The Arts Festival's collaborative sculpture project has been one of the most talked about features of the annual festival. Inspired by Chicago's Cows on Parade, the fifth annual festival was celebrated with 17 five foot tall "FIVES" adorned with the messages and missions of almost two dozen campus groups. Since then, the campus has been adorned with giant umbrellas (Umbrellas in the Midst 2004). stacked trees (The Enchanted Forest 2005) artful flames (Go Set the World Aflame 2006) and huge masks (Carnival masks 2007).

Since the “FIVES” were such a success in 2003, we always knew that we would use the Roman numeral 10 – “X” – for the project in the tenth year of the festival.  “At first I wasn’t sure about the fives, but as I was building them, I loved the simplicity of the form,” Mark Cooper (sculptor and Fine Arts professor) recalls.  And since then, as we have discussed and debated various themes each year, we always knew that the “X” was a certainty for the tenth.  “X marks the spot”, claims Fine Arts Professor and Arts Council Chair, Jeffery Howe.  “Reaching our tenth year with so much success is quite an accomplishment.  The form of the sculptures provides the perfect exclamation point for our tenth year.”