A Splash of Art on West College Avenue
July 23, 2009 at 12:36 pm Tina Hay 1 comment
I had occasion to walk down College Avenue yesterday, from the general area of the former O.W. Houts store (yeah, they went out of business a year or two ago) toward campus. I was surprised to encounter a little art along the way.
Two buildings in the 600 block—both apartment houses, it looked like—have windows painted in the trompe-l’oeil style. Trompe-l’oeil, which is pronounced roughly “trump loy,” is basically an art technique that tricks the eye and makes things look three-dimensional.
At first I thought the windows might be the work of some industrious and very talented Penn State students, but I’ve since found that they were done by a local professional artist, Michael Pilato. You may have seen his murals along the side of a building on Hiester Street downtown, among other locations.
Whatever the case, the College Avenue windows do a nice job of adding a pleasant and artistic accent to a part of town that isn’t exactly known for its architecture or its building upkeep. Below are a couple of shots I took with my iPhone; click on any of them to see a bigger version.
Tina Hay, editor
Entry filed under: State College, University Park campus. Tags: College Avenue, Michael Pilato, muralists, murals, O.W. Houts, trompe-l'oeil.
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1. Matt Steindorf | July 30, 2009 at 1:27 pm
This has been there for years. I have grown up in SC and these have been there since I can remember being 5 in the back of a Minivan.