Traveling the world, gnome in hand

Move over, Travelocity - the Graduate Student Center gnome is on your trail.

The GSC's mascot, a garden gnome, was well-represented Wednesday night at the opening of the Global Gnome art exhibit, which featured an array of photographs of gnomes from eight University graduate student photographers.

On display until the end of March, the exhibit is a compilation of artwork portraying gnomes in various travel spots over the past few years.

The GSC puts on several varied art shows throughout the academic year.

Since making their home at the GSC in 2002, gnomes have accompanied graduate students in their worldly and domestic vacations.

Students often bring gnomes, supplied by the GSC, with them when they travel. The GSC currently has around six or seven in stock, said DeAnna Cheung, assistant director of the GSC.

"Gnomes [have] been everywhere from the Alamo to the London Bridge," GSC Director Anita Mastroieni . Both of these locations are featured in the current exhibit.

"We're hoping to take [one] to Antarctica," Cheung said.

The idea of bringing the gnomes on travels was derived from the French-based Gnome Liberation Front, an organization that steals gnomes from garden homes and takes them around the world, snapping photos along the way.

And though their escapades are not so radical in nature, Penn gnome photographers still say their travel companions serve as great conversation starters.

Anne Reedstrom, a Graduate School of Education alumna, took a gnome to Paris a few years ago.

She has "pictures of security guards at the French Open with the gnome," as well as pictures of a gnome on the tennis court between matches, Reedstrom said.

"French people found it really amusing," she added. "We would try to explain the whole thing, and none of us spoke French."

In Paris, a gnome was also photographed with the Mona Lisa, with the caption "The Gnoma Lisa."

Other Parisian photos included "Gnome in Gnude" and "Hunchback of Gnotre Dame."

But being the so-called adventurers that they are, they were bound to run into trouble eventually.

One gnome broke in half midway through the trip. "We glued [it] back together after Paris," Reedstrom said.

Another "died on a Switzerland trip," Cheung said. "It was a very precipitous fall."

Some gnomes take less-dangerous trips, like to the Alamo with Nicole Maurantonio, a sixth-year graduate student in the School of Arts and Sciences and the Annenberg School for Communication.

While there, Maurantonio was brought face to face with a major gnome-related GSC issue.

"I was asked if I worked for Travelocity," she said.

Staff at the Center, however, often have to clarify that their gnome pre-dates the Travelocity gnome, something they are very proud of it, Mastroieni said.

"Really, the Travelocity gnome is very stiff," Cheung added, noting that the GSC gnomes have a more amicable personality.

"We like to pretend [they have] a lot of friends," she said.

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