic,
made of material poured into a mold. Yepes made one a day, painting
them blue with a gold wash. He cut each one open and inserted a secret
message.
     The largest eggs contain old fashioned limericks that Yepes found
in books in the Morris Library. The middle-sized ones contain
proverbs, and the smallest eggs contain the key-the explanation of
what the project is all about-getting art out to the public and making
people think.
     "The idea was that the largest eggs contain the least important
information, like in life, where the smallest thing may carry the most
important message," Yepes said.
     While Yepes was interested in seeing public reaction to the eggs,
none of the messages contain his name or phone number. He wanted to
remain anonymous.
     Still, word of some egg discoveries did get back to him. He
noticed the one placed in front of the President's House on Kent Way
was gone the next day, as was one left on the ticket machine in the
parking garage. One placed in a squirrel hole in a tree by Willard
Hall Education Building went undiscovered the longest. Still another,
accidentally knocked out of a space in a building ended up in a puddle
where it biodegraded.
     Yepes also heard of a group of students sitting around a table,
pondering an egg at a local coffeehouse, and a similar discussion is
said to have occurred in the Morris Library. He was told that a
secretary who collects eggs had run around campus and claimed three.
     The trail of eggs started at the Blue Hen near the Pencader
Residence Hall Complex, where one egg sculpture of each size was
"laid" and went on to the Perkins Student Center, through the dorms
and back to the other side of campus.
     "I just wanted to make people think," Yepes said. "Sometimes, I'm
aware that people just walk around oblivious to their surroundings.
When I saw the icicles that formed on campus after the snow, I was
wowed. But lots of people, it seems, didn't even notice."
     Yepes said he didn't care if ultimately the eggs were broken open
by people looking for the messages.
     "I thought most people would break them, and that's okay if it
made them curious, if it made them look."
     And for this semester?
     Yes, Yepes is working on another campus-wide display of hands-on
sculpture. He promises a 1,000-piece display sometime in the spring.
He's not disclosing the subject...but you can be sure a new project
has hatched in his mind.
                                                          -Beth Thomas