Senior Shows Review

Note: While I tried to read all the Artist Statements when available, most of what is below can be assumed to have been written without knowing the artist intent behind the work. I feel that artwork should be able to stand by itself just by viewing it and not have to rely on an artist statement to be understood.

Senior Show weekend was a lot of fun. It was the most fun out of the last 3 visits I took up there. I expected a lot from the shows this year and for the most part they did not disappoint. There are some really dedicated and talented kids graduating this year and they had some great work.

I was especially surprised by the quality of the design shows this year. It is really hard to pull off a good design senior show because of the nature of it. The highlight of the design shows this year is, hands down Merlin by Scott Liao.






He created a shoe company called Merlin and had actual sample shoes made of his designs. They are very much "now design" and the aesthetics and colors are very "sneakerhead" but I think he executed it really well and his posters were really nicely designed.

Surprisingly, there were not many ceramics shows this year, and even less involved objects that were thrown. Most of it was hand building (and nothing to write home about either). The only people who even thew some cups that I could remember were Gabe Blain, Elliott Kayser and Corrinne. People coming to buy plates and cups will be sorely disappointed this year.


Cups by Gabe Blain



Cups by Elliott Kayser


Gabe sold one set of cups (hesitantly) for [a lot of money for a set of cups] and Elliott's show pretty much sold out within the first hour and a half of shows. I managed to get the last set he was selling of the cowboy and horse cups (in yellow) with a base for both of them. During his show, he had tables set up and people sat down for milk and cookies using the cups from his show.


Ceramic piece in a found drawer by Lyla Goldstein


Lyla's show was also wonderful. I'm impartial to it because I helped her set up a bit, but her work is also great! Those pieces look so soft and I love the photographs she printed in the windows.

On the photography side, I found out that no one shot film for their show (maybe 1 person did, I forget). Everyone shot digital, a huge factor probably relating to the school getting a few Digital Rebels last May. When you think about how no one except Rosemary shot their show in digital last year, that's a huge adoption rate over to digital in one year. 90%/10% switch! One person even SHOT DIGITAL FOR BLACK & WHITE. That's blasphemy! I'm not going to go into the technicals of why film is still better for B&W but its pretty much agreed upon by me and a certain photog professor that it's probably due to laziness.


Irony much?

At least Julianne printed her work off the Design Winder (I love that printer). I didn't really find the photography work this year really that engaging. One of the better ones was Jessica Kernan's work. The idea was okay, but it really stood out because she choose to approach it differently than the other photo shows.




Sandy and Mike's show was really nicely done also. Their show was very fun to look at.


Glass, mixed media sculpture by Sandy Yuen


Julia Calabrese's show was also very interesting

Also, the epic feeling of the shows returned again! Thanks to large ambitious art works like-








By Bland Hoke

Matt Corsen Finnerty (I can't spell is full name) also had a large piece outside of the lobby of Harder but I didn't get a chance to take a photo of it. Bland's piece took most of the school year to plan and I think it paid off really well.


This is a metal, glass and neon piece by Gabe titled LD1. It's super heavy!

I found out that the system that they used to choose who gets in on the NYC show in Chelsea was different this year. Roger told me that the teachers nominated students and the Dean and someone else choose the shows. They are showing at Kathleen Culleen again (why, I have no idea). Will be fun to go see it in June!

All in all, a really fun weekend. Got to see a lot of people from my year I wouldn't have otherwise and it was probably my last visit to Alfred for a long time.