For more than 40 years, graduating art seniors host a senior exhibition show to display their final art pieces for the MSU and Wichita Falls community to see. This year’s opening reception will take place at the Juanita Harvey Art Gallery on Friday, Dec. 8 from 6-8 p.m.
Aaron Campbell, Michelle Castro, Lauren Hamlin, Tyler Colley, Shaylynn Martinez and Armann Pompey are putting their semester-long art projects on display for the public to see. The exhibit will last until Jan. 12.
Colley, graphic design senior, said he is looking forward to the exhibit opening.
“I am excited because the sure fact of me knowing [the art project] is done. I’m looking forward to people getting to see what I have been interested in and what I have done for the past couple of semesters to get ready for this. Everyone can see, not just my classmates who are in this specific field,” Colley said.
Gary Goldberg, professor of art and gallery director for a total of 35 years, said this event is more for the students to show off and display their hard work more than anything else.
Goldberg said, “Each student has to produce a one person show of their work, and it is the culmination of their degree plan.”
This event happens at the end of every semester for graduating seniors in the art department, and it is expected to bring in a “couple hundred people,” according to Goldberg. He said this opening is big, and usually brings in a big crowd of spectators.
“The purpose of having this exhibit is to create a cohesive body of work and to produce a portfolio. In arts, your degree and grades are all important, but it is also what you are physically taking out into the real world, so this course brings all of that together so when students go out to apply for jobs, they will have all the prerequisite skills to, hopefully, end up in a professional manner in the world,” Goldberg said.
Lauren Hamlin, printmaking senior, who has had experience in art galleries before, said she is ready for the gallery to open.
Hamlin said, “For my work, I have three and a half to four yards of fabric on a table, and I just print my own pattern on all of it. Then from there, I cut it up and sew it into a dress.”
She said the process for coming up with what she wanted to do wasn’t difficult because she already makes T-shirts and other graphic design products, so she enjoys doing projects of that nature.
Colley’s work is over branding of a product, and he said, “Coming from someone who has never sewed or had to make something into something like my artwork, it was pretty difficult. It took a lot of trial and error, I sketched a lot and I looked at other people who have done this before and got some inspiration that way.”
Goldberg said people should come because it is a chance to support the students, which would be very great.
“Supporting the students is great, but also to see what our program is doing because [the students] reflect what we are doing, and they are all doing interesting things,” Goldberg said.
