The Art of Fear was an event held on Wednesday in celebration of students and new membership changes for the Eastern Illinois University Tarble Arts Center.
According to Mya Harbison, the audience development manager at Tarble, changes for membership were implemented this fall semester, granting all students the opportunity to apply for membership with the use of their E-number, eliminating any fees.
“I wanted to create student membership so that we had more opportunities to get students here into our space,” she said. “Student membership is totally free, and they gain access that the lowest level of payment, [like] a $50 member, would.”
Besides the addition of student memberships, another change made this fall is the addition of a $250 per year benefactor membership, according to Harbison.
“It was mainly because of the $400 gap between the $100 per year advocate membership and the $500 patron membership,” she said. “A lot of our advocate members actually upgraded to the benefactor membership after the changes.”
With these changes, there are now an additional 36 EIU student members in addition to the existing 28 student and community members. As of Wednesday, Tarble had a total of 64 members, Harbison said.
The changes also resulted in a 17% increase in members upgrading to the benefactor level and a 35% increase in members upgrading their membership to higher levels, according to Harbison.
The celebration, available only to Tarble members, featured a lot for those attending, such as a cursed object display, pumpkin painting, movie screenings of “It Comes at Night” and “The Witch,” tarot readings, a monster-themed mashed potato bar and a costume contest.
Harbison said that the cursed object display was a pop up exhibition containing student artwork that had not yet been displayed. This artwork was referred to as being “uncovered from the depths of the vault,” according to the event’s calendar listing.
“It’s student curated,” Harbison said. “We reached out to everyone that was working here and said go through your collection and select a work that you would want to be a part of this show.”
Sarah Brown, a graduate assistant for Tarble, said that they tried to make the exhibit fit a scary theme. “We picked up artworks that were spooky and went with the vibe.”
The costume contest consisted of three categories: scariest costume, fan favorite costume and best DIY costume.
The scariest costume was won by junior education major Caroline Bouc, who dressed as a pirate. Fan favorite costume was won by senior graphic design major Alexandra Bradley, who dressed as Maverick from “Top Gun: Maverick.” Best DIY costume was won by senior digital tech major Carli Keller, who dressed as a dark elf.
Tarot readings were conducted by Jemma Allen, a graduate student in the music department.
“I’ve been doing tarots for about eight to nine years,” she said. “The Tarble reached out to me two or three days ago and asked me if I was available to read tarot, and it seemed like a great way to spend my night.”
Andrea Jimenez can be reached at 581-2812 or ajimenez10@eiu.edu.
