Take a look around campus and you will see a common student essential: water bottles and laptops. Students and professors alike have found ways to allow their personalities and interests to shine through by adding stickers to their personal items.
Elena Delzer is a senior at Taylor and is majoring in Arts Illustration. Delzer’s love for creating is shown through her laptop of stickers, best demonstrated through Delzer’s canvas sticker, which represents her artistic side.
The sticker is a canvas on an easel with a unibrow. The words above say, ‘Let’s create!’ — Delzer’s personal motto.
“I love how creating connects me to people,” Delzer said. “It makes me really happy when someone enjoys my art. I love to enjoy other people’s art.”
Delzer has a variety of stickers from local coffee shops: her hometown record store in Madison, Wisconsin, a cat sticker that looks similar to her cat and a Trader Joe's sticker.
Delzer supports other artists by buying their stickers and putting them on her laptop and iPad. She hopes to illustrate her own stickers to sell at Shop-the-Loop on Saturday, October 21, 10am.-1pm. at Bond Plaza.
Hunter Mason is a freshman majoring in Environmental Sciences. He reflects on his anticipation of moving to campus and receiving his Taylor Water Bottle and stickers in the mail.
“I put the Indiana sticker on there, because for a while I was taking this to school with me. If people ask where this tiny school in the middle of nowhere is, I can be like, it’s right there.”
Bringing his water bottle to school allowed him to show school spirit for the next year.
Along with Mason’s sticker-filled water bottle, he also has a guitar case covered in stickers.
“I have a bunch of stickers on there,” he said. “I have stickers from Taylor and some from my favorite movies. Last year my government teacher, if you got the highest score on a test, said he’d let you pick cool government stickers.”
Christy Moore is the assistant professor of education here at Taylor.
She shared about how being at Taylor allows her to constantly learn new lessons from her students.
“I learn from students here all the time,” Moore said. “I would go in with a certain perception of the story and what the lesson was, and they would say something very different. And their perspective changed my thinking.”
Moore’s love for learning can be seen by the stickers on her laptop. Moore also pointed to the variety of Taylor Education Department stickers showcased on her laptop. The sticker sheet had many stickers that relate to the Education Department’s mission statement of developing professional, servant-minded teachers both nation- and world-wide.
She noted, “If anybody wants them, just stop and see our program assistant, Shannon Shult.”
The sticker pack is 2 dollars and supports teachers at Allen Elementary in Marion, Indiana. Yet not all of Moore’s stickers are related to her field. Some are more personal.
“Here’s a stack of books, and these are all classics.” Moore pointed to the coffee mug on top of the stack of books. “It has Luke’s diner at the top because I love that part of the mom and daughter’s relationship, their love for books.”
Stickers prompt us to express ourselves in simple yet meaningful ways.
“I think it is important because of its relatability. If someone’s truly expressing themself from deep down, I just really resonate with it,” Delzer said.
For Moore, the meaning of something as simple as a sticker can also be an opportunity to display someone’s heart or spirit.
Because while it may seem a simple piece of decoration, everything we do has meaning — everything we have reveals a little piece of who we are.
“When we express ourselves, we are showing off God’s work,” Moore said. “Expressing ourselves, definitely, in a positive way, is reflected back to God’s glory.”
Mason also brought a new perspective to the stickers we collect and keep.
As a freshman college student now reflecting on his high school experience, the mailed stickers he received as a prospect have taken on a new meaning.
“I think it also shows how you have grown,” he said, “because once you put a sticker on, it may be there for years. You can look back and remember.”
Stickers also allow us to meet new people.
Ask about people’s stickers! Find out a new fact about someone. Find similarities and differences. Celebrate who God has made us, created us, and wired us to be!
“I think that it is definitely a conversation starter and gives us opportunities to connect with other people,” Moore said.
