art school retrospective

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Hello there! My name is Alex, and I attended the Maryland Institute College of Art between 2016 and 2020. I don’t make quite the same work that I used to, and I wanted to share some of where I’ve come from. This time period was one of a lot of experimentation and discovery, and my work definitely reflects that. Without further adieu, let’s get into it!

Freshman Year

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Oh boy, freshman year. Where do I even start? This was the first time I’d been away from home and around other artists for such a long period. I got to try plenty of techniques and media that I hadn’t had exposure to previously, which was honestly so much fun. That said, the art from this year tends to be all over the place. I won’t share everything, but let’s take a look at some of my favorite pieces!

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I got a lot of mileage out of that sheep skull from earlier! It features in a lot of my work from this time period. Above is a rendition of the skull made entirely out of matchsticks trimmed to varying lengths to create a relief sculpture.

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The sheep skull strikes again! This time, it’s in a few value studies done with india ink. These were a shorter project than most, but I had a ton of fun making them.

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Sophomore Year

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Sophomore year, I really buckled down on my work. I felt like I had a bit more direction, and my infatuation with art school lead me to load up my schedule with four studio classes at a time. The usual was three studios a semester, but I wanted to learn everything I absolutely could this year!

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Above is a piece I’m still really proud of, to be honest. Something about dinosaurs and arcade carpets just works well together. I really wish my docs were as cool as they are in the comp I made on the right. Perhaps someday I’ll teach myself how to make boots and see if I can bring it to life.

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Junior Year

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Junior year of college was when things started getting serious. Senior year was looming on the horizon, and I felt like I had to start narrowing down the scope of styles I was trying out. This is also the year I took the class Narrative Color, which was a total game changer for me. I’ve always been fond of color in pieces, and the class taught me the theory behind some of what I was doing already. It’s there that I started feeling more confidence in my abilities as an artist and what I was capable of.

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The above art was for my junior year mini-thesis; a project designed to prepare us for the scope of our upcoming senior projects. We had half a semester to develop our ideas and come up with finished pieces. I was making a lot of comics at the time, and decided to try out some new techniques in my mini-thesis. I don’t draw or illustrate people much anymore, but I’m still rather proud of how these gals turned out.

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This year, I also took a class called Visual Journalism. In that class, we had frequent outings in the area near campus where we would sit and draw whatever we happened to find. The class culminated in making a small book of our work from the semester, which I may post later if I decide I like it enough. In the meantime, here’s a few buildings I painted that I’m still rather fond of.

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The last things I want to share from this year are outfits I made in Costume: Materials and Techniques. I’ve been sewing since I was a child, and I couldn’t stop myself from taking at least one fiber-related class at MICA. There were only four of us in the class, and it was an absolute blast getting to see what everyone was working on each week. If I could, I’d retake the class again just to see how much I’ve improved in the years since.

Senior Year

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My memories of senior year come to me with a mixed bag of emotions. It was my final year at college, and the year that we were supposed to have our greatly anticipated final thesis show. Unfortunately, the pandemic happened and we lost both our final show and our graduation. It’s a loss that definitely still stings, and colors my memories of the year. All that said, I did still make some work that I was really proud of this year.

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This year, I took Surface Design with the lovely Lisa Perrin. She was a new professor in the illustration department, and I’m grateful that I gave her class a shot. She was wonderfully supportive and helpful, and I feel like I can’t talk about my work without giving her a shout-out. The above collection was called Subterrane, and was based on my love of cave paintings. I had a particular amount of fun doing mockups of various products for this one.

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This project was another one from Surface Design, this time with a theme of knights and florals. It was definitely tricky getting things to line up properly on this one, but I’m overall pleased with the results. My personal favorite is the t-shirt mockup– there’s something about seeing my designs on products that brings me a lot of joy.

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I couldn’t just leave this year without showing you some of my senior thesis! You might notice that the drawing style is different– that’s because I was working with my good friend Raya Zimon. We thumbnailed together, she drew all the characters, while I did backgrounds and color. This project was called Hunting Season, and it’s about a werewolf and her (eventual) monster hunter girlfriend. We didn’t finish the 10 pages we were working on because of the pandemic, but I’m really proud of everything we accomplished together. And don’t worry– Hunting Season as a story lives on; we’re just working on re-conceptualizing what form it is going to take.

Conclusion

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Overall, I seriously enjoyed attending art school. I made some treasured friends and learned a ton along the way. My art is different now, but I’m grateful to everything school taught me. It’s actually been a lot of fun to look back through my old work and remember how it felt to work on it. I hope you’ve enjoyed this retrospective! I’d love to hear any thoughts you might have about it, and I’d be happy to answer any questions.

Make on and go boldly!

-Alex