For years Midnight Mug employees have been puzzled by the mysterious paintings hidden behind the soda machines. On a sunny Friday afternoon I sit in Midnight with the paintings in front of me, desperately trying to gain meaning from them – other Midnighters gather around and attempt to do the same. We focus our energy on one particular subject: the man dressed as a matador… or is he? Other guesses include Aladdin, American Colonist, and Napoleon. Fortunately, BTC had the opportunity to interview the artist himself, Ben Chan (SFS ’05), to get to the bottom of it.
Ben Chan (SFS '05)
BTC: Did you work at Midnight?
Ben: Yeah, I actually was hired in 2002 around November or December. The store opened back in January 2003, so I was one of the first people who started working there.
BTC: What was the original idea for the paintings?
Ben: The new UM really wanted to make the space more friendly and conducive to students. Before it became Midnight that space was just one of those quiet Study Rooms. And you know Lau can be really drab and ugly looking?
BTC: (laughs) Oh can it?
BTC: So how did you settle on the subject matter?
Ben: (laughs) Yes it can. So we were trying to improve the atmosphere and appearance given the limited budget we had and the constraints with space. We decided we wanted to do something that would hang between the big glass wall so people wouldn’t have to look out and see a bunch of books. The mural idea came up and the UM basically asked me to paint it with the other co-director for marketing, Montana Ray (COL ’05).
Ben: Well we wanted to have as much fun with it as possible so we talked about a couple of ideas that we wanted to do. Eventually Emily Kilcrease (COL ’05), who was the director, suggested that we paint the portraits of the UM and we thought that was a great idea.
BTC: Can you tell me a little about the process?
Ben: Montana and I basically got photos of the Upper Management from the back office. We decided to have some fun by putting people in crazy costumes or putting mountains in the background instead of trees and a parking lot.
BTC: Oh that explains the matador outfit!
Ben: (laughs) Yeah for some aspects we were really kidding. The guy in the corner is dressed as Napoleon. His name is Nick Marinakis (SFS ’06) and he was the General Manager for Midnight Mug. He’s this little short guy who was kind of tyrannical so we thought it would be fun.
The guy in front of him is Neal Gorevic (COL ’06) who was the Director of Art and eventually became the director of Midnight in 2005. He was always really well dressed so we gave him a pink fedora. A lot of the photos back there were candids which is why the expressions are sort of deer in the headlights.
BTC: Suddenly it all makes sense! Did you study painting at Georgetown?
Ben: Not much. I was actually in the School of Foreign Service – International Politics major. I took one drawing class with Professor Muhn – he’s a great professor, I would definitely recommend taking a class with him.
I remember there was a pre-req for his class and I really didn’t want to take it so I brought some of my art to his office and showed it to him to see if I could get out of it. He stared at the paintings for about a minute and said, “You have talent but you need focus.” (laughs) He reminded me of Yoda.
BTC: Have you kept painting in your life?
Ben: For me, art has always been a hobby but not a profession. I’ve been meaning to keep it up but never really get around to it.
BTC: So I understand there was a note on the back of one of the paintings, can you expand on that a little?
Ben: Yeah, on the back of one of the canvases we wrote “If this is ever taken down and leaves Midnight it should go to the people responsible for the creation: Emily, Montana, and me.” When they got taken down, Craig Wallace (MSB ’06) who was an ex-Director of Personnel posted a picture on Facebook of one of the paintings in his living room. I was like “WTF?! That should not be Craig’s, that should be mine.”
Emily and I came back last December for a Corp Alumni thing. All of the alumni got to visit their old service so we went back to Midnight and looked for the mural. We found the pieces hidden behind the fridge. The people working that night were like “Oh…that’s what that is!”
BTC: Sort of the same reaction that I’m having…
Gillian “Alliteration” Spear is the Middle Manager of Marketing at Midnight MUG.
