MICA Commencement Exhibition

Michael Benevento in the middle of Bevan Dunbar's installation

MICA's graduating senior class displayed work of all concentrations during the school-wide commencement exhibition. Here are some highlights, good and bad ones, from the show:

Molly and Becca watching Gabriel Held's video piece

Owen Brightman's video installation

This installation ruled. Jaime Bennati's newspaper creations are both beautiful and eco-friendly. It has a haunting, oddly natural feel to its structure, falling somewhere between beehives and barnacles, it looks discovered, rather than manufactured.

Yep, thats a girl in a block of cement or something. Rachel Nefcy, graduating with a degree in exhibitionism...

These etchings by Eric Stiner were among my favorite pieces. He has a beautiful hand, and straightforward presentation

Detail from Tracy Jayne Goosen delicate fiber-arts intstallation

Somebody likes Wayne Thiebaud...not that thats necessarily a bad thing, Tina Spataro's cake paintings

painting by James Swainbank

Print by Molly Colleen O'Conell

Mollie Goldstrom's incredibly elegant print

Rachel Faller is unbelievable. Her somber piece on Cambodia included hand woven Cambodian silk, portraits painted in dye, and a sound installation of voices recordings of refugees.

May Wilson's bronze rats. She also had bronze dogs, a deer and a possum. A little gimmicky, but well rendered!

This project by Meryl Remington, appears to be naked portraits of her family members...which is weird, but totally ballsy and awesome

Alessadra Sulpy 's paintings

Kit Repass killed a lamb, and made books about how to cook/eat/separate all the pieces and displayed them in this weird, ritualistic, circle.

Really?

Amy Lee balances whimsy, melancholy and a highly stylized hand in her prints

Payton Cosell Turner and her penchant for patterns. Wall paper patterns made up entirely of stickers. Turner's work falls into the "clever" category, without being annoying, she has a natural sense of balance and design.

Annie Gugliotta's puppets from an animation piece

Ginger Lukas' incredible vases

This looks like it belongs in the Visionary, which sort of defeats the purpose of a BFA, but its generally well composed and crafted, hopefully Kelly Jean Adamczyk sticks with it.

Nancy Carpio-Gonzales' performance piece, during which she dressed in a knit costume, blindfolded an onlooker and made them break open a pinata...full of cookies....yes, cookies. Again, a little direction goes a long way, there is promise here. And knit costumes are pretty cool.

These kids are embarking on the rest of their lives and careers--which is no easy feat, we wish them nothing but luck and success.

Rachel Faller's Blanket Statments

Blanket Statements, a show organized by graduating MICA senior, Rachel Faller, focuses on the community aspects of quilting, both classically and in its modern capacity. The show included work by individual artists, MICA and local organizations, and quilts created through local, public school projects. The opening was an opportunity for these artists of different professional and skill level to come together and interact with one another--historically a key element of the quilt-making tradition.
Faller, a fiber arts major, had been working on the concept for her exhibition for about a year, allowing her time to secure a community service grant through school to help with the promotion and expenses.


In accordance with tradition, every piece has its own story. Each artist or group of artists has, in their own way intentionally investigated, contributed to and commented upon the idea of community through their quilts and sewn pieces.

Circle Nest, created by Marla Parker, is made entirely of different silks, including those collected from shirts and ties.

Crazy quilt, named for the erratic style in which scraps are sewn together, is a quilt that has been passed down through the generations of a friend's family. It was too delicate to hang on a wall.

This quilt, made up of bandannas, displays an extensive comparison between 1970s gay culture bandanna code, and underground railroad quilting codes. You can see the complete code here

The Doll Project is a workshop conducted at Baltimore's domestic violence center, House of Ruth, allowing women and children a creative outlet during their stay.


Answering the gentrification in their area, Burlington Massachusetts high school students compiled their reactions into a quilt in a workshop run by Faller.
Local artist Kerry Adams sewed afghans together to cover her house, and photographed the process. Her piece deals with public and private spaces and the idea of one's place within a community.....thats a lot of afghans.


Sew me the love is a quilt created based on internet interaction/community. The quilt documents one year on Myspace, from which it takes its color scheme. Embroidered onto the white panels are the names and urls of the quilt's friends as they were acquired online.

This oddly shaped blanket is the mascot of the MICA knitting club. It is made up of its members' mistakes and learning-squares.

One of the less functional quilts in the exhibition, this wall-hanging is made up of paper houses from the "A Neighborhood Called Baltimore" project.

A classic over-achiever, Rachel had hoped to make the reception event a fund raiser to benefit the involved organizations. This aspect was not as successful as she'd wanted, but she assured me that the event itself and the experience of having a diverse attendance was well worth all her efforts, and we agree!

For more information on any of the organizations, pieces, contact info etc, email me at the tentigers email!