The Lafayette Interdisciplinary Music Society, or LIMS, hosted a musical makeover in Hogg Hall’s basement on Sunday to make the space sing.
“We got members of our community to come in,” said LIMS Treasurer David Antwi ‘26. “Members who might not have even been as active, but we were at least able to see them, interact with them, learn about them and they made their imprint on the space.”
Accompanied by music spanning from classic rock to heavy metal to new-age jazz, participants painted any space available on the walls, adding pops of color to the former bare white. The paintings included a realistic MTV symbol, a heart with colorful flowers and vines and a stream of music notes leading to a recorder with the word “LIMS.”
They also added decorations to celebrate the history of LIMS, including a column commemorating bands that have been influential within LIMS and on Lafayette’s campus, such as Pizza Delivery and Sold Out Six.
“The paintings just add a lot of expression,” Antwi said. “Music is one of the most expressive forms there is, so I think it really just adds to the space.”
LIMS partnered with their “sibling organization,” Lafayette College Art Society, to get the materials needed for the event.
Once Antwi, Ajani Martin ‘26 and Justin Morales ‘26 joined the executive board for LIMS, they resolved to clean up the space and make it more habitable. With the help of former LIMS president Benny Putnam ‘24, they worked to create a cleaner and healthier environment for LIMS to function.
“We put physical labor into the space over months, not only just like two days or a weekend,” Morales said. “It was almost every weekend we would clean the space and add something to it, remove broken things.”
Martin, Antwi and Morales’ plans exceeded simply cleaning the room.
“We have a lot of bland white walls in this space,” Martin said. “A lot of them have random holes in it, tape to cover the holes and just paint that got peeled off of it from over the years. So we kind of just brainstormed, ‘How do we cover this bland white wall?’”
Before the trio held the Hogg Hall makeover, Martin, Antwi and Morales first made sure LIMS had all the equipment needed for concerts on campus.
“We had to build up LIMS from barely able to support itself to probably able to support itself before we could actually go full force and beautify our space,” Martin said.
They toyed with ideas of posters or tapestries but ultimately decided to paint a mural with the help of the LIMS community.
“Having something nice to look at as well just invites more people who know that the space is warm and welcoming and also just fun,” Morales said about the makeover.
Their plan for the makeover to create a welcoming environment matches their hopes for the organization.
“We see LIMS as fully open to everybody, regardless what music you want to play, what you look like, your racial identity, your sexuality,” Martin said. “If you play music, if you’re not good at music, if you enjoy music, even if you don’t play music at all, LIMS is for you.”
