By Cas Barrett, Publications Intern
The 2025 Annual Juried Student Exhibition Open Reception took place at 4:30 pm on Tuesday, January 28th, 2025 in the Mazmanian Gallery. The guest juror this year was David Roane, an art teacher, coach, and a member of the diversity team at Noble & Greenough School in Dedham, Massachusetts.
Roane highlighted the humanity of art and the value of students. “If you're human then you're creative and therefore you have the capacity to create art and if not in the studio, then in other aspects of life,” he said.
Artists, friends, and family members gathered together to eat cookies and sip drinks while viewing the exhibition and taking pictures before the awards were announced.
Chris Alano, a senior, who created a variation of a band poster and was taking photos with a family member next to his work commented on the role music plays in his creative process and the desire to express his personal vision as an artist.
"Music helps me design. My process is basically self-expression, I like to express the certain texture of songs when I make a certain piece," Alano said, “I thought I'd be cool to be consistent with the title name because it's called downward spiral. There's no other posters for this band that had used a spiral text and made it how I envisioned it.”
Meg Dame, a sophomore, who was talking about the intricacy of her work with her friends and family created a detailed tessellation of autumn leaves.
"Tessellations are hard in the first place, especially when you're trying to make it look like how it does in your head," Dame said, "I somehow managed to do it in 15 hours of work with .05 alcohol markers."
Ellie Krakow, organizer of the exhibition, Director of the Mazmanian Art Gallery, and Associate professor, emphasized the community-building aspect of the show and the pride students take in being able to showcase and appreciate their work.
"This is one of my favorite shows because it pulls students from across campus, and their families and community members, it's a community building celebration,” Krakow said, “I love seeing students so proud of their work a lot of the time you finish a project put it away and start another project.”
