By Josh Siatkowski | Staff Writer
This week, art students returned to in-person classes a few days after the rest of campus, as the Lewis Art Building recovered from a pipe burst.
Although the flooding began around the time of the recent winter storm, the pipe burst was an independent event, according to Associate Vice President for Facilities and Operations Patrick Carley.
“This was not related to the winter storm or cold temperatures,” Carley said. “A bolt failed on a pipe fitting that was original to the building construction.”
While Baylor ended its remote instruction mandate the Wednesday before, in-person classes resumed days later for most art students.
“We didn’t get to enter the space until [this] Tuesday,” Denver junior and studio art major Lily Asher said. “For that whole week when it happened, most of the time we were online on Zoom. A lot of people said it was kind of bringing back COVID vibes, because [the return] kept getting pushed back.”
Asher, who is taking four classes in the Lewis Art Wing of the Hooper-Schaefer Fine Arts Center, said her darkroom photography lab was the only unaffected classroom of hers. Although it kept her classes sidelined for the week, Asher said the water only covered the bottoms of her feet, and she didn’t know of any student work that was damaged.
“I think most of [the student art] was safe,” Asher said. “What I do know is a lot of professors’ books and stuff in their offices seem to have gotten damaged, if there was anything close to floor level. There are books everywhere right now.”
The only damage to classrooms that Asher noted was some warping of a wood-paneled table in her graphic design lab.
The Hooper-Schaefer Fine Arts Center — built in 1979 — is home to offices, scenic and design shops, a dance studio, classrooms, a greenroom, a box office and more. Its adjacent wing, the Lewis Arts Building, is home to computer labs, dark rooms, studios and the Martin Museum of Art, many of which were affected by the issue.
Facilities work to repair the most recent pipe burst was completed Sunday, and the building is back to normal operations, Carley said.
While she said she was grateful nothing was irreversibly damaged, Asher did say that, in combination with the two snow days, she feels her art classes have gotten off to a slow start.
“You can’t necessarily [do] art and be creative in the same way with certain mediums because you can’t be in person to teach that,” Asher said. “It put everyone behind.”
