IMU poster sale provides color for barren walls

For five weeks each year, Bill Williams scurries across the country selling posters to college students and raising money for campus groups. By the time he's back home in New York, where he works as an actor and yoga instructor, he's so tired of the decorations that his walls are almost completely bare, save for one small French art print. \n"It's an intense five weeks," said Williams, estimating he routinely works 16- and 17-hour days by the time selling and stocking is complete. "And after five weeks, the last thing you want to see is more posters."\nWilliams is the tour director for the College Poster Sale, which stopped at IU last week and continues through Friday in the Indiana Memorial Union's Georgian Room. It offers students images of celebrities, paintings, postcards and posters of a motivational, educational, humorous or erotic nature to decorate otherwise bare walls.\nSophomores Kim Principe and Brittany Chenoweth were shopping at the sale Saturday to decorate their rooms in Alpha Xi Delta. The two bought a "Pirates of the Caribbean" poster with Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom, and Principe bought a beach scene to comfort her during the strenuous school year.\n"It looks so peaceful," she said. "And next semester won't be."\nThe "Pirates" poster doesn't surprise Williams. He said the most popular sellers this year are those, "Sex and the City," James Dean and George W. Bush quote posters. That last one is a new phenomenon, Williams said.\n"There's much more political stuff now," he said. "Seven years ago, political posters weren't really there."\nFreshman Yotam Gal perused the sale's selection Saturday afternoon, focusing on the historical and political posters. He said he could understand the demand for prints that reflect a political ideology.\n"They represent what I believe," Gal said. "I think it's 50 percent of the country is unsatisfied with the current situation, if you look at the last election."\nWilliams said he's also seen the sale transform from selling a lot of famous art prints to increasingly more images of top celebrities.\nPrincipe and Chenoweth had their own idea about the most popular poster, pointing to "Kiss" by Tanya Chalkin, a black and white photograph featuring two women kissing. \n"Every guy's room has that one," Principe said.\nIU is the first stop on this year's poster tour and Tennessee is the next destination. The sale has taken Williams all over the East Coast and as far west as Kansas. He said the demand for posters can be entirely different based on the region.\n"In one school you can't keep something in stock and then at the next no one is even looking at it," he said. "You go to one school and the Grateful Dead is really popular and then you go to a big city school and hip hop is."\nThe posters range in price, but most regular size prints run about $7 or $8. And for students who can't afford the prints, Williams hires them to help out and pays them in posters, about one an hour. \nJunior Joe Livarchik attended the sale for the second time in as many years, eyeing posters of David Beckham and Tupac Shakur. Like many of the students who stopped by, Livarchik was hoping to spruce up his blank walls. \n"My room looks like a prison cell," he said. "I really need to put stuff up in it"