Jessica Rogers, art teacher at the Boys and Girls Club, paints on Erica Straight's,10, face Feb. 2 at the Boys and Girls Club of South Central Texas.

The Boys and Girls Club of South Central Texas brought together friends and family Saturday afternoon to celebrate a love of football. 

The Boys and Girls Club is a non-profit organization meant to help children accomplish their goals and become more self-confident. The club’s fourth annual Super Bowl Family Fun Party included food, games and crafts for youth of all ages. 

Tyler Wallach, Texas State alumnus, moved to New York City and has created his own brand of graffiti.

One Texas State alumnus is happy to be living life up in the “CLOUDZ.” 

Tyler Wallach graduated from Texas State in 2010 with a B.F.A. in Musical Theatre, but it’s his artwork that is creating a buzz. Wallach took up street art in San Marcos but has since taken CLOUDZ, his unique graffiti brand, all the way to New York City and the surrounding area. 

Wallach looked for an outlet after being overwhelmed with theatre classes. He found solace in the art classes at Texas State available for non-majors. Brian Johnson’s screen printing class allowed him to indulge in creating colorful little creatures, which have become his trademark. 

Cameron Felgate, public relations junior, balances on a slack line Jan. 20 at Sewell park.

Clad in rolled-up blue jeans, a tank top and FiveFingers shoes, San Marcos resident Nicholas Gordon tested his balance on a two-inch Gibbon Jibline, characterized by the company as a slackline for the more adventurous type, on a sunny day in Sewell Park. 

Left foot.

Right foot. 

Feet off the ground. 

Gordon, hands loosely raised beside his head, swayed to the Reggae music that played softly from his speakers as he walked on the nylon webbing that was tied between two trees. 

Slacklining has become a relaxing weekly workout for him since, about three months ago, a friend invited him to participate in the sport. 

Sitting at a cubicle and staring at the same four walls every day, Jessie Spielvogel knew a desk job was not for her.

Spielvogel graduated from Texas State in 2010 with a B.A. in journalism and got a job running social media accounts for three different networks for The Discovery Channel, but was unhappy with the work environment. A friend of Spielvogel’s contacted her on behalf of a family friend who needed help running a blog and accepted the work as a freelancer.

Soon after, the family friend became the first client in Spielvogel’s own business, Split Aces Media, where she works as an online marketing consultant.

“Most of the time, I’m either blogging, reaching out to potential business, doing some kind of research to help my clients get better online or writing social media for small business,” Spielvogel said. “It just depends on what comes in that week.”

Lobsang Kunga and Tenzin Nyema, Tibetan monks, create a mandala Jan. 28 in the LBJ Student Center. A mandala is a traditional Buddhist sand painting used to bless a region with compassion.

Men in maroon and gold robes worked diligently on an intricate drawing Tuesday, carefully tapping colored sand through metal tubes onto an outline. The artwork was starting to take shape but will be destroyed soon after it is finished Friday. 

The Tibetan monks from the Drepung Loseling Monastery near Atlanta, Ga. kicked off their weeklong visit to Texas State Monday at the LBJ Student Center. They started the creation of the artwork, a traditional Buddhist sand mandala.

Long lines and the perpetual smell of marijuana rounded the corners of East San Antonio Street in anticipation of “An Acoustic Evening with Matisyahu” Tuesday night at Texas Music Theater. 

Despite the wait and 45-minute drive, San Antonio resident Sara Pardo was excited to get inside the venue to see what critics have called the world’s first Hasidic reggae star. 

Pardo, in anticipation of her first acoustic Matisyahu show, viewed the photo she took with him at a meet-and-greet in San Antonio. The photo showed a beaming Pardo with a recently clean-shaven Matisyahu, who has been known in the past for his beard.

“I was so nervous,” she said. “I didn’t know what to say. I had never met anyone famous like that before.”

After a long wait in line, Pardo made it to the ground floor of the venue. She knew what to expect from Matisyahu’s change of appearance in person, but for other fans, it may have come as a surprise. 

Josh Abbott, country music artist, sings with Sophie Walker, education sophomore, Jan. 28 at the Hill Country Event Center. The Alpha Delta Pi sorority won a contest to have Abbott perform.

Josh Abbott and his band walked nonchalantly onto a small wooden stage at the Hill Country Event Center Monday night, setting an intimate tone for the show they were about to play.

“We don’t just want to play songs,” Abbott said. “We want to talk to y’all.”

The response he received was screams and applause from 187 Alpha Delta Pi members in matching teal t-shirts and boots sitting anxiously to hear the concert they had worked so hard for.

Vibrant depictions of Tokyo citizens commuting by train and foot were among the photographs adorning the Root Cellar Café Saturday at the opening of a new exhibit by Sean Brecht, a social documentary photographer.

Brecht’s exhibit, called “Tokyo Pop,” opened with a gathering of both friends of the photographer and community members who came to see the product of Brecht’s photographic work in Tokyo. The body of work is a photo essay about the city of Tokyo as a multilayered culture.

Brecht became interested in photography as a child because he was fascinated by the way pictures could tell stories. His most recent work comes from his time living in Japan on-and-off for more than 30 years—and Tokyo, specifically, for more than 15 years.

Texas State alumnus Ross Bolen’s account of wild, rowdy fraternity life has made the New York Times Best Seller List. 

“Total Frat Move” comes in at spot No. 10 on the list of Nonfiction Hardcover Best Sellers for Feb. 3. The book is just two spots below a Pulitzer Prize-winning author’s biography of Thomas Jefferson and one spot above the memoir of Stanley McChrystal, retired United States army general.

It also came in No. 8 on the list of E-Book Nonfiction Best Sellers. 

The book follows protagonist Townes Prescott as he joins a fraternity, gets drunk and high, has promiscuous sex and narrowly escapes a run-in with the law. The story is humorous, often profane and puts Prescott in outrageous situations. The book contains photos and quotes from the popular TotalFratMove.com. 

Courtesy of Greg Lasley

Not far from the humble abodes of San Marcos residents lives one of photography’s most influential nature documentarians—a man with over twenty years of experience shooting and publishing photos. 

Greg Lasley, a freelance nature photographer since 1988, began his fascination with wildlife as a teen in the 1960s.  In the mid-1970s, Lasley’s interest in wildlife birds grew while he worked for the Austin Police Department. Soon after, he began encountering unusual finds while bird watching, kicking off his journey in photography.

“My initial motivation was to document rarities,” Lasley said.  “It used to be you’d have someone say they saw something, but with no photo, so no one believed it.”