Meet Our Students

Senior SIPs

Claire Ward

  • headshot of student artist, claire ward
  • collection of digital art of woman
  • collection of images of woman putting on make up

everyday feminine

SIP Description

As a photographer, I have the opportunity to challenge the way women are portrayed in the media. My work displays the side of femininity that never reaches widespread consumption: the mundane, small, and repeated actions that tie femininity to female identity and strengthen the sense of self. While my work represents a fairly singular experience of femininity, each woman who participated in this project asserts her strength as a female individual. Aesthetics and community combine to form a new type of female presentation–a true, relational, natural, lived presentation–that rejects objectification. This is the everyday feminine, and it is for us.

After I graduate, I plan to finish my personal training certification along with my yoga teacher certification while growing my photography business. I hope to travel through Southeast Asia, Europe, and South America over the next couple years, before spending time in Australia.

Calder Pellerin

  • Emerald Bay State Park in the Fall
  • a photo of Calder pellerin art
  • a picture of art by student artist, Calder Pellerin

Who am I?

SIP Description

Who am I? A very hard Question to answer. Using found objects and mixed media, I am attempting to create a visual experience that represents pivotal moments in my life that have shaped me to who I am today. Each piece is inspired by one of five pivotal moments in my life: dyslexia, ADHD, family and friends, interactions with others, and my four heart surgeries. Growing up, I struggled to put my feelings into words. Artwork became a release for me, allowing me to freely communicate how I am feeling. In each project, I express my built-up feelings and emotions, by purposely combining different materials and elements. Viewing my work, you should experience similar feelings and emotions.

Isabel McLaughlin

  • headshot of student artist, Isabel
  • image of art by isabel
  • artistic photo of performance art

Through sites of impermanent feeling, we decompose

SIP Description

“Through sites of impermanent feeling, we decompose,” grew from intimate conversations with friends and strangers about what is breaking down, decaying and decomposing in our personal and social lives. Fabricated bacterial sculptures reference these conversations and are intended to be worn and embodied in public spaces. The movement of abstracted forms celebrates absurdity and our capacity to move through change. After graduation, I plan to continue tattoo work, free-lance design, and illustration opportunities. Also, I hope to participate in artist residency programs.

Maeve Henning

  • Photo of Maeve Henning
  • Image of ceramic food containers set up on a table with a vase of flowers
  • Blue ceramic teapot

Food Stories

SIP Description

In my work I am interested in individual narratives as deeply tied to community connection within the shared practice of meals in the greater food system. I use hand-built ceramic techniques to create functional pots, aiming to facilitate this process of storytelling and relationships, and their integral link to food.

With every bite, we are also consuming the land on which this food grows and is processed. Through the literally grounded material of clay, to the glazes that reflect organic and earthen matter, to the parallels drawn from the individual vessels such as the bowl to the communal vessel such as the soup pot, I also seek to acknowledge the implication of land in individual narratives in connection to community foodways. Food works to define a community through the collective wellbeing and stories of the individuals it is made up of. 

Dominic Moore

  • Headshot of student artist, Dominic Moore
  • The Gates of Hell according to Dominic
  • self portrait painting in Hell

Odyssey through Hell

SIP Description

Dominic’s SIP project is a visual description of the different stages of Hell through a serious of paintings. It is a personal odyssey through Hell that reflects on my morals and temptations of the real world. The first painting is the doors/entrance into these worlds and the second painting is the final world, of the nine, where I am being punished by the hands of myself.

Angela Pastor

  • Headshot photo of student artist, Angela Pastor
  • Yellow monochromatic art image
  • blue monochromatic image of art

To Be

SIP Description

To Be is a series of 5 mixed-media works that
explore the theme of vulnerability and our relationships with others in this world. The works can exist on their own and together. Each individual work has a monochromatic color representing a feeling and emotion. The photographs and frames represent portals in which the viewer and myself can relive a moment. I am interested in the fragility of these found objects and deconstructing their use and purpose. Ultimately the series explores the concept of vulnerability and the feelings experienced as a result of being
vulnerable. How do our lives and relationships change when we are vulnerable?