Gaynell Sherrod added ‘choreo-sonic’ heart to Dawoud Bey’s acclaimed exhibition
26 A Legacy of Art and Leadership
Remembering Joseph Seipel, who transformed VCU and Greater Richmond through the arts.
32 Reshaping the Conversation
New M.F.A. grad Jermaine Ollivierre refracts society through sculpture
38 Revealing an Invisible Danger
Large-scale mural by Sirena Pearl merges art and a hot topic: the urban environment
46 Master of Light Artist Willie Anne Wright found the dreamy world of pinhole photography by chance—or did she?
50 A 'Letter' to a Legacy
ICA curator Amber Esseiva unites historical research and modern art to correspond with the unheralded Amaza Lee Meredith
56 The Magic of Theater
A new VCUarts program brings welcome joy to the Children’s Hospital of Richmond
60 A Vintage Spin
Fashion grad Alexandra Mitchell adds retromodern style to rock stars, Loki and more
64 Faculty News
72
80
The Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts is a public nonprofit art and design school in Richmond, Va. Founded in 1928, VCUarts offers bachelor’s and master’s degrees across 16 areas of study, as well as two doctoral degrees through affiliated programs. Our campus in Doha, Qatar offers bachelor’s and master’s degrees in six areas.
From the Dean
Welcome to this year’s edition of Studio magazine.
As each beginning is marked by the awakening of our senses, so to do we embark on another adventurous year in the arts with the sights and sounds of old and new classmates; the feel of new materials and technologies to be integrated into burgeoning modes of expression; and the taste of possibilities that propel us toward our creative endeavors.
It is not the VCUarts students alone who strive to achieve, but also the faculty, staff and alumni supporting them that help ensure their fullest experiences and future artistic success.
With art critical to our understanding and sense of the world, and integral to the most important conversations of our time, I am so excited about the energy and creativity I see on display at VCUarts every day.
This edition of Studio captures some of the many reasons for that excitement. Our community of artists, designers, performers and scholars from around the world are playing crucial roles as innovators and leaders. And through our commitment to purposeful experimentation and creative excellence, we look forward to nurturing the next generation that will address emerging issues, ask critical questions and take creative risks that will have a lasting impact.
At VCU, the arts are integral to the university’s mission: We are a research institution focused on addressing societal issues and identifying innovative solutions while equipping our students to succeed and to be aware. Here, the School of the Arts fuels that innovation, serving as a catalyst for new and emerging systems of thought and presenting alternative ways of learning.
Thank you for reading,
Carmenita Higginbotham, Ph.D. VCUarts Dean, Special Assistant to the Provost for VCUarts
Qatar
Studio Magazine
Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts
325 N. Harrison St. Box 842519 Richmond, VA 23284
Editor
Wes Hester
Deputy Editor
Brian Ivasauskas
Art Director & Designer
Ryan Sprowl
Designer
Shanice Aga
Photographer McNair Evans
Copy Editor Lewis Brissman
Contributors
Mary Kate Brogan
Jud Froelich
Jonathan Gonzáles
Sandra Sellars
Matthew Stoss
Leila Ugincius
Xan Vessels
Dina Weinstein
VCU Ranked No. 1 for Visual and Performing Arts
Virginia Commonwealth University has the top visual and performing arts programs among the nation’s public research universities, according to the National Science Foundation.
The NSF’s Higher Education Research and Development fiscal year 2022 survey awarded VCU the No. 1 recognition for the arts, with additional high rankings across education, health sciences, engineering and other fields. The NSF survey evaluates research and development funding related to creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge.
“This ranking is a direct reflection of our art school’s committed faculty, student body and community of
VCUarts News
creators, collaborators and performers,” said VCUarts Dean Carmenita Higginbotham, Ph.D. “We serve as a home, incubator and training ground for the extraordinary artistic expression and scholarly inquiry that move the art and performing worlds forward. This is a wonderful recognition of our impact on the national stage.”
VCU also entered the Top 50 of public research universities overall, claiming the 47th spot. This represents the university’s sixth consecutive year of moving up the rankings, reflecting its expanded dedication to research that addresses today’s most pressing and challenging questions.
“A public research university’s role is to advance discovery, creativity and innovation in ways that few other institutions achieve as we endeavor to improve the quality of life everywhere,” said VCU President Michael Rao, Ph.D. “This NSF ranking is a testament to VCU’s commitment to research for the public good. Thanks to my faculty colleagues, our research enterprise
has grown exponentially—we’ve risen 18 spots in the rankings and increased sponsored research funding by 71% in just the past five years.”
VCU’s other notable placements and accomplishments among public research universities include: No. 7: Combined nonscience and engineering fields (including arts, business, communication, education, humanities, law, social work, and visual and performing arts); No. 11: Education No. 30: Health sciences; No. 33: Social work; No. 33: Psychology; No. 38: Funding from the Department of Health and Human Services; No. 39: Life sciences; and No. 48: Biological and biomedical sciences.
The NSF ranks U.S. colleges and universities that invested at least $150,000 into research and development in a fiscal year. A top ranking for the visual and performing arts, combined with steadily rising prominence among all public research universities, makes VCU a creative and intellectual force across many disciplines.
CAMPUS
Qatar Week Returns to Richmond
Qatar Week returned this fall at the School of the Arts in Richmond in mid-October.
The annual event is an energetic exchange between the VCUarts Richmond and VCUarts Qatar campuses. It showcases the success of the school’s overseas branch and its researchers, alumni,
students and faculty, and it promotes new areas of collaboration between the campuses.
Qatar Week 2024 ran from Oct. 14-17, hosted by VCUarts Dean Carmenita Higginbotham and VCUarts Qatar Dean Amir Berbić.
“Qatar Week is an
experience that we look forward to each year,” Berbić said. “We put together a roster of events that focus on excellence in teaching, research and cultural production from the overseas VCUarts campus.”
Established in 1998 through a partnership with the Qatar Foundation, VCUarts Qatar was the first campus in the Education City educational and research hub in Doha. Its diverse student body—the more than 60 percent of Qatari students are joined by a high percentage of Arab and
international expats—pursues programs including graphic design, interior design, painting and printmaking, and art history. Since its opening, VCUarts Qatar has become embedded in the DNA of the Persian Gulf country’s burgeoning cultural sector.
“Our students have an incredible amount of passion for art and design and for new developments in the arts, such as the convergence of art, design and technology,” Berbić said. “This fall, we introduced the VCUarts kinetic imaging program
VCUARTS QATAR
KEVIN MORLEY
in Qatar and expect that exciting extension of our programming will be reflected in future Qatar Week content.”
As in previous years, a creative research Pecha Kucha—a presentation of 20 slides, each shown for only 20 seconds—took place at the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU. It featured a diverse and dynamic array of research activities, from across creative disciplines, led by faculty based on both VCUarts campuses.
The Sounds of Success: Two VCUarts Alumni Win Grammy Awards
Two music alumni of Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of the Arts took home Grammy Awards on Feb. 4 in Los Angeles.
In the category of Best Score Soundtrack for Video Games and Other Interactive Media, composer Gordy Haab (above, left), who graduated in 2000, and collaborator Stephen Barton were the winners for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor
“Everyone here is incredibly proud of what Gordy has achieved,” said Taylor Barnett, DMA, an assistant professor and director of jazz studies at VCUarts and a former classmate of Haab’s.
Barnett noted that Haab frequently returns to campus to share his experiences in the industry and inspire students to pursue their professional goals.
A fashion design workshop offering an immersive experience was led by VCUarts Qatar alumni who are reshaping the fashion landscape through sustainability, cultural reinterpretation and impactful brand narratives.
Art & Design as a Form of Cultural Expression, an exhibition featuring the work of VCUarts Qatar students and faculty, was opened at the Anderson, the oncampus gallery of VCUarts, and will remain on view through early November.
“In light of his recent Grammy win, all of Gordy’s former professors and friends from VCU have shared a collective ‘bravo’ and ‘of course he did!’” Barnett said.
Also, musician Kevin Newton, who graduated in 2016, earned a Grammy as a member of the wind quintet Imani Winds.
In the category of Best Classical Compendium, the winner was the recording Passion for Bach and Coltrane by Jeff Scott. The concert-length oratorio combining elements from classical and jazz music features orator and poet A.B. Spellman, Imani Winds, string quartet Harlem Quartet and jazz trio Alex Brown, Edward Perez and Neal Smith.
“Kevin is a shining star in his generation of horn players,” said Patrick Smith, Ph.D., an associate professor of horn who was Newton’s instructor at VCU. “His unquenchable thirst to grow musically and personally made it clear to me that he was destined for great success. His dedication, humility and genuine kindness were always on display during his time at VCU and are integral components of who he is.”
ALUMNI
VCUarts News
Jessica Bell Brown Named Executive Director of the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU
Jessica Bell Brown has been named executive director of the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Since 2022, Brown has served as curator and head of contemporary art at the Baltimore Museum of Art. She joined the museum as associate curator in 2019.
In her new role, which she assumed on Oct. 28, Brown will work to advance the mission of the ICA regionally, nationally and internationally. As a celebrated universitywide resource now within the School of the Arts, the ICA links campus and contemporary artists by supporting local creative communities, engaging an international network of contemporary artists and
organizations, and encouraging collaborations with VCU departments, faculty, students and the broader community.
“I am beyond thrilled to lead the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU, an institution that I have admired as a leading voice in the field of contemporary art today,” Brown said. “The ICA is a beacon for artistic excellence and freedom, grounded in the potency of ideas, collaboration and exchange. My time in Baltimore has been nothing short of amazing, and I look forward to bridging the incredible relationships and community I’ve been privileged to be part of here, with the thriving creative community in Richmond and its broader cultural ecosystem.”
“I am excited to welcome Jessica to this vital role,” said Carmenita Higginbotham, Ph.D., dean of VCUarts. “Jessica will bring significant expertise as well as a unique vision to the ICA. I am so looking forward to working with Jessica to grow the ICA’s reputation and to generate new and innovative opportunities for our students, our faculty and staff and the broader arts communities.”
In addition to overseeing the curatorial and programmatic vision for the ICA, Brown will increase an emphasis on cross-disciplinary studies and foster an environment for the most gifted artists and scholars from around the world to explore new terrain in artistic expression.
Asma Naeem, Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director of the Baltimore Museum of Art, said Brown had left an indelible mark on the museum and would be missed.
“Jessica has been pivotal in shaping the Baltimore Museum of Art’s acclaimed contemporary program, emphasizing a steadfast responsibility to the historical underpinnings of the art of today and to an astonishing array of artists, many of whom are just now getting the attention they deserve,” Naeem said. “Having worked firsthand with Jessica on a number of projects, I can say without hesitation that her commitment to artistic excellence and equity, scholarly acumen, curatorial finesse and overall ethos of collaboration and unwavering kindness are truly stellar.”
At the Baltimore Museum of Art, Brown shepherded more than 150 acquisitions as department head, including many national and international artists like Cassi Namoda, Sin Wai Kin, Sasha Gordon, Hend Samir, Janiva Ellis, Billie Zangewa, Bernadette Despujols, Hulda Guzman, Eric N. Mack, and Hew Locke, Ming Smith, Shahzia Sikander and Devin N. Morris.
Brown’s recent exhibitions include A Movement In Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration, How Do We Know the World?, Martha Jackson Jarvis: What The Trees Have Seen and Tiona Nekkia McClodden: Play Me Home. In addition to her curatorial leadership at the BMA, she is the curator of Vice President Kamala Harris’ residence at One Naval Observatory.
“I remember, in kindergarten, I never wanted to color in those mimeograph pictures we were given to color. I wanted to draw my own pictures.”
When Alice Tangerini (B.F.A. ’72) graduated from VCUarts, she already had a job as the first botanical illustrator at the National Museum of Natural History. More than 50 years later, she’s still at it—and still the only staff botanical illustrator that the museum has ever had. Learn more about Tangerini’s storied career at news.vcu.edu
Photographer Hannah Altman Named VCU
10 Under 10 Honoree
Commonwealth University’s top 10 graduates of the past decade for
VCU Alumni’s 10 Under 10 awards program recognizes and celebrates the significant achievements of alumni who have earned their first VCU degree (undergraduate, graduate or professional) within the past 10 years.
Altman, a photographer based in Boston, graduated in 2020 with an M.F.A. from the School of the Arts.
“I was very proud and honored to learn that I had been nominated for and received the 10 Under 10 award,” she said. “It made me feel connected to VCU even though I live many states away now.”
Altman has been recognized for her remarkable photography around a central theme: Jewish folklore. She began exploring the subject when she started her VCUarts
graduate studies in 2018.
“My time at VCU was instrumental in and transformative for my practice,” she said. “It provided the environment and resources necessary to shape my ideas and share them with the world.”
Last year, Altman also was named the first Blanksteen Artist-in-Residence at the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale University. While in this residency, she created a series of photographs that explores how Jewish folklore builds tension—and how people engage with these stories. She is excited to share her work far and wide.
“This award is a great recognition that my ideas are being seen and heard by the community and beyond,” Altman said.
Department of Photography + Film alum Hannah Altman was named one of Virginia
2023.
Two VCUarts Alumni Named to Forbes’ 30 Under 30 List
BY BRIAN IVASAUSKAS
Two young alumni from the School of the Arts— LaRissa Rogers and Grace Whiteside—were named by Forbes to its “30 Under 30” list for 2024 in the art and style category. Started in 2011, this prestigious list spotlights the brightest young professionals, leaders and entrepreneurs in the industry. VCUarts caught up with Rogers and Whiteside to discuss their evolving artistic journeys and the significance of this recognition.
LaRissa Rogers: Exploring ‘the space of the unknown’ LaRissa Rogers (B.F.A. ’19) brings meaning to transcending boundaries. Recognized by Forbes this year for her visual art, Rogers embraces a unique and tactile approach to exploring the unbounded, inviting viewers into a realm of hybridity and possibility.
“I consider myself antidisciplinary,” she said. “I like to think about what possibilities exist within the space of the unknown.”
Rogers’ fascination with visual art began in her undergraduate years at the School of the Arts. She initially focused on oil paint on canvas, but
her journey took a transformative turn as she delved deeper into multisensory environments. After her first year in the Department of Painting + Printmaking, she knew she wanted to extend beyond traditional mediums, leading her to performance and installation art.
“I remember realizing I couldn’t fully express myself through paint,” Rogers said. “That’s why my first performances and installations were very generative for me. They solved for what had been missing before.”
What followed was a period of experimentation and self-discovery. Through residencies including the VCUarts Summer Studio Program, Rogers honed her skills in performance and installation, challenging conventional notions of composition and color. She began to formulate her specific artistic language—one that embraces intersection and questions the societal constructs that shape our understanding of art.
At the core of Rogers’ practice lies a commitment to challenging and reimagining the possibilities of artistic expression. Her work delves into intricate themes—colonization, migration and diasporic identities— and confronts the viewer with the complexities of historical memory and collective trauma. Working with materials such as porcelain and sugar, she invites audiences to reckon with the racialized nature of objects and their inherent ties to cultural identity.
Operations of Care, a project cofounded by Rogers and Luis Vasquez La Roche (M.F.A. ‘20), is a public sculpture nestled in the heart of Charlottesville, Va. The permanent installation is more than an artistic endeavor—it represents deinstitutionalized care. Together, Rogers and Vasquez La Roche partnered with project Reclaiming the Monument and studio space Visible Records to reimagine the “alternative monument.” They used tabby and repurposed soil from locations where monuments once stood, building a gathering spot and community garden—a place of contemplation to foster healing and dialogue.
Rogers said her inclusion on this year’s Forbes “30 Under 30” list for art
and style came as a humbling surprise. “Being an artist can feel very isolating, and sometimes you ask yourself, ‘Should I be doing this? Am I on the right path?’” she said. “This recognition is validation that I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing. I am very passionate about what I do, and I care about it so deeply. For others to care about it just as much feels really special.”
Rogers’ future brims with promise. Currently a fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Mass., she continues to expand the boundaries of her practice with a range of solo shows and public installations. She hopes her work will continue to explore the intricate spaces between tradition and innovation, memory and possibility.
You can browse Rogers’ work at larissamrogers.com.
Grace Whiteside: Queer Visibility Through Glass
Transient. Amorphous. Nonbinary. These are just a few words Grace Whiteside (B.F.A. ’17) uses to describe the similarities between glass—their artistic medium of choice—and their own queer identity. Recognized by Forbes this year for their glass work and performance art, Whiteside hopes to continue melting barriers for aspiring artists.
Whiteside’s fascination with glassblowing began unexpectedly during their time at the School of the Arts. Initially pursuing craft studies and fashion, Whiteside reluctantly enrolled in a glassblowing class due to schedule constraints. However, what started as a practical decision soon transformed into a profound fascination with and respect for the material.
They were captivated by the way glass exists in a fluid, nonbinary state, which resonated deeply with their own queer and trans identity. With this newfound appreciation, Whiteside changed their concentration to glass and sculpture.
“Working with glass became an addiction, in a way,” Whiteside said. “It was one of the hardest things I’d ever worked with, and that challenge kept pulling me back.”
Since graduation, in addition to
performance work and other art making, Whiteside founded New Yorkbased design and glasswork company Sticky Glass in 2020, specializing in multifunctional performative glassware. In 2021, the Museum of Arts and Design commissioned a performance—Homosilica: Glass is Gay—from Whiteside. And in 2022, they appeared on the third season of Netflix’s glassmaking-themed competition show, Blown Away
Whiteside described their inclusion on this year’s Forbes “30 Under 30” list for art and style as “validating,” underscoring both their humility and the magnitude of their achievements.
“It’s very, very difficult to run a small business, especially in New York City. I didn’t start with any crowdfunding or an investor,” Whiteside said. “It’s been so encouraging to feel like this is truly possible and to see things moving.”
The recognition also stands as testament to the significance of representation and visibility. As a queer, trans artist in a predominantly heteronormative field, Whiteside is proud to be an example for aspiring glassmakers with diverse identities.
“Being outwardly, proudly visible in these spaces hasn’t always been safe, and still has risk today due to threatening queer and trans legislative actions,” Whiteside said. “To have such a public platform to share my experience—that felt so important.”
Reflecting on their journey, Whiteside noted the integral role of VCUarts in their development as an artist.
“There really weren’t any limits or boundaries to accessing a physical creative space,” Whiteside said. “It’s rare to find a glassworking facility at a university, and it allowed me to try so many things. To this day, I’m still so proud of the projects I did there.”
Whiteside remains committed to creating meaningful art that sparks conversation and change. Whether through performance art or glassblowing, they will continue using their work to explore, share and advocate in a space that hasn’t always been accessible to all.
You can browse Whiteside’s work at stickyglass.com.
VCUarts News
DEVELOPMENT UPDATES
Pettus Stairway, Student Scholarships, and Cinema Fund
Patsy Pettus
In April this year, the upcoming CoStar Center for Arts and Innovation (CCAI) received a $1 million gift from Patsy K. Pettus, a Richmond resident and longtime supporter of VCUarts. The CCAI will unite the departments of Music, Theatre, Dance + Choreography, Communication Arts and Cinema in a state-of-theart 213,000-square-foot complex at the intersection of Belvidere and West Broad streets. In the new hub for performing arts at VCU, the Patsy K. and Hunter R. Pettus Jr. Learning Stairway will serve as a collaborative space where performing arts students engage and inspire each other, spurring the creativity that leads to innovation. The CCAI is expected to open to the public in late 2027.
Gail Blankman
Through a generous gift in late 2023, Gail Blankman established the Morton and Gail Blankman Scholarship for Jazz Studies. Gail’s husband was a jazz aficionado, and the genre took center stage in their partnership. The scholarship will support undergraduate students of jazz studies with demonstrated financial need, reflecting how VCUarts aims to develop aspiring musicians in part by removing financial barriers.
Fashion Event
The 2024 VCUarts Fashion Event (pictured) was held May 8 at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and featured two dazzling runway shows of student creations. This year’s show, themed “Context,” provided a behind-the-scenes look at process of creating runway-ready garments. A special thank you to the following 2024 sponsors: Rachel Grove Dalton; Nita and Jack Enoch; Marcia and Harry Thalhimer; and Deborah and Thomas Valentine.
Janet Worsham
When Janet Worsham was an undergraduate in the VCUarts Music Department in the 1960s, professor Ted Thayer made an unparalleled impact on her. In 2023, her generous gift established the Edwin “Ted” Cabot Thayer and Joan Peregoy Thayer Scholarship. The renewable scholarship supports VCUarts students pursuing a degree in music education and participants in the University Band or VCU Orchestra, and other future such music organizations on campus, with a preference for graduates of Richmond Public Schools.
Charlie Harris
Since 1981, VCU alum Charles A. Harris and his family have created a remarkable legacy of education philanthropy at VCUarts, including the establishment of the
professorship in cinema and the Cinema Equipment Fund. This past year, he made another generous gift to establish the Charles Harris Artistic Merit Endowment Fund for Cinema. When VCUarts sought to expand its departmental endowments, Harris responded through the Ruth and Louis Harris Family Foundation. The novel endowment will support students majoring in cinema during their final year of study as they submit capstone
projects—original short films—to festivals across the country, which could launch their professional careers.
John McGurl and Michelle Gluck Scholarship
John McGurl and Michelle Gluck, avid supporters of the Richmond cultural scene, have become involved with VCUarts over the past year— first joining the Pollak Society and then sponsoring both the Fashion Show and Loie Hollowell: Drawing as Urtext
at the Anderson. They have seen firsthand the power and value of a rich and diverse education in the arts, and this year, they established the John McGurl and Michelle Gluck Scholarship to support VCUarts students, with a preference for those with demonstrated financial need.
The couple view scholarships as invaluable in nurturing artists now and in the future.
“We won’t be around forever, and this will help create opportunities for future
generations at this great university,” McGurl said.
Wes Freed Memorial Scholarship
In September 2022, the Richmond community mourned artist and VCUarts alum Wes Freed (B.F.A. ’88), who had battled cancer.
Noted as an artist and musician, Freed gained acclaim with his cover-art collaborations with rock band Drive-By Truckers. To honor his legacy, his friends and
family have created the Wes Freed Memorial Scholarship.
“For myself and Wes’ contemporary friends, all related to VCU and the 1980s Richmond music scene, we had a burning desire to remember him in some substantial way,” said Martha Harper, academic advisor within VCUarts, who helped direct the effort along with VCU alum Cassandra Gratton.
“He was so giving throughout his life, so we knew it had to be something like this scholarship.”
On April 27 this year, Wes Freed Day celebrated the artist’s life and legacy with a day of free music. Donations and proceeds from merchandise sales and an art auction provided the remaining funds to reach the endowed scholarship minimum of $50,000. The scholarship will support VCUarts students from rural Virginia, empowering them to pursue their artistic passions just as Freed did.
VCUarts News
Three Recent VCUarts Grads Among Fulbright Winners for 2024-25
In earning one the country’s top academic honors, they push VCU’s total to near 100 since establishment of its National Scholarship Office
Five recent graduates from Virginia Commonwealth University—three of them from the School of the Arts— have been selected for the Fulbright U.S. Student Program for the 202425 academic year, one of the most competitive scholarships in the country.
The Fulbright program is sponsored by the federal government to increase understanding between Americans and the people of other countries. It operates in more than 140 countries, and more than 2,000 grants are awarded annually to graduating college seniors, graduate students and recent alumni. The scholars receive funding to teach English abroad, conduct research, pursue creative projects or study for a graduate degree.
“I’m delighted to add my voice to the many who are congratulating these outstanding students for earning Fulbright awards. They remind us of the unlimited potential that our students offer every day at VCU,” said Fotis Sotiropoulos, Ph.D., provost and
senior vice president for academic affairs. “Much like the national yearly rankings that demonstrate VCU’s ascendency as a transformative and impactful university, the seemingly annual announcement of multiple VCU Rams earning this distinct opportunity speaks to the quality of our students and the good work of our faculty and staff to support them throughout their academic journey.”
The five latest Fulbright recipients from VCU are:
Rana Ansari, a May 2024 graduate from the Honors College with a degree in biology from the College of Humanities and Sciences
Oorvi Budhwar (2022), an alum with a degree in political science from the College of Humanities and Sciences (and a graduate of the VCU Globe program)
Arden Gentry (2022), an alum with a degree in communication arts from VCUarts
Rebecca Gilmore Lanz, a May 2024 graduate from the Honors College with a degree in photography from VCUarts
Nate Hosmer, a May 2024 graduate
from Honors College with a degree in painting and printmaking from VCUarts
The recipients continue an upward trend of multiple honorees from VCU on an annual basis. Since the founding in 2006 of the VCU National Scholarship Office (NSO), which assists students in applying for national and international scholarships, more than 90 students and alumni have received Fulbright awards.
Each Fulbright candidate applied with the support and encouragement of the NSO. Current students and recent alumni can visit the NSO website to register for upcoming information sessions, learn more about other external funding opportunities and schedule an appointment with a staff member.
“It’s a huge honor to work with VCU’s Fulbright applicants, who highlight just how impressive our students and alumni are,” said Meredith Sisson, Ph.D., associate director of the NSO. “They are not only academically excellent but also ambitious, creative and determined in their pursuit of international adventures.
ALUMNI
Left-Right: Gentry, Gilmore Lanz, Hosmer
PHOTOS
COSTUME CAREER
2024 Costume Design M.F.A. graduate Kasey Brown served as the costume designer for the fall 2023 VCUarts Theatre mainstage production of Molière’s The Imaginary Invalid (pictured is VCUarts junior George Sullivan in costume as Cléante). During her studies at VCUarts, Brown also designed costumes for the VCU productions of Rent, Let the Right One In and James and the Giant Peach as well as numerous regional productions. She recently began her first semester as visiting professor in costume design at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. For more examples of Brown's work, visit kccostumedesign.com
M.F.A. Thesis Work
The M.F.A. Thesis Exhibition, held in two rounds at the Anderson in April and May 2024, featured the work of 33 outstanding emerging artists and designers, a selection of which is shown here. These students’ ambitious and challenging research pushes beyond traditional disciplines to shape what is new and next in visual and material culture.
Dance professor Gaynell Sherrod added ‘choreo-sonic’ heart to Dawoud Bey’s acclaimed Elegy exhibition at the VMFA BY WES HESTER AND JONATHAN GONZÁLES
PHOTOS BY MCNAIR EVANS AND SANDRA SELLARS
E. Gaynell Sherrod, Ed.D., has found endless inspiration from the city’s Trail of the Enslaved.
The walking route encompasses key sites along the 2.5mile path that once led enslaved Africans from the docks of Manchester to the auction houses of Shockoe Bottom. The 17 markers along the way offer insight into the legacy of slavery.
“I’m a history buff,” said Sherrod, a professor of dance and choreography at the School of the Arts. “I was taken by the fraught history of Richmond and Virginia as it pertains to Africans in the Americas. And I was really taken by the Trail of the Enslaved and the multiple African burial grounds that are right around where I work every day.”
Sherrod gradually incorporated the trail into her curriculum, taking students there to dance and learn, and she regularly brings friends and colleagues there to share in the solemnity.
One of her guests was Valerie Cassel Oliver, who moved to Richmond in 2017 to become curator of modern and contemporary art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA).
“It was a profound experience for me because I really felt the energy that existed in that space,” Cassel Oliver recalled. “I had never been on a trail or pathway that so movingly held and retained the history of Black people being placed into bondage—the space where they walked.”
The introduction would prove fortuitous.
Cassel Oliver, who is a close friend of renowned photographer and MacArthur “genius grant” winner Dawoud Bey, mentioned the trail to him a few months later. She considered it as a potential site for his ongoing work contemplating the experiences of enslaved African Americans through landscapes.
Bey met with Cassel Oliver and explored the trail. And Elegy was born.
Bey’s exhibition, which ran at the VMFA from Nov. 18, 2023, through Feb. 25, 2024, was presented as a trilogy, showcasing three photographic series—one of which was
the VMFA-commissioned Stony the Road, based on the Richmond trail. It also included In This Here Place, set in the plantations of Louisiana, and Night Coming Tenderly, Black, which featured Ohio’s Underground Railroad.
“He felt that same energy that I felt when I first went along that trail,” Cassel Oliver said of Bey’s experience. Richmond’s trail provided a beginning to Bey’s three-part exploration of the enslaved experience, stretching from the docks of Manchester to the plantations between Baton Rouge and New Orleans to the sites where fugitives sought to selfemancipate in the Northeast.
Comprising 42 photographs and two film installations, Elegy was curated by Cassel Oliver and featured a unique collaboration with Sherrod. Working with a team of fellow VCUarts faculty members and alumni, she contributed a moving and innovative soundtrack to the film 350,000, a companion to Stony the Road. In chromatic hues of black and white, the film—based on the experiences of the more than 350,000 men, women and children sold from Richmond’s auction blocks at Manchester between 1830 and 1860— is a cinematic and sonic meditation on the landscape of the city trail.
When Bey expressed interest in incorporating a film element with the Richmond component of Elegy including a soundtrack driven by movement and dance to capture the energy and disorienting effect of the trail—Cassel Oliver immediately thought of Sherrod.
“It could not have been more perfectly circular,” Cassel Oliver said. “Gaynell had introduced me to the trail. She had walked it, she knew it. She could imagine how to embody and create a sonic landscape that would beautifully accompany the visage.”
collaboration was a novel one for Sherrod and her team of dancers: Their performance was captured as foley sound for the film’s score. The soundscape juxtaposes the haunting visual documentation of the trail with an original score produced through a process of recording choreographed movements directed by Sherrod.
The dancing weds to the film’s visuals in a manner that suggests poignant sonic atmospheres—such as within the
VCUarts professor of dance and choreography E. Gaynell Sherrod, Ed.D., was a key contributor to renowned photographer and MacArthur “genius grant” winner Dawoud Bey’s Elegy exhibition at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Sherrod and her team provided a soundtrack to to the film 350,000, a companion to Stony the Road (below), which explored Richmond’s Trail of the Enslaved.
hull of a ship in passage, and along the treacherous journey by foot from the Virginia coast to the auction block.
As the project further developed, Sherrod recalls an early conversation with Bey that gave her pause. He conveyed that he wanted to incorporate movement and dance, but he did not want the dancers to be seen. He wanted the weight of the space to tell its own story.
“I tried to back out,” Sherrod said with a laugh. “How am I going to tell these people, ‘You’re going to do this work, but you won’t be seen’? We are to be seen. Our bodies are our instruments.”
As she pondered the concept, Sherrod kept returning to her research around Ring Shout, a derivation of traditional African dance, and its emphasis on breath.
“Life depends on breath,” she said. “Breath and breathing were the key elements needed to stay alive when you were in the hull of an enslaved ship packed like a sardine. You had very little breath. And when they were unloaded at the Manchester dock, the breath and the air was what helped those folks move along that path.”
Sherrod said the creative process “began as a journey for descriptions.”
“By reading through historical texts and engaging in dialogues with specialists on the topic, I could start to accumulate a sense of a vocabulary on the acoustics of the
Trans-Atlantic journey—first by sea and then by land,” she said. “I wanted to understand how the body existed in that kind of confinement: What were the sounds? What were the scents? How did one perceive the passing of the day from within the hull? The archive could only offer a portion of this history. So, much had to be discovered through the dancing.”
Sherrod recruited a team of VCUarts faculty and alumni for the project, including theater professor Tawnya Pettiford-Wates, Ph.D., and then-assistant professor of dance Sinclair Ogaga Emoghene. Dance alumni included Keola Jones, Mikayla Young, Amena Sehay Durant, Nia Reynolds and Joie Mouran. Following their research, Sherrod facilitated exercises in improvisation with the cast in response to these found terms. The performers conducted these movement explorations in a site-responsive
manner at the historic trail and within a sound studio pit.
Young described these exercises as beyond improvisational.
“We as a cast had to learn how to arrive in our bodies with a history that was incomplete—and how to represent that gap through movement as sound,” Young said. “We had to learn to call upon our imaginations in a way that offered reverence for the loss and grief of our ancestors.”
Jones recalled practicing at the historic trail on a hot and humid day.
“I wondered about how our ancestors traveled this ground that I was standing on now. How this same heat that met me in my dancing had also met them in conditions I cannot even fathom,” Jones said. “As we danced, the heat and our motions made the veil thin between what was and what is. It gave us an awareness that we had to move sensitively to honor this role.”
Sherrod progressively directed the cast from the more open forms of improvisation toward refined choreography that would later require special costuming, props and the dancer’s body, which collectively became resonant components of a foley soundscape for the film.
The tradition of foley sound emerged in early Hollywood cinema and animation, including Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse. Practitioners would creatively engineer sound to synchronize with the narrative on screen or stage—think of a creaking door or the swish of a cape.
Composing foley sound has
developed into an expansive discipline. And for 350,000, the dancers’ recorded sound tells a different yet complementary story to the film’s visual media.
No part of Bey’s work attempts a dramatic representation of enslaved Africans in passage. Instead, the film’s visuals reflect a rumination on the natural expanse of the historic trail, a constellation of frames that survey the haunted land. The soundscape of effortful, dancing bodies propels the rumination.
While some sounds produced by the dancers reflect human events in the historical record, like the heaves of bated breath amid containment, Young and Jones noted that costuming and props were key to register sounds of
“
non-human activity. Among them: water lapping wood planks, as if heard from the interior of a ship, and the rattling chains during a march through tall grass.
Sherrod began referring to the team’s work around 350,000 as “choreo-sonic.” And she, Jones and Young noted how the creative process required a level of care and specificity, as the film touched on traditions of ritual dance, ancestral lineage,
conjuring, memory and time travel. Such variables offered an exciting artistic challenge—and extracted a psychic toll.
“After the recording sessions, we had to recenter ourselves,” Sherrod said “Oftentimes, we would go into some zones, and there would be crying, there would be shaking. We would go into some transcending moments.”
Bey’s avoidance of theatrical representation allows the sonics of the dancing bodies to build on the fragmented nature of slavery’s historical archive, much as sound, stories, folklore, incomplete records and the
The dancers’ performance was captured as foley sound for the film’s score at Richmond’s In Your Ear Studios. Informed by historical research and produced through a process of recording choreographed movements directed by Sherrod, the team’s movements employed special costuming and props to produce sounds like the heaves of bated breath, the creaking of a ship’s planks and the rattling of chains.
tangible construction from slave labor collectively reflect intangible haunting. In 350,000, sonic dance imbues the unimaginable experience that remains unseen.
critical reception to Elegy was glowing, with the exhibition earning warm reviews in The New York Times and The Washington Post, among other outlets.
But Cassel Oliver said the most powerful feedback came from museum visitors, who were encouraged at the end of the experience to leave anonymous responses to questions posed on a reflection wall.
“You have these very poetic, very thoughtful responses that viewers were willing to share,” she said.
Among the hundreds of notecard reflections that Cassel Oliver keeps in her office is one that replies to the question, “How can landscape tell a story or hold a memory?”
“You can see and feel what took place - love, pain and everything in between,” the viewer wrote.
“Their critical responses, to me, spoke volumes about the impact of this exhibition,” Cassel Oliver said.
As Elegy was concluding its run, the city of Richmond announced plans for a major memorial as an expansion to the Trail of the Enslaved. The 10-acre Shockoe Project, designed with input from community groups, would feature a National Slavery Museum and memorials to the unnamed Africans buried in the area.
There is a future, too, for Elegy. Based on its success, Cassel Oliver has fielded great interest from other museums about presenting the exhibition, and she is in negotiations for its next host.
For Sherrod, collaborating on one element of Elegy was transformative, not only for her personally but the way she views and teaches dance.
“This process and this project has changed so much about me,” she said of 350,000. “It has affirmed what I
had already been teaching, which is for dancers and movers to allow the breath to carry the movement. It allows us to stay within a durational practice longer. That trail and the whole project is about duration: How can I stay in the duration of agony and live?”
Elegy also changed the way she viewed the trail, which she often visits. During their creative process, Sherrod and her team named their project the 400+ Continuum.
“It means 400 years—and it continues,” she said of the name, which builds on the 2019 quadricentennial of enslaved Africans arriving at Jamestown. “I was giving them intentionality around whomever, whatever ancestral force or peoples walked on that trail all those years … those 350,000-plus. They were walking into our future. So what they brought—their minds, their heads and their understanding of art—became jazz, tap dance, hip-hop, gospel. Whatever they brought became those things that we know now as our cultural art forms.”
Sherrod said the process also taught her the importance of leaning into collective and collaborative work on artistic projects—and to embrace the uncomfortable and challenging.
“I learned about expansive thinking around an artistic project,” she said. “Don’t go for the easy. Go for the damn near impossible and see what happens.”
Remembering Joseph Seipel, who transformed VCU and Greater Richmond through the arts.
A Legacy of Art and Leadership
By Wes Hester, Xan Vessels and Leila Ugincius
Self
Portrait with 71 Dead Rabbits, 1990-1999
Virginia Commonwealth University and the Richmond arts scene lost a legend recently with the death of Joseph H. Seipel, dean emeritus of the School of the Arts.
Seipel, who died June 12 at age 76, retired as VCUarts dean in 2016 after more than 40 years with the school, leaving behind an enduring and indelible legacy. Under his leadership, the school’s national prominence would grow exponentially—and the arts scene around it would flourish.
An early champion of crossdisciplinary partnerships across campus, Seipel also helped the university realize its vision for the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU, leading fundraising efforts and later serving as its interim director.
“Joe Seipel was an extraordinary individual whose humanity, compassion and commitment to the arts were defining components of his time at VCU,” said Carmenita Higginbotham, Ph.D., dean of VCUarts. “An influential artist, teacher and dean, Joe shaped VCUarts in immeasurable ways, helping to transform us into one of the top arts and design schools in the nation. He also extended that impact into the city of Richmond, greatly influencing its arts scene and forging long-lasting relationships between its creative communities. Joe will be deeply missed, but he will never be forgotten.”
Pam Royall, president of the ICA’s advisory board and a former VCU
School of Business faculty member who worked with Seipel for many years, remembered him as a powerful yet playful figure in the maturation of VCUarts and its influence.
“Joe will forever be remembered as a constant presence. And not just at VCU, but in the community that grew up around VCUarts, largely as a result of nurturing from Joe and his contemporaries,” Royall said. “Always at the center, always with a knowing grin and a joke, always engaging others, Joe’s quiet influence was forceful. You always knew you were in for some fun when Joe was in the room, and who wouldn’t want to be part of it?”
To honor Seipel’s life and work, the Anderson, VCUarts’ on-campus gallery, hosted Joe Seipel: Yours & Mine from Aug. 20 through Sept. 28. The exhibition showcased work collected from across Seipel’s five decades as an artist, with media ranging from sculpture, painting and drawing to photography and transdisciplinary work.
“Joe’s exceptional leadership in the School of the Arts and his countless contributions to the wider cultural life of our city is more than ample reason to celebrate this remarkable individual,” said Ashley Kistler, former
director of the VCUarts Anderson Gallery, curator of the Visual Arts Center of Richmond and associate curator of modern and contemporary art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. “These many accomplishments, however, have tended to overshadow a focus on Joe the artist and his own creative evolution in the studio over five decades. Assembling works from the 1970s to the present, the exhibition aims to remedy this imbalance. Joe’s tireless experimentation with image, idea and material offers us an unforgettable journey full of discovery, verve, humor, insight and remembrance.”
Seipel grew up in the small town of Spring Valley, Wisconsin. It was there where his fascination with the three-dimensional took root as he built Lincoln Log and block structures around his family home.
After earning a bachelor’s degree from the University of WisconsinMadison, he received his Master of Fine Arts degree in 1973 from the Rinehart School of Sculpture at the Maryland Institute College of Art.
Seipel’s first project as an M.F.A. candidate characterized his artistic ethos. Inspired by the landscapes of Colorado and the debut of earthworks in the contemporary art scene, he conceived the Enviro-plug, a halfmechanic, half-artistic colossus that would, theoretically, fit seamlessly into a mountain gully.
Since it was less art in the traditional sense, Seipel wanted the Enviro-plug to debut in the New
England Industrial Show in Boston. But to secure a booth, he first needed to be a legitimate industrialist. To fund this endeavor, he created “Seipel Manufacturing” with his friendslash-VP, and together, they hustled hundreds of shares of bogus stock, both common and preferred. They gathered all the accouterments of a legitimate business, including stationery, samples and even matching green and pink suits.
Through sheer determination and ingenuity, Seipel ultimately showcased the Enviro-plug to acclaim and skepticism. It ended up being more than just a project—it was a game-changer. According to Seipel, it cultivated a sense of fearlessness and spontaneity that would inform not only his artwork but his approach to teaching, ultimately arming him with the tools that would change VCUarts forever.
After earning his M.F.A., Seipel tended bar at Bertha’s in Baltimore, where he became friends with filmmaker John Waters and his crew, who frequently hung out there. At that point, he applied to VCU for a teaching position.
Seipel’s 1974 interview with Harold North, then chair of the VCU Department of Sculpture, started at a picnic table behind 914 W. Franklin St. and lasted all day. Seipel ended up staying for a party, where he realized that the university, in his words, was “a spectacular community of likeminded artists.”
Decades later, Myron Helfgott, retired sculpture professor, still remembered Seipel’s application.
“When Joe applied for the job in 1974, there [were] a number of other applicants,” Helfgott said in a 2011 discussion. “But one thing that endeared Joe to us was that he sent a photographic self-portrait in bib overalls signed Joseph ‘Joe’ Seipel. ‘We want that guy!’” (Incidentally, in the same discussion, Seipel mentioned that he traded one of those publicity shots to Beat Generation poet and writer Allen Ginsberg for a lock of hair.)
At the time, the Department of Sculpture was on the second floor of a carriage house behind 914 W. Franklin St., and its studios were in virtually
every garage down the alleyway between Franklin and Grace streets. Seipel gave his first class lectures in the basement of the president’s office at 910 W. Franklin St.
In 1985, Seipel became chair of the department under Murry DePillars, Ph.D., then VCUarts dean, and later under Richard Toscan, Ph.D.
One of Seipel’s initiatives that garnered national attention for the department was changing its curriculum to include more technical opportunities for students. For that, the International Sculpture Center presented him with the 2001 Outstanding Sculpture Educator award.
Also in 2001, Seipel became senior associate dean for academic affairs and director of graduate studies for VCUarts. During his tenure, he was offered other dean jobs that he turned down. But when the Savannah College of Art and Design came knocking in 2009, he had become a little restless and thought it would be a particularly interesting challenge.
But the Savannah job also made him realize how much he missed being in a big research university. And two years later, when Toscan announced his retirement, Seipel was at the top of the list of possible replacements, and he became dean in 2011.
Seipel extrapolated the pedagogies of the sculpture department to the rest of VCUarts’ already successful graduate programs.
Under his leadership, students were required to take an intensive course in at least one department outside of their field of study. Moreover, Seipel was an early adopter of technology in art education and resisted hard constraints in his courses, which benefited both students and faculty by allowing them to maximize their creative expression, connect with like-minded artists and play to their strengths.
This stewardship of VCUarts elevated the M.F.A. sculpture program to No. 1 in the nation and led the school to its highest academic ranking ever. Under Seipel’s leadership, VCUarts rose from No. 4 to No. 2 overall among arts programs in the U.S. News & World Report list of America’s Best Graduate Schools, and it maintained its position as the No. 1
Joe Seipel delivering the Seipel Mfg. Enviro-plug, 1972
"Joe Seipel was always a legend. I first learned about Joe when I was an undergraduate art student living in Miami, way before I attended VCU and met him. Lore had it that there was once an artist at Rinehart School of Sculpture who had made a monumental gulley plug as his M.F.A. project.
Years later, when I arrived at VCU for grad school, Joe was chair of Sculpture. He was a burly guy who always wore a pocketknife. Even on his most administrative, suit-wearing days, the pocketknife was this small emblem that reminded you that he was also a sculptor, a maker of things.
I will never forget his warmth, humor and ability to charm everyone he met. Many of us will recall that joyful, lighthearted and sometimes gently irreverent humor that Joe was so famous for. In meetings, crits and studio visits, every serious and intelligent comment was often followed by a softening chuckle.
He had a radiant personality that infused that little universe of VCU with dynamism and a sense of possibility. Just beneath the modest, witty exterior was also a man who took his life and work very seriously. Joe was a gifted leader who had a special, quiet talent for getting people to care about VCU in ways that nourished community and
relationships across decades of professors and students. So very many people placed their trust in Joe. His jokes and banter were always laced with purpose, a striving for excellence and, most of all, a dignified intentionality that permeated all that he accomplished at VCU.
That integrity also carried into his personal life, and it was palpable to all who knew him that he was deeply devoted to his family. I remember, in my first semester at VCU, that Joe hosted a party for graduate students at his home and was beaming with pride when he introduced his beautiful wife, Suzanne, who was pregnant with their daughter, Chloe, at that gathering. In my own family, we will always fondly remember Joe as “El Santi Clos” (with a Cuban accent), because when my mother came to visit me in Richmond, we agreed that Joe, with his white beard and perpetually jolly disposition, resembled Santa Claus.
I am fortunate to have spent formative years of my education in a creative environment led by Joe’s kindness, dedication and professionalism. And I will always remember his sparkling eyes, contagious smile and unwavering dignity that will continue to uphold his indelible legacy across generations of artists whose lives he touched."
—Teresita Fernández (M.F.A.
‘92)
"When Joe got tickled and laughed, his whole face crinkled up, and you couldn’t tell if his eyes were open or not. The twinkle in those eyes all the rest of the time set the stage for everything. You walked into his office with a request or a complaint, and his sculptor’s pleasure in get-down scrappy problem-solving turned all kinds of intractable obstacles into weird, cool opportunities. He loved people, especially people with attitude, and he loved bringing them together to see what they would do.
You could miss the discernment behind his delight and only later realize what he was doing. Students and colleagues trace their momentum back to the exuberant, try-everything environment he fostered, and to his belief in them. He found something to love in the meanest quarters, and so we, too, loved one another a little more … enough to neutralize a lot of the personal, academic and institutional conflicts that keep people and organizations from growing and thriving. He was called a bridge-builder.
All of us wonder how on earth he got so much done, in his studio and beyond his studio. His relish for every single day, his Paul Bunyan stamina, his stubborn optimism, his tolerance for uncertainty, his vision for what we could be and his crazy and finally brilliant ideas for how to get there: all of these, but his sense of humor too. What tickled him. Oh, his eyes were open alright."
—Elizabeth King (VCUarts Professor Emerita)
Classical Presentation (Self Portrait), 1990-1999
public program.
“Joe Seipel will always be among the great leaders at VCU, helping to shepherd the School of Arts—and the university—to national prominence,” said VCU President Michael Rao, Ph.D. “A world-class sculptor, Joe embodied the notion of arts as foundational to our most important human endeavors and disciplines, building a culture of creativity and collaboration across the university and health system. He touched everyone who had the privilege to work with him with his wit, compassion and passion. We are a better VCU because of Joe.”
VCUarts Assistant Dean Holly Alford, who was appointed by Seipel as the school’s first diversity, equity and inclusion officer in 2012, recalled how supportive Seipel was as the school navigated opportunities and challenges.
“At one point I was swamped, and I remember Joe looked at me and said, ‘I got you’—and I smiled and said, ‘I got your back, too,’” Alford said. “After that, whenever we needed to discuss something difficult, we would look at each other with a peace sign sideways. That meant, I got you. A lot happened during his tenure, and he was always making sure that faculty and students were heard and taken care of. I can honestly say he always had my back.”
Upon his retirement, Seipel called it unusual for an art school to be so respected in an urban research university. But he described VCU as the “university of yes” because nobody ever says no.
“If you want to do some research with the medical school or business or engineering or humanities and sciences, everybody is willing—and that’s not usual in big universities, I assure you,” Seipel said. “We’re very lucky to have the colleagues that we do across this campus.”
Though Seipel officially retired from VCU in 2016 after serving as dean for five years, he returned a short time later as interim director of the Institute for Contemporary Art, leading a successful fundraising campaign that secured $46 million for its construction and facilities.
“When the ICA lost its first executive director, there was no doubt who could step in and fill the position
until a permanent director was hired,” Royall said. “If you didn’t think of it yourself, when you heard Joe was going to be the interim director, it made perfect sense. And he did it masterfully, stabilizing the team and ensuring the public that we would not lose ground. It was, perhaps, not what he had in mind for his retirement, but he barely hesitated when he was asked to serve. That was Joe. You could count on him. What a gift.”
Seipel also shaped the Richmond community through entrepreneurship. He opened the Texas-Wisconsin Border Café with friends Donna Van Winkle, an actress and director, and James Bradford, a painter and member of the VCUarts faculty. Their goal was to invigorate the Richmond bar scene with Central USA flair.
It was an instant hit for locals— particularly for its signature chili—and for Seipel himself, as it was at TexasWisconsin where he met his future wife, Suzanne.
Seipel also was an active participant in the Richmond arts scene, working with the city’s galleries
before co-founding the 1708 Gallery on West Broad Street. There, his 1999 biographical work 18,621 Days earned a Critic’s Choice award for public art. He participated in the Richmond citywide project 21 Billboards by 21 Artists; was appointed by Gov. L. Douglas Wilder to the Task Force for Promotion of the Arts and by Gov. George Allen to the Virginia Art and Architecture Review Board; joined the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Board; was named the May 2016 Richmonder of the Month by Richmond Magazine; and was co-honored by the Richmond Times-Dispatch as the 2018 RTD Person of the Year for connecting the community through arts.
Seipel continued to work in his two studios after his VCU retirement, picking up on unfinished pieces he started some 20 years ago.
“So the first thing I’ve got to do,” he said at the time of his retirement, “is I’ve got to finish that work, find some catharsis with that work and hopefully have an exhibition sometime in the not-too-distant future.”
Jesus/Seipel, 1974
I was at a crossroads between painting and sculpture during my undergraduate years at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art. While double-majoring in both, I felt a stronger pull toward sculpture. At that time, painting couldn’t evoke the same questions as sculpture. The immediate impact on the audience, the tangible nature of the material intertwined with the object’s history, and the person’s relationship to it created a deeper connection and impact that fascinated me.
I am still processing the uncanny atmospheric nature of that charged space at the Anderson. The Fear of God installation consisted of a Philadelphia powerline hung from wall to wall. A pair of retro Air Jordan basketball sneakers hung from the powerline. Three gelatin-cast toy guns were placed near the entrance. A paper airplane tied with sewing thread hovered near a doorway exit. Black plastic film stretched over the gallery’s walls (seen in the background of these pages), entrapping three hazmat suits. Static electricity was the adhesive for the plastic used on the walls. The static charge metaphorically represents society’s unseen forces, tensions and connectivity between the material and the individual.
Sourcing materials is a meticulous and methodical process for me. As I move through life, I’m magnetically drawn to certain objects or materials. For instance, I held onto a bottle of molasses for more than three years before deciding to incorporate it into my work. Molasses has a peculiar way of defying environmental changes. It pushes me to think
beyond conventional boundaries and engage with the material on its own terms. Since 2013, I’ve developed a mature and nuanced relationship with molasses. Early on, I painted with it and covered bust statues in it, struggling to control its overpowering nature. In my Fear of God thesis exhibition, I cast children’s toy guns in a mixture of gelatin and molasses, cutting them in half and placing them on the ground. Through this intimate relationship with molasses, I’ve learned to collaborate with the material rather than dominate it.
When walking through the neighborhoods of Richmond, some objects call out louder than others, and some feel so familiar to me that I have to bring them with me. For instance, bricks from a demolished Clay Street home have been on my mind since I began my graduate program in 2022. Finding personal histories in objects is recognizing and remembering a collective history outside of historical record books. Finding the familiar in the found object is a critical process in my practice to keep me in tune with society and to ask, proffer, challenge, listen and communicate more intensely with society.
Every material used in my work has a history that I address and challenge the viewer to address with me. I recently made a sculpture that consisted of two Confederate jackets, two pairs of Air Jordan basketball sneakers, white paint, charcoal and 1,000 pounds of concrete. Individually, each object has a specific history understood by society—but I’m interested in complicating those understood histories. What would
it mean to situate the Confederate history next to or under sports history? What would it mean for me, the artist, to present this series of polemic dilemmas and questions to the public?
It’s a collective process, and we can be uncomfortable together. We can share this good and bad thing— at the same time—together. When we recognize and empathize with each other; it’s transformative in
the best way. It’s an attempt to hold hands together.
demolished home in Richmond. Viewers questioned whether the dog’s gaze was aggressive or welcoming, highlighting the themes of ambiguity and blurred dichotomies I explore in my work.
The show was about community and challenging the audience to remember another way of existing in the world. It was a wonderful opportunity to converse with other thought-provoking and talented artists. My contribution was a 6-foottall German Shepherd sculpture wrapped in black plastic and carbon fiber, filled with bricks from a
As a sculptor, I view the world through the lens of materiality, treating it with care rather than exploitation. Last year, I exhibited a piece, Whites Only, at my first solo show at Automat Collective. This title held multiple histories,
Jermaine Ollivierre’s work, featured in his M.F.A. thesis installation at the Anderson, Fear of God, employs carefully sourced materials to reflect their personal and collective histories.
including segregation, color theory, Duchamp’s readymades and play. Titles in my work serve as a confluence of nuanced histories intended to keep the viewer engaged and to create lasting memories of their time viewing the work.
finitudes that concern me. For me, a finished work creates a closure, and I constantly endeavor to create openings.
When things are completed, a different type of focus emerges. It could be a lack of focus and attention or being comfortable with
For me, it’s all about connection. VCUarts has given me so much room to explore my practice and work on areas needing attention. Having access to world-renowned artists and faculty, and having that community, is everything I need for this next step in my professional artistic career.
My faculty and amazing cohort established unbelievable trust in me, giving me the confidence to break conventional aesthetic rules. Their feedback—through critique, studio visits and daily interactions— helped fuel my investigation into the social dynamics of public and private spaces. VCUarts has given me the foundational tools to impact the world, innovate and push boundaries. I still pinch myself seeing how far I’ve come as an artist. It’s unreal, but VCUarts is an unbelievably real place where we make things happen.
Pearl, a junior who is majoring in painting and printmaking, initially learned about the urban heat island effect in an environmental science course. The phenomenon—an area that is significantly warmer than surrounding suburban and rural locations—occurs when natural land cover such as trees is replaced with surfaces that absorb and retain heat, such as concrete. Wanting to know more, Pearl read about a University of Richmond and Science Museum of Virginia research project that captured thermal infrared images of murals around Richmond to study their heat absorption.
What would happen, she wondered, if she painted a mural using heat-absorbing or solar-reflective materials? Last year, Pearl set out to depict a sustainable city with cooler temperatures as well as an urban heat island with warmer temperatures.
Completed in July 2023—and adorning the top of VCU’s Bowe Street Parking Deck—the large mural demonstrates the factors that increase and decrease the heat island effect. Pearl’s work features two opposing figures representing how the community can contribute either to the solution or the problem.
Now, after winning The Science Coalition’s fifth annual Fund It Forward Student Video Challenge for her mural, Pearl has received a second grant from VCU to expand her project.
to the naked eye, but the urban heat island effect increases energy costs, pollution and heat-related illnesses. Pearl’s thermal
painting communicates the effect with two worlds personified as figures representing the complex and chaotic ecological systems of humans and the environment. The first figure represents an urban heat island, sweating and in pain from absorbed heat. The second figure symbolizes the ideal sustainable city, with cooled temperature and a relaxed posture.
“The surrounding environment of the red figure displays concrete infrastructure, asphalted roads and empty vegetation—an embodiment of an urban heat island,” Pearl said. “The blue figure resembles a city modeled on sustainable foundations—the opposite of an urban heat island—with extensive forest coverage, wildlife and buildings with garden roofs surrounding the personification. The blue figure’s temperature is cooled, and their posture is mostly at rest.”
In addition to visualizing the issue, the mural proves that strategies already exist to reduce the heat island effect.
Pearl used a solar-reflective coating that helps to cool the surface temperature. A thermal infrared camera captures the temperature differences, displaying the warmer temperatures of the mural as a bright yellow and the cooler areas as a dark purple.
“Generally, colors that are shaded darker absorb more heat than lighter colors,” Pearl explained. “Colors similar to shades like white reflect the sun and are less heated. … You can view these temperature contrasts because I painted the red/urban heat island figure with much darker shades, and similar to urban heat islands, the material used on infrastructure in cities makes a
prevalent difference in temperature.”
Additionally, she experimented with solar-reflective sealant on the blue figure embodying the sustainable city.
“The ‘cool coat’ sealant I used has a formula that contains ceramic spheres that help the reflection of the heat from the sun,” Pearl said. “I am currently in the process of measuring how effective this sealant is in cooling the surface of the blue figure.”
supported by Roberto Jamora, an assistant professor in the Art Foundation program at VCUarts who mentored Pearl, and it was funded in part by VCU’s Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP).
“In terms of research we’re putting together, Sirena was really fascinated by how artwork can look differently depending on how it’s viewed,”
Jamora said. “What [she] investigated in the work is the use of materials that we probably pass by every day but don’t realize the effect of these construction and building materials on our everyday lives.”
With Jamora’s help, Pearl learned skills such as applying for a research grant and writing and presenting a proposal.
Working on such a large scale—the mural is 25 by 91 feet—also presented a significant learning curve for Pearl, who had to use equipment such as scaffolding, rollers and spray paints.
“This project was my first largescale exterior mural, and I was lucky to meet, receive advice and talk to local Richmond muralists and street artists,” Pearl said. “I met many muralists and street artists from the local art store Supply RVA, run by Ian Hess. So much planning, manual labor,
Sirena Pearl, a junior majoring in painting and printmaking, is studying the heat island effect through her mural atop VCU’s Bowe Street Parking Deck (above), which uses heat-absorbing and solar-reflective materials. Pearl worked closely with Roberto Jamora (right), assistant professor in the Art Foundation program, on the large-scale project.
budgeting and patience go into mural making. … It was also such a different experience to have the opportunity to shift the perspective of my work from a gallery/personal setting to one experienced by a community.”
Fittingly, climate change and the heat island effect impacted Pearl’s ability to complete the project before the end of the summer last year. She quickly learned the importance of weather conditions when creating an exterior mural, and she had to adjust her schedule to start painting before sunrise.
“She was coming out here at 4 in the morning to paint because it just got so hot” during the day, Jamora said. “There’s no cover out here on the
parking deck balcony.”
Pearl completed the mural itself in late summer of 2023, but her research via the thermal infrared camera continued. Pearl has used a camera to compile qualitative data to see how the cool-coat sealant and dark colors versus light colors changed the amount of heat reflected throughout the day. The differences are most apparent, she said, by midafternoon once the sunlight has directly hit the wall for a few hours.
“This UROP fellowship project will really set the bar for what an arts and science cross-disciplinary project can be like,” Jamora said.
The project received significant recognition in December of last year
when Pearl won The Science Coalition’s fifth annual Fund It Forward Student Video Challenge for undergraduates.
Students at coalition member institutions were asked to create a video explaining their personal connection to fundamental research and why Congress should continue to invest in the partnership between federal research agencies and their university counterparts.
“VCU is exceptionally proud of Sirena and her truly innovative crossdisciplinary work melding art and science,” said VCU President Michael Rao, Ph.D. “By helping diverse audiences understand complex issues that impact us all, her work speaks to VCU’s mission
as a public research university dedicated to advancing the human condition and pursuing discoveries that make a difference in our communities.”
phase of the project, also funded by a UROP grant, Pearl conducted another time lapse over the summer, using thermal captures from a drone.
“I’m guessing that during the summer, the retention of the image clarity will stay a lot longer after sunset,” she said.
Pearl will also test the ability of the clear solar-reflective coating over the darker shades of the mural. Depending on the effectiveness of the cool coat,
this recorded information may be helpful for other muralists who want to reduce heat retention in darker shades of their murals.
As for her own future, Pearl plans to continue exploring ways to use art to highlight environmental risk, with an emphasis on local issues and potential solutions.
“As artists, we have a lot of potential to help people understand complex issues, especially involving data,” she said. “Climate change is such a complex issue to communicate, and focusing on a local area and issues is so important. If you get local communities involved onboard and educate enough people, you can actually make changes.”
Pearl’s project uses a solar-reflective coating that helps to cool the surface temperature. A thermal infrared camera captures the temperature differences, displaying the warmer temperatures of the mural as a bright yellow and the cooler areas as a dark purple.
MASTER OF LIGHT
ARTIST AND ALUM WILLIE ANNE WRIGHT FOUND THE DREAMY WORLD OF PINHOLE PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHANCE—OR DID SHE?
BY MATTHEW STOSS
DECADES AGO , artist Willie Anne Wright (M.F.A. ’64) was standing by her mailbox when, she suspects, one of her muses spoke from the mystic ether around Richmond’s West End.
“I got a message when I lived on Baldwin Road,” Wright says, with that old Richmond accent you don’t hear much anymore. “I heard a voice say, just as clear as anything, ‘Cultivate your garden.’ And I thought: What does that mean?”
Sixty-some years later in the Fan, Wright, 100 and delightfully prone to wiseassery, is sitting on the couch in her Strawberry Street house, where she and her late husband (and occasional model), Jack, moved in 1972. She’s laughing as she explains the obviously cosmological reasons that, after decades as a painter and a printmaker, she took up pinhole photography, a medium as niche then as it is now.
“It seemed like somebody was guiding me,” Wright says, pausing for effect and then making a spooky “Ahhhhh” sound that in more traditional usages might accompany crystal ball revelations or the ghost of your least favorite grandma. “I was fairly successful with my paintings, and they were being accepted in shows outside of Virginia and all that kind of stuff, so I didn’t need to start something new. But it came into my life.”
Wright now probably is better known as a photographer than a painter, though she continued painting throughout her career. Her work is in permanent collections at museums throughout the East Coast as well as the southeastern and southwestern U.S.
The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in 1944, eight years after it opened, first showed Wright’s art when it included two of her watercolors in an exhibition of Virginia college artists. Still an undergraduate at the time, Wright majored in psychology at William & Mary (because it was new, she says, and she hadn’t studied it in high school) and only audited art classes.
The VMFA has regularly exhibited Wright’s work since, including a 1970 show that featured her alongside Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko, and has about 250 pieces of hers in its collection. From October to June, the VMFA hosted Artist & Alchemist, the first full retrospective on the Richmond artist.
“She’s sort of been part of the museum’s DNA,” says Sarah Kennel, Ph.D., who curated the Artist & Alchemist show, the planning for which started in December 2022. “Part of that title, ‘Artist & Alchemist,’ I didn’t really feel like ‘photographer’ described how she sees herself and encompasses her work. I mean, she makes a lot of great photographs, but the idea of ‘alchemist’—she loved to play with things.
“Particularly the last 20 years of her photography, she moved back into this creating
mode—more with her hands. She’s still making images with a camera, or photograms, but she’s using cutouts, she’s scanning things, she’s flipping them. It’s very much bringing painting, collage, printmaking all into what ends up being a photographic image, or she’s just trying stuff and seeing what happens. And you have to be really willing to let go of the outcome when you use pinhole anyway, because you don’t know— because there’s so much you can’t control.”
The tale of Wright’s pinhole photography conversion is almost lore at this point.
In 1972, Wright, a compulsive matriculator, took a photography class at VCU so she could learn to take better pictures of her paintings. The professor, the late Department of Photography and Film chair George Nan, started the group on the fundamentals and had them build pinhole cameras, the principles of which were first observed about 2,500 years ago, well before the camera’s Victorian heyday.
“I had some kind of empathy with it,” Wright says. “It was like I was supposed to do it, and it was bringing out stuff in me that I hadn’t had the chance to get to before. It opened up a world and it opened up the history of photography. I never even thought about photography except that Jack would take pictures of my paintings. That was about as far as I got before this.”
A pinhole camera is simple. It’s just a box, sealed completely from light except for the titular pinhole. No lens required. Inside the box, opposite the pinhole, is photosensitive paper. Basic camera film would work. It’s all very DIY-able.
The pinhole aims a thin-but-concentrated ray of sunlight onto the paper and makes an image that, regardless of what’s photographed, will have the feel of a dreamt memory. The light’s intensity and the type of photosensitive paper dictate the exposure time. Figuring that out, though, is more feel and experience than science and technology.
“You control the exposure by guessing. You look at the sun,” Kennel says. “But, really, I think for her, it’s not a perfectionism. It’s really more about the process and seeing what happens.”
Among Wright’s pinhole innovations is experimenting with photosensitive papers intended for direct sunlight exposure, notably Cibachrome. Developed in the 1960s, it’s known for its full, buttery colors. Killed off in part by digital photography, it hasn’t been manufactured since 2011.
Used in a pinhole camera in intense sunlight, Cibachrome requires a two- to threeminute exposure. It also needs color filters, made of glass or plastic and placed over the pinhole, to match the shifting colors of sunlight (Mr. ROY G BIV at work) to the fixed color
Opposite: Before Kate by Willie Anne Wright (1987)
sensitivity of the paper. Cibachrome veers blue.
“It is designed to be used in conjunction with slide photography, or transparencies, which is a positive—like the world is a positive [as opposed to a photo negative],” says Gordon Stettinius, founder of Richmond’s Candela Books + Gallery and Wright’s longtime friend and art dealer. “And she was like, ‘Well, reality’s positive. Maybe if I just put this directly into a camera and make an exposure, something good will happen or it’ll make sense.’ And it did. … She understood pinhole photography very well, but the [Cibachrome] was designed for darkroom exposure, so it wasn’t calibrated for daylight, so she wound up having to figure out how to filter that light. And she just pushed and pushed until she became very expert in this very niche practice.
“I saw a show in Santa Fe, [New Mexico] probably 10 years ago of a spectrum of pinhole photography—like a huge survey—and I did see one or two examples of people who sort of glanced up against this, but nobody who did this for 12 or 14 years, just learning it inside and out. I mean, I think that’s how she got somewhere eventually. She just doggedly pursued this.”
“I had some kind of empathy with it. It was like I was supposed to do it, and it was bringing out stuff in me that I hadn’t had the chance to get to before.”
Wright saw the pinhole-Cibachrome pairing as a larger bed in her muse’s garden and mainlined her influences into it: psychology, pop culture, feminism, art history and Victorian photography, specifically the haunting works of Julia Margaret Cameron and Roger Fenton. Another influence is the turn-of-the-20th-century mystic Pamela Colman Smith, known today for illustrating the cards for the still widely used Rider-Waite 1909 tarot deck.
“It’s a long exposure,” Wright says, “and it had to have intense sunlight”—that’s to get sufficient light through the pinhole—“so that meant, OK, what could I take pictures of that would meet that requirement? Well, swimming pools! OK, summertime! You can have girls in bathing suits. You can have people sitting around the pool, having a drink. It just opened up a whole world I hadn’t even thought about photographing, because I liked the way the photographs looked. Many trips to Virginia Beach. You got your subjects lying out on the beach and your setup and then strangers come up and want to know what the hell you’re doing.” They often walked through the shot. “Sometimes it didn’t matter or
sometimes it’d make an interesting blob.”
Wright also set up classic still lifes in rural vistas, sequestered gardens and even Maymont Park. One striking-as-it-is-eerie pinhole photograph from 1981, Still Life With Richard’s Road, shows a table in a forestrimmed field in front of a gravel path west of Richmond. The table’s set with a white cloth, a bread loaf and a fruit spread that looks like someone sacrificed Carmen Miranda’s hat to Bacchus.
Other favorite subjects for Wright include amusement parks, old houses, cemeteries, pregnant women, general mundanity and Civil War reenactments.
“Another thing that really distinguishes her, I think it’s just a real irreverent sense of humor,” Kennel says. “She’s delighted by the weirdness of contemporary life as well as history, and it’s finding those points where they converge or diverge. In her ‘Civil War Redux’ pictures, for example, she’s not just trying to get at this practice of reconstructing a Civil War battlefield. She’s trying to get into the psychology of the people who do it—the strangeness and their own intense investment with recreating the past. So she homes in on
Above, left to right: Willie at Ruth’s Farm by Willie Anne Wright (1984), Virginia Beach — Bernie, Marsha, Jack — Sunglasses, Towel, Labor Day (1980), Chancellorsville, George A. Custer (1988), Irvington, Virginia: Marsha with Fabric — Nick and Dorothy’s Pool #1 (1980). All photos by Willie Anne Wright.
the Civil War doctor and the [wax] amputated leg, and that macabre aspect of it, of course, for her, is very funny.”
Often photography trips demanded hotel rooms, but not because these were multiday trips (even though they often were). Wright needed windowless bathrooms so she could change the film in her pinhole cameras, another wrinkle in a rumpled process.
“It was always like it was almost going to go south, and I wouldn’t get anything,” Wright says. “And then, all of a sudden, I’d go home and process the thing, and, yeah, I had this really nice piece—where did that come from?”
Wright says that pinhole duds were rare and that she could see something in any picture she took. Tucked against the high arm of the Strawberry Street couch, Wright laughs.
“That led me to trying things without cameras—just directly placing the photosensitive material in the sunlight and making lumen prints,” Wright says. “I must say. I think lovingly of photography.”
A version of this article orginally appeared in the Summer 2024 issue of VCU Magazine Visit magazine.vcu.edu for more.
By Dina Weinstein
A ‘Letter’ to a Legacy
Amber Esseiva, Senior Curator at the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU
JONAH HODARI
photo negative and sketches of architect
In Dear Mazie , ICA curator Amber Esseiva unites historical research and contemporary art to correspond with the unheralded Amaza Lee Meredith
Archival
Amaza Lee Meredith’s home, “Azurest South.”
Recently named Acting Senior Curator at the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University, Amber Esseiva is now realizing a passion project years in the making.
On exhibit from September 2024 to March 2025, Dear Mazie, showcases the life and work of Amaza Lee Meredith (1895–1984), a Virginian who was the first known queer, female, Black architect in the nation. Esseiva has framed the exhibit as a love letter of sorts—from contemporary artists and from herself—to the trailblazing architect, artist, and educator.
“She’s such an important figure that not enough people locally know about,” Esseiva said. “The Dear Mazie, exhibit is bringing awareness to her life and to how contemporary art is always looking back toward legacies in order to expand the field.”
Meredith was born in Lynchburg to a Black mother and white father, a carpenter who taught her construction skills and how to read blueprints. Denied formal architecture training due to her race and gender, Meredith went on to design landmark structures in Virginia and beyond.
She also founded the fine arts department at the historically Black college Virginia State University in 1935 and exhibited on her own at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond and in galleries in New York and North Carolina. Her work still hangs in public and private collections.
Meredith studied at VSU and Columbia University’s Teachers College before becoming the head of VSU’s art and design program. She lived on campus in a house she built with her partner, Edna Meade Colson.
She also designed homes with her sister, Maude Terry, in the Azurest North community in Sag Harbor in the Hamptons. The Long Island, N.Y., area was one of the first Black beachfront communities and a respite from midcentury discrimination.
When she died, Meredith donated her home and all of her papers and materials—more than 500,000
pieces—to the VSU archive. While now closed to the public, Esseiva spent years there, exploring the materials. The fact that Meredith is little-known, even in her home state of Virginia, despite her accomplishments and identity intrigued Esseiva.
“I went there just because I was interested in her as a person, with no clear agenda on making an exhibit,” Esseiva said. “I knew I wanted to do something around her legacy, but I didn't know what it was going to be. After the three years in her archive, I had looked
through materials related to strands of her life. She was a multifaceted person.”
Esseiva delved into Meredith’s life, achievements and impact as an educator—and more.
“She was an activist,” Esseiva said. “She was involved in the creation of policies around desegregation, voting rights and education reform in Virginia—and an artist and painter in her own right.”
“We only know of a few homes in the United States that she constructed, but there might be more,” Esseiva said.
“
I became obsessed with that home and what it meant to build a house like that as a queer woman in the South in the ’30s.”
On the curatorial staff at the ICA since prior to its 2018 opening, Esseiva earned her undergraduate art history degree from VCU’s School of the Arts. She earned her master’s at the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College in New York.
As a VCUarts undergraduate, Esseiva worked at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the Anderson on campus and then in commercial galleries in New York dedicated to young emerging artists.
Dear Mazie, departs from other exhibits Esseiva has curated at the ICA in that it centers on a historical figure who left a trove of archival materials. While there will be aspects of historical documents in the exhibit, Dear Mazie, prominently features multiple contemporary living artists whose work serve like a letter of correspondence to Meredith.
In 2019, Esseiva curated the Great Force exhibit at the ICA, focusing on the history of the color line in the United States. The child of a Swiss mother and a Senegalese father, Esseiva grew up in France and then in Miami where she was able to see how the shifting definitions of race
are nuanced across different cultures. She grew enamored by artists such as James Baldwin, who was so eloquently able to elaborate on this distinction.
“I was doing a lot of work on Black critical theory, and I kept coming across important biracial figures. It didn't fit that binary research agenda. And amazingly, Meredith was one of them,” Esseiva said.
“It's like time-traveling for me, myself being biracial and being in the world of the arts and education, looking to a figure that was functioning here at a completely different time, under similar identity constructs,” she said of Meredith.
“I realized that she had built this house on the Virginia State University campus for her and her partner, Edna Meade Colson, in 1938 that looked like a 1960s Miami art deco home—but in the ‘30s in the South. And so, I became obsessed with that home and what it meant to build a house like that as a queer woman in the South in the ’30s.”
As her exhibit planning progressed, Esseiva veered from curating a traditional architectural show with glass cases and blueprints. She thought of how the ICA is known for commissioning new works of art—and
Opposite: Amaza Lee Meredith holding one of her drawings.
Right: Meredith’s Petersburg, Virginia home, “Azurest South.”
how that could serve Meredith’s legacy.
“So instead of doing a one-to-one show about a mausoleum narrative, I'm working with contemporary artists and architects to write a letter back to her based on some of her achievements, but through making brand new works of art on aspects of her life,” Esseiva said.
“The show is very much speculative around her life and not religious dedication to exactly what she did. It's
inspired by her and written to her but not responsible for telling her whole life story because it's too big in the first place. That would require multiple shows, and the physical copies of the photographs.”
Meredith’s work and use of images on wall vinyl make the exhibit immersive. And the contributing artists bring fresh and unique perspectives.
Incorporating field recording and images, multimedia artist Cauleen
Smith depicts Meredith’s development in Sag Harbor, focusing on the area’s history, landscape, waterways and homes that are still standing. A lifesize fiberglass sculpture by artist Tshabalala Self will be wearing a painted-on dress that resembles one of Meredith's dresses, based on an image of the garment found in her archive. Other artists are Kapwani Kiwanga, Abigail Lucien, VCU alumnus Lukaza Branfman Verissimoand and The Black School.
Esseiva curates with an understanding of the artists’ strengths, practices and what is appropriate for their artistic development.
“It's a very collaborative process that takes a lot of trust,” said Esseiva, who calls the contemporary artists’ creations “interventions” that “will bring in the archive, but not the actual materials.”
A model of Meredith’s house is portrayed graphically on a large wall-like curtain. “You'll be ‘walking’ through the house instead of looking at a small rendering,” Esseiva said.
The New York City-based architectural firm AD—WO, whose founding principles are married couple Jen Wood and Emanuel Admassu, is directing the exhibit design, which takes patrons through ICA spaces that re-create environments that Meredith made and lived in.
“Amaza was interested in inserting herself and other Black people in this futuring project, and that played out looking at what were the latest materials,” Wood said. “So we also want to not relegate her and her work to the past and instead show it within how it's functioning today, still a futuring project.”
Wood and Admassu added that they were struck by the care Esseiva put into what guidance she left for them before going on maternity leave, ensuring that the exhibition’s development would continue apace.
Top: Amaza Lee Meredith and her partner, Dr. Edna Meade Colson.
Bottom: Students in Meredith’s classroom, 1950s.
After the Dear Mazie, exhibition, Esseiva plans to complete a book about Meredith to be independently published, through the ICA, to continue to spread awareness about the inspiring architect’s life.
She said connecting past and present became a defining part of her work, framed by her academic experience at VCU. As an art history student, Esseiva’s desire to work with living artists led her to a career as a curator in contemporary art.
“I found myself at the School of the Arts, working with grad and undergrad students to produce shows,” Esseiva said. “I opened a gallery here when I was a student to produce shows and events that took me farther away from the art historical tradition and closer to a curatorial position. That way of working—being informed by history, but also steeped in what is happening now, new ways of working and thinking about producing works of art—is out of my experience of being here and navigating those two worlds.”
She advises students looking to explore curation to “not be limited by the ways in which you see other people working, and instead to reinvent aspects of their work and fields by crossing disciplines and industries.”
Curatorial challenges include balancing academic work, production, artistry and budgets, along with fitting concepts into a confined space.
“Oftentimes there's a bigger story to tell, so you’ve got to pick, choose and curate, have some discretion on what you do, how you portray this, and what aspects of someone's life or work is more important than others. So, decision-making is pretty central,” Esseiva said—particularly with a subject as complex, fascinating and unheralded as Amaza Lee Meredith.
I’m working with contemporary artists and architects to write a letter back to her based on some of her achievements...” “
Rest + Reelaxation: an interior view of “Azurest South.”
MAGIC THEATER THE OF
A NEW VCUARTS PROGRAM BRINGS WELCOME JOY TO THE CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL OF RICHMOND.
BY BRIAN IVASAUSKAS
The little girl laughs and claps with delight at the dinosaur puppet’s playful banter. Now in her third month at the Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU, she sits in her wheelchair, legs covered with a weighted blanket.
But for this brief moment, she’s not a patient. Just a child.
The moment is made possible by Aaron Anderson, a Department of Theatre professor and graduate program director in VCU’s School of the Arts. Anderson, Ph.D., also holds positions in the medicine and business schools, and his new program brings performances to the Children’s Hospital of Richmond (CHoR) each week.
Depending on their medical needs, the young patients might stay in the hospital for anywhere from a single night to many months. Its performance space offers a welcome sense of entertainment and fun to kids of all ages.
“I’ve never seen a mission more simple,” Anderson said. “A child in the
hospital is feeling a lot of emotions. They’re afraid, uncomfortable or bored. All they want is some normalcy. Every week, this project delivers more than that. It creates magic.”
The theater project started as a simple question when Anderson was helping design the hospital’s Children’s Pavilion with longtime friend and colleague P. Muzi Branch, former director of the Arts in Healthcare program at VCU Health. During a planning session, Branch turned to Anderson and asked, “What do you think about making a theater for the children?”
With that, the vision was set. In summer 2022, Anderson and Branch met with architects to design the physical space. While that work was underway, Anderson worked with graduate students to develop programming to fill the schedule, beginning in fall 2023.
Throughout the process, Anderson collaborated with Alexis Shockley, manager of the Arts in Healthcare program.
“Having this theater for the children sets us apart from any other children’s hospital,” Shockley said. “It normalizes the environment and gives our children a chance to experience something they may have never done outside of the hospital.”
From ventriloquists and puppet shows to the Latin Ballet of Virginia and selections from The Nutcracker, performers have mesmerized the children week after week.
“At its core, theater brings you into a magical world for a short time,”
“ Having this theater for the children sets us apart from any other children’s hospital. ”
Anderson said. “Our performances provide these children that moment of magic: a moment where they forget they’re a patient and can just enjoy being a child. There’s never been something so transformative.”
The children have even gotten their names on the marquee. Upon seeing the stage, one little boy asked if he could perform – and the team eagerly made room in the schedule. The next week, he was a star: The boy happily danced across the stage for an audience of peers, family and caregivers.
To date, every performer through Anderson’s project has asked to
return to the CHoR stage next year for an encore. The perormances brings tears of joy to the audience and smiles, laughter and joy to the children’s faces.
“This is why we do this,” Anderson said.
He and Shockley have big ideas for the future. To complement the theater, Shockley plans to introduce an artist-in-residence program at the hospital, starting with a visual artist.
“The artist would interact with our patients for nine months at a time,” Shockley said. “At the end of the season, we’d hold an exhibition of the art that patients created in the program, giving them a chance to celebrate and share
their work with others.”
Shockley also is partnering with Sara Wilson McKay, an associate professor of art education at VCUarts, and more than 100 art education students to gather data on the Arts in Healthcare program’s healing effect on patients.
“This research puts metrics to the subjective. What benefits were perceived? Did patients discharge sooner? Did they use fewer medications?” Shockley said. “There are already promising studies out there, and I’m excited to have our own data to demonstrate the vital importance of this program.”
As for the children’s theater, Anderson aims to add livestreams and
bedside performances for those with difficulty leaving their rooms. And he is working to expand the hospital’s programming to encompass nonperformance interactions with the CHoR kids, whether playing creative games with them or tapping into their imagination in other ways.
“I’ve been in theater for 35 years and have never seen anything as clearly impactful and magical as this,” Anderson said. “This represents so much more than just the close connection between the School of the Arts and the health system. This is a weekly act of moving a kid’s emotional dial from ‘I don’t want to be here’ to ‘This is magic.’”
A Vintage Spin Fashion grad Alexandra Mitchell adds retro-modern style to today’s rock stars, Loki and more
BY MARY KATE BROGAN
PHOTOS BY JUD FROELICH
Alexandra Mitchell is the eye for style behind some of the biggest acts in indie rock today. That iconic Rolling Stone cover last year of boygenius in the style of Nirvana’s famous Mademoiselle photoshoot? That was her idea.
Mitchell is a 2016 School of the Arts graduate, and her vision, research, curation and skill help musicians tell a visual story with their fashion choices. That is increasingly important today in a renaissance for live music where (à la Beyoncé) a performer’s wardrobe is part of the spectacle of seeing them in concert—and where (shout-out, Taylor Swift) concertgoers put hours of effort into their own attire.
Since graduating with a B.A. in fashion merchandising, Mitchell has worked as a researcher for vintage fashion, as an authentication and pricing specialist at The RealReal and as a freelance stylist, consultant and vintage specialist partnering with groups from indie music acts to Disney and Marvel. But when she arrived at VCU, she had her heart set on storytelling through another path.
“I was originally studying journalism,” Mitchell said. “I wanted to write about fashion.”
Mitchell began exploring fashion early on—from sewing new clothes for Barbie dolls as a 5-year-old with her mom to going to concerts with her dad and then finding music for herself as a teenager.
“When I started experimenting with how I dressed, it was definitely around the same time that I got into music, too. With emo bands, I felt like, ‘I can dress different. I can be different,’” Mitchell said. “There was some inspiration from there. I used to dye
my hair a lot as a kid—like every color—when I was 13-14 in middle school. I did some sewing of my own clothes—I was never really good at sewing, but my mom would help me.”
Music was another way into fashion. Her dad, an avid record collector, was “always playing music at home—the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Neil Young, New Order, Talking Heads, Patti Smith—all things good,” Mitchell said.
“My first concert, he took me to see the Go-Go’s when I was 13,” Mitchell said. “There was always a lot of music playing, and how musicians dressed and incorporated dress into their storytelling was an early inspiration for me.”
For just as long, VCU had been on Mitchell’s radar. She grew up in Richmond, attending Fox Elementary School and Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School within miles of VCU’s campus, and her dad was a VCU grad. While pursuing a degree in mass communications at VCU’s Robertson School of Media and Culture, Mitchell began writing for VCU’s Ink Magazine
“It felt like, ‘I’ve got to get fashion in here somehow.’ I thought, ‘I’m going to study journalism and then I want to write about fashion,’” Mitchell said. “As much as I loved writing, it felt like I was still kind of hiding from what I really wanted to do, which was just commit to fashion, being in fashion. I realized I’m going to get the most out of my college career if I’m really honest about what I want to be learning about. It took awhile to really say, ‘No, this is what I want to do, and I’m just going to go in head-first.’”
As she started taking courses in VCUarts, an internship opportunity at The Valentine, which arose out of assistant professor Jackie Mullins’ fashion history course, opened her eyes to a future in fashion.
So did a summer course focused on luxury and fashion with
Deidra Arrington, chair of the Department of Fashion Design + Merchandising. She and her classmates visited a trend forecasting agency, high-end jewelry company Verdura and other fashion landmarks in New York City. “I’d never gotten to see behind the curtain in fashion before,” Mitchell said.
By the end of the summer after graduation, Mitchell had fully stepped behind the curtain, moving to New York and working for the small vintage company Byronesque. There, she worked with a team to track down for customers the “ultimate grail vintage piece that you haven’t been able to find,” which helped her get familiar with working with vintage dealers and putting on pop-ups in places like Tokyo and Paris.
“It was, for the first time, interacting with clothing that I’d only seen on Tumblr,” she said.
Mitchell then started working for The RealReal as a specialist in fashion and handbags, authenticating handbags and, later, doing pricing strategy for fine jewelry. In 2020, her dad was diagnosed with brain cancer, so she moved back to Richmond. She began freelancing—including doing some work for Lucy Dacus, the Richmond native who has become one of the brightest stars in indie music.
“We actually lived together at VCU. She’s my old friend,” said Mitchell, who got to know Dacus when the two went to the Governor’s School. “She was doing more solo work and asked me to do a few styling jobs for her, which was something we had discussed as an, ‘Oh what if [this happens]?’ situation for a long time. And that was really fun because I got to go to these different brands and start having conversations and pulling clothes.”
Mitchell started off styling Dacus’ looks for DIY Magazine, GoldFlakePaint, Teeth Magazine, The Forty-Five
Alexandra Mitchell in her Richmond home, surrounded by pieces from her extensive collection of vintage clothing.
“consume it in an instant. And I think it’s really special to create images that you can come back to and just look at for a long time.”
In February 2023, boygenius made the cover of Rolling Stone. In a callback, Alexandra Mitchell helped style the trio as Nirvana, referencing the grunge band’s cover look from a 1994 issue of the magazine.
which proved to be super difficult,” Mitchell said. “But I did end up being able to get in contact with the designer who made those super colorful scarves that the band was wearing as skirts—Gene Meyer, who lives in Morocco now—and he sent some of the original scarves. He only produced them for a couple of years in the ’90s in Japan, so they’re pretty difficult to find.
“When I started to talk about these ‘what if’ concepts, that’s when I was brought on for the Rolling Stone shoot in a more official capacity.”
“I did end up being able to get in contact with the designer who made those super colorful scarves that the band was wearing as skirts — Gene Meyer, who lives in Morocco now,” Mitchell says. “He sent some of the original scarves. He only produced them for a couple of years in the ’90s in Japan, so they’re pretty difficult to find.”
In this Q&A, assembled from multiple conversations over several months and edited for length and clarity, Mitchell explains her created profession, her fashion philosophy and how the past becomes real.
Mitchell, credited on the shoot as a vintage specialist, sourced the Meyer scarves for boygenius, as well as an assortment of pins, patches and buttons—later adhered to Gucci suits that the band wore on the February 2023 cover— that were nods to the singer-songwriters’ solo work and their lyrics on their then-forthcoming album, The Record, which came out in March last year.
The shoot went viral, racking up millions of views on social media. As boygenius went on their 2023 tour, which wrapped up on Halloween at the Hollywood Bowl, fans created patch jackets of their own.
DEFINE “VINTAGE,” PLEASE.
W Magazine. She went on to style her solo performances on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel Live! in 2021 and began styling other acts as well, such as Father John Misty’s performance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
Eight months or so before boygenius played that New York show (the band sold out Madison Square Garden), they made the cover of Rolling Stone, styled in black suits that call back to Nirvana’s 1994 cover of the same magazine. The interior shots channel the grunge band’s gender-bending 1993 shoot with the now-defunct Mademoiselle magazine.
ALEXANDRA MITCHELL: Colloquially, people say vintage is 20 years or older. It’s archival designs, it’s rare fashion that you can no longer just walk into a store and buy. Fashion comes out seasonally. The spring 2024 collections are in stores right now, but by next season those clothes will only exist in people’s private closets and collections and the secondary market, which is where I source everything. So, yeah, I’m a vintage specialist, which is kind of a catchall for sourcing, authenticating, pricing.
“The response was just so amazing,” Mitchell said. “It was everything I hoped it would be—to have people zooming in and creating these exhaustive lists of what the pin is and what the lyric reference is. It was just so amazing to see, and that’s just the kind of storytelling and depth I want to add to fashion imagery. To see so immediately how it reached people was very gratifying.”
“I just tried to keep saying yes to opportunities,” Mitchell said.
In 2022, boygenius—a supergroup made up of singersongwriters Dacus, Julien Baker and Phoebe Bridgers— began working on a full-length album, a follow-up to their acclaimed 2018 self-titled EP.
Those looks were Mitchell’s idea, too.
“When boygenius started working together, I shared an idea with Lucy of, ‘What if you guys were Nirvana?’” Mitchell says. “She was like, ‘Oh my God, we love that. That’s so funny.’ We didn’t talk about it for a long time. [About six months later], she reached out, saying that Rolling Stone was happening, and she said they wanted to use my idea.
THANK YOU. DESCRIBE YOUR PROFESSION.
Being in the studio for the shoot was an emotional experience for Mitchell, too, whose father died of brain cancer in 2020.
SO YOU TRADITIONAL AM: I a very certain with brands it’s just good er rental brands, one to what direction They do the worn Let’s do, Romeo that yet rection HOW AND AM: Out very into through er fashion just looking back issues ever and it wasn’t esting design
“When boygenius started working together again, I shared an idea with Lucy of, ‘What if you guys were Nirvana?’” said Mitchell, who shared some photos from Nirvana’s Mademoiselle shoot in 1993 and suggested she might try to source some of the original items. “She was like, ‘Oh my God, we love that, that’s so funny.’ We didn’t talk about it for a long time, and then she reached out saying that Rolling Stone was happening, and she said they wanted to use my idea.”
Mitchell recognized the opportunity for boygenius, a band of queer women, to advance their standing as a defining supergroup.
“I loved boygenius’ original [2018] EP, and the cover was a reference to Crosby, Stills & Nash. I already had that in my brain — placing these women among the ranks of the male greats of the music world. It just felt right. I liked the idea of this band of men, who were known for drab grunge, to be dressed in a very colorful and feminine way. To put those looks on boygenius [a band of queer women] felt like a very natural extension of the same idea, that the femininity contrasted just as naturally as it did with Nirvana, despite boygenius being a band of women, not men.”
As the idea took shape, Mitchell suggested using some of the pieces that Nirvana wore during the Mademoiselle shoot.
“I loved boygenius’ original EP, and the cover was a reference to Crosby, Stills & Nash,” Mitchell said. “I already had that in my brain—placing these women among the ranks of the male greats of the music world. It just felt right.
“I liked the idea of this band of men who were known for drab grunge to be dressed in a very colorful and feminine way,” she said of Nirvana. “To put those looks on boygenius felt like a very natural extension of the same idea, that the femininity contrasted just as naturally as it did with Nirvana despite boygenius being a band of women, not men.”
AM: It’s complicated, because a lot of the consulting jobs I’ve been doing, I’ve been doing something that doesn’t really exist. I’m kind of trying to make it a thing, which is consulting for stylists. There are so many amazing stylists who have such a great visual eye and understand what’s going to look good on camera, how to make it look good, and they have these amazing relationships with contemporary brands and are able to work with them to pull the clothes. But because vintage is so big now, I think there’s more of an interest in that literacy I’ve been talking about that isn’t as intuitive or prevalent within styling.
“We were on set in the studio, and I was full-on crying,” she said. “I was like, ‘I wish my dad could see this,’ because we were subscribed to Rolling Stone throughout my childhood, and he used to tell people that I took my first steps because he held up an issue of Rolling Stone with Courtney Love on the cover.”
Since the February 2023 issue of Rolling Stone dropped, Mitchell has collaborated with Caroline Polachek’s stylist to source vintage for her “Spiraling” tour, and she styled a 1980s McDonald’s pop-up experience that promoted season 2 of Disney and Marvel’s Loki
I think stylists, historically, are really focused on what’s current and what’s really cutting-edge. They’re really versed in current trends, but I’m someone who can say, “I see the direction you’re headed. I see what style you’re trying to do.
Here’s a way to make that more layered and interesting.”
And she continues to curate her own collection, alongside boyfriend Ian, through their project Arbitrage NYC, where they do consulting work and offer rentals from their robust personal collections of clothing from Balenciaga and Rick Owens.
Like, if someone wanted to do a contemporary shoot that was really minimal and striking, and they wanted to feature designs from contemporary designers, they could break that up and add interest by maybe bringing in some vintage Geoffrey Beene designs from the ’80s or something, but this isn’t necessarily something the stylist knows or has access to.
Mitchell continues to work with artists on how to bring vintage into their work “because vintage is so huge right now,” she said. She loves the access vintage provides—“I can’t afford to go to Prada, but I can spend hours on eBay and find something amazing.” And she appreciates how vintage lasts, much like the lasting nature of the looks she strives to create.
As the idea took shape, Mitchell suggested finding some of the pieces that Nirvana wore during their Mademoiselle shoot.
“I went down some rabbit holes and tried to find some of the original vintage knitwear that the band had been wearing,
“I want to create very layered images. It’s so easy to scroll past everything and just”—Mitchell snaps her fingers— “consume it in an instant. And I think it’s really special to create images that you can come back to and just look at for a long time.”
A version of this article appeared in the Summer 2024 issue of VCU Magazine. Visit magazine.vcu.edu for more.
Q&A
Faculty News
ART EDUCATION
Veronica Hicks, alongside Lillian Lewis, co-wrote the chapter “A Humble Critique of Grand Hegemony: Disrupting Historical Valuations of Public Space Through Pervasive Gaming” in the book Routledge Companion to Decolonizing Art, Craft and Visual Culture Education. Hicks also served as the moderator for the Scholastic Art Awards at the Visual Arts Center of Richmond, was a Virginia Art Education Association research representative and was the committee chair for the Alternative Publications Committee of the History and Historiography of Art Education Special Interest Group, National Art Education Association. • Lillian Lewis is a co-principal investigator, with Yiwen Wei, on the project “Uncommon Pedagogy: Nurturing Wonder and Building Community with Young Learners in Urban Environments,” funded by the National Art Education Foundation Mary McMullan Grants for AY2425 ($3,000). She also serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education and Visual Arts Research. She was a member of the Virginia Art Education Association’s (VAEA) Diversity Equity Inclusion & Accessibility Committee from 2022 to 2023. • Sara Wilson McKay completed the Harvard Macy Institute: Art Museumbased Health Professions Education Fellowship. Additionally, she served as co-principal investigator for the Health Humanities Minor grant proposal, supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities. She also holds positions as past chair of the National Art Education Association Research Commission and as a member of the Council for Policy Studies in Art Education, and she has been invited as visiting faculty for
the Yale National Initiative. • Ryan Patton wrote the chapter “Socially Engaged Art Practices, Tactical Media, and Games” in the book Teaching Civic Participation with Digital Media in Art Education: Critical Approaches for Classrooms and Communities. Along with Lillian Lewis, Patton supervised the Creative Arts Daycamp, a fourweek VCU Art Education student-led program serving 360 students. He is also a member of the Studies in Art Education Journal editorial board. • Yiwen Wei, in collaboration with Ying-Chao Kao (assistant professor of sociology) and nicole killian, associate professor and graduate program director in graphic design), was awarded a $4,145 VCU First-Generation Student Success Research Grant for their project “Identifying Needs and Supporting First-Gen, LGBTQ+ Students at VCU.” They also led an interdisciplinary research project titled “In Their Shoes: Investigating a Reparative Approach for Exploring Queerness in Visual Art within the Educational Curriculum,” which received a 2024-25 NAEF
Research Grant of $10,500. Her recent roles have included serving as juror in the 54th World School Children’s Art Exhibition in 2023, member of the 2024 USSEA conference planning committee, and member/reviewer of the National Art Education Association’s (NAEA) Asian Art and Culture Interest Group (AACIG) Curriculum Resources editorial board, as well as board member (research representative) for VAEA (2020–23) and for the NAEA LGBTQ+ Interest Group.
ART HISTORY
Hala Auji and VCUarts Qatar art history professor Radha Dalal co-chaired the 10th Biennial Hamad bin Khalifa Symposium on Islamic Art, titled “Islamic Art History and the Global Turn: Methods, Theory, Practice,” held in Doha, Qatar, in November 2023. Auji also co-edited The Arab Nahda as Popular Entertainment: Mass Culture and Modernity in the Middle East, published 2023 by Bloomsbury Publishing. Her contributions included an introduction (co-written with Raphael Cormack and Alaaeldin Mahmoud), as well as a chapter titled “Incredible Prints: The Intersection of Knowledge and Entertainment in Journal Illustrations.” She currently serves on the editorial boards for Art in Translation (an online journal at the University of Edinburgh) and the International Journal of Islamic Architecture (published by Intellect). • Catherine Roach co-organized the conference “Paintings, Peepshows, and Porcupines: Exhibitions in London, 1775–1851,” which took place at the Huntington Library in San Marino, Calif., in September 2023. • Michelle Yee co-edited a special forum for Art Journal titled “The Color of Joy: Critical Race Visual Culture.” The forum featured contributions from crystal am nelson (co-editor), Ken Gonzalez-Day, Joshua Takano Chambers-Letson and Joseph M. Pierce.
CINEMA
Yossera Bouchtia was a Film Selection Committee member for the RVA Environmental Film Festival in Richmond in 2023. • Jamal Elfazazi wrote “The Beauty of the Color and the Sound in the Film of Yossera
Lillian Lewis and Veronica Hicks
Bouchtia, Moroccan American Director,” published on Anwarpress in 2022 (International). • Prashanth Kamalakanthan’s feature film New Strains, which he wrote, directed and edited, was exhibited at various international film festivals from 2023-2024 and shown at the ICA at VCU in February 2024. His short film Happy Thanksgiving, for which he was the director of photography, was also exhibited at various international film festivals. He received the Special Jury Award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in the Tiger Competition in January 2023 for New Strains and an Honorable Mention for Best Narrative Feature at the Tasveer
Film Festival in October 2023 for the same film. • Robert Tregenza had a major retrospective of his feature films at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in March 2023. His films Arc, Talking to Strangers, Inside/Out and Gavagai officially became part of the film collection of the museum that year. Additionally, Arc was screened at the Norwegian National Film Institute. • J.M. Tyree was named editor in chief of Film Quarterly and will be the incoming editor at the University of California Press. He is also a contributing editor for both Film Quarterly and New England Review. He served as an official nominator for the 2024 Kyoto Prize in the
theater/cinema category and authored the article “Specters of Brexit in Recent British Horror,” published in Film Quarterly in 2023.
COMMUNICATION ARTS
Stephen Alcorn continues his interdisciplinary collaboration with the Department of Music and provides ongoing service to Prometeo Magazine as an official staff member and cover artist. He is also expanding his work in allegorical portraiture and has contracted publication of a series of illustrated essays related to observational drawing. His work was featured in the digital exhibition Picturing the Dream at the Eric Carle Museum in Amherst, Mass. His solo exhibition, showcasing 72 relief block prints celebrating Frederick Douglass, was mounted at the New York Folk Life Center, Crandall Library in Glens Falls, N.Y. His work is now part of the permanent collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. He also returned to Istanbul for the third and final installment of his ongoing Taccuino Turco series of travel journal activities. • Jason Bennett became a partner at ArcheVR, where he advises and directs virtual reality projects for at-risk youth. He is also working on a digital virtual museum of Himalayan artifacts. This project, funded by Epic Games, involved traveling to India and partnering with Srinagar University and VCU’s Bernard Means, associate professor in anthropology. • Miguel CarterFisher was featured in the Wiregrass Biennial, an exhibition of contemporary artists from the American South. His painting Kaya and the Sande Mask, reflecting on African ancestry, was selected for the 2023 SECAC Juried Exhibition at Try-Me in Richmond. He was awarded the 50th Anniversary Fellowship for Artists of Color at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. He also co-authored with Lei Chen (from the Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology) an article in Canadian Art Teacher that details their 2021 project, “Fusion - Image,” which facilitated intercultural engagement between Chinese and American students through portrait drawing and painting. • Sterling Hundley finished the second draft of his guidebook Think Louder and is working on two
Prashanth Kamalakanthan
Faculty News
online mentorship courses, Ideacraft and Voice, which have been delivered to an international audience. Other projects include creating independent film posters for Union Park Pictures and Black Dragon Press, and illustrations for Criterion Collection’s re-release of Josef Losey’s classic film Servant. He is mentoring and contributing regularly to Visual Arts Passage and documented a NASA Industry and Academia Day event with three students, compiling the drawings and information into a final proposal. • Anna Karakalou collaborated with Luis Marcello (Skimbooks Comics, Brazil) on two graphic novels: Olympia, Olympically (working title), for which she provided edits and artwork, and But Sven, Again, for which she provided artwork. • Ying-Fang Shen published her children’s book Ten Eggs in Taiwan in July 2023. She then resumed work on the short animated film Lunchtime, supported by the Dean’s Faculty Exploratory Grant. • Matt Wallin collaborated with American artist Keith Edmier on a sculptural project that utilized artificial intelligence as well as 3D scanning, modeling and printing. The completed work was exhibited as part of the “Soliloquies” show at Petzel in New York City in March/April this year. He also accepted a position as board member for the Visual Effects Society in its New York chapter.
CRAFT/MATERIAL STUDIES
Elissa Armstrong’s book, co-authored with Mariah Doren, titled Let’s Talk about Critique: Reimagining the Art and Design Tradition, was published in August 2023. She also participated in the Faculty Success Program Alumni Writing Research Development Program at the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity. She was actively involved with the National Council of Arts Administrators (NCAA) and was elected to the board during a joint NCAA/International Conference of Fine Arts Deans conference in San Diego, with her three-year term beginning in fall 2022. From September
2022 to September 2023, she served as a mentor in the Emerging Arts Administrator’s Fellowship Program.
• Blair Clemo was appointed to the board of directors of Pocosin Arts School of Crafts in Columbia, N.C., and participated in their inaugural artist residency in December 2023.
• Susie Ganch’s curatorial project, “Radical Jewelry Makeover,” was featured in an artist project exhibition during New York City Jewelry Week in November 2023. • Bohyun Yoon participated in the group exhibition Self Adjacent at the Visual Arts Center in Richmond from November 2023 to January 2024. The exhibition curated by Sarah Irvin (VCUarts adjunct faculty and Anderson Assistant) and Tracy Stonestreet (Media, Art and Text Ph.D. Alumna) examines
the experience of parenthood by artists as they navigate their many identities alongside and within the field of caregiving. The exhibition traveled to Massey Klein Gallery in New York this summer and will travel to additional venues including the Kennedy Museum at Ohio University and Ridderhof Martin Gallery at the University of Mary Washington.
DANCE
MK Abadoo worked on their immersive project “Hoptown” as part of Sistering Circles in Washington, Maryland and Virginia. They received Fundación Botín art grants totaling $27,000 and a $25,000 grant from the D.C. Local Dance Commissioning Project for “LOCS: BEADS.” Abadoo was chair of the Institute for Inclusion, Inquiry and Innovation’s Racial Equity, Arts and Culture Core, a Radical Monarchs troop leader, an Alternate Roots voting member and a mentor for the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts’ Local Dance Commissioning Project, specifically for “Chronicles of Nina…What Now?” • Trebien Pollard contributed to What We Ask of Flesh at Middlebury College in Vermont in November 2023, where he was responsible for costume design. He also worked on choreography for Vegan Chitlins and the Artist Formally Known as the N-word at The Flea’s Siggy Theater in New York City in December 2023. • Autumn ProctorWaddell presented several works at the New York City Dance Alliance in Durham, N.C., including “Holyfields,”
Ying-Fang Shen
Bohyun Yoon
“Genesis,” “In Summer” and “Hold On to Me.” • Eric Rivera contributed to multiple dance projects. He performed in Especie en Viaje and En el Vacio with Ballet Contemporaneo de Camagüey in Cuba. He also showcased “TangoNeo” and “En el Vacio” at the Edanco International Dance Festival in the Dominican Republic and served as a board member for Conflux Dance Theater. • Gaynell Sherrod collaborated on a film project with photographer Dawoud Bey as part of Elegy, his 2023 exhibition at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (learn more about the project on Page 16). Sherrod also received the VCUarts Faculty Award for Distinguished Achievement in Service and served on the board of directors for the International Association of Blacks in Dance in Washington and for Ananya Dance Theater in Minneapolis. She was also area chair and book reviewer for the Popular Culture Association, a National Association of Schools of Dance (NASD) external reviewer at the University of North Carolina and worked with U.S. Initiatives of Change in Richmond. • Judy Steel attended the conference of the International Assocation for Dance Medicine and Science virtually, hosted by Ohio State University in October 2023. She was also an abstract reviewer and a member of the Education Committee for the International Association for Dance Medicine and Science conference planning committee. Steel was awarded a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program award for the 2024–25 academic year from the U.S. Department of State and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.
FASHION
Deidra W. Arrington served as an associate editor for the Fashion Style and Popular Culture Journal, published by Intellect. • Jeannine Diego organized and moderated the presentation “Fashion Studies in Latin America” and a presentation for Latin America of the peer-reviewed journal Critical Studies in Fashion and Beauty at the 34th International Colloquium of the Institute of Critical Studies, held in Mexico City in January. She also served as a member of the editorial board for Critical Studies in Fashion and Beauty.
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Herdimas Anggara participated in the New Inc x Rhizome Residency during summer 2023 and was also involved with the Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center in New York City during the same period. • Laura Chessin was awarded the Smithsonian Artist Researcher Fellowship in partnership with Joan Boudreau, curator of the Printing and Graphic Arts Collections at the Smithsonian Institution. • Steve Hoskins was a member of the organizing committee for the Motion Design Education Summit (MODE 2023) held at Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia. • nicole killian became a member of New Inc’s Cooperative Studies program for 2023–24. • Jamie Mahoney conceptualized and coordinated a mural for the Pollak Building courtyard in collaboration with artist Assil Diab, produced in fall 2022 in partnership with the VCUarts Mural Committee and VCU Facilities Management. • Wes Taylor was recognized with the Pioneering Ideas Award from the Robert Johnson Wood Foundation for the “Design Justice Care Pods” project, receiving $564,000. He also secured $250,000 from the National Philanthropic Trust for “The One Project.” He was also a 2D Research
Fellow at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., and worked with the OPI Lab at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm, Sweden. He served on the steering committee for the Design Justice Network, was a board member for the Processing Foundation and was part of the residency special task force at 1708 Gallery in Richmond. • Lauren Thorson was awarded a Faculty Fellowship at the Center for Book Arts in New York for 2023–24. She was also selected for the Awagami Summer Papermaking Residency at Awagami Factory in Tokushima, Japan, in August 2023, and for the “I Never Read” Art Book Fair Basel in Switzerland in June 2023. Thorson also served on the IEEE VIS Arts Program committee for its annual conference. She also coordinated the exhibition We Have a Few Thoughts at the Branch Museum of Architecture and Design in Richmond in January/ February this year; the collection of posters from the Posters Only group was tied to the concurrent exhibition Women’s Rights are Human Rights.
INTERIOR DESIGN
Laura Battaglia presented “Revealing History Through Design: An Exploration of Pedagogy in Projects
Herdimas Anggara
Faculty News
Rooted in Reconciliation and Remembrance” at the Barcelona Conference on Education 2023 in Spain. In 2023, she also presented “Trauma-Informed Design” at the CSH 2023 Supportive Housing Institute informational webinar and co-presented “An Interior Designer’s Guide to Affordable Housing: Part 2” at the Virginia Governor’s Housing Conference in Hampton. She was an invited co-exhibitor at the Sho-Ping Chin Exhibit: Women’s Leadership Summit 2023, where her work was featured as part of a traveling exhibition. She was also the principal investigator for a National Endowment for the Arts grant of $114,000 for the project “Dance + Architecture: Documenting the Legacy of Charles H. Williams” at Hampton University. She served as co-PI for the Sewanee Praises: Roberson Project on Slavery, Race, and Reconciliation at the University of the South, with approximately $35,000 already funded. • Tim Hamnett presented “How Design Students Engage Spatial and Cultural Understanding through Mapping” at the National Cartographic Information Society annual meeting in Pittsburgh in October 2023. He also served on the city of Richmond’s Urban Design Committee. • Emily Smith received an $8,000 grant from the American Society for Engineering Education for “Engineering for One Planet — Transforming Curricula: One Planet Mini-Grant Program,” written in collaboration with Jeff Shockley from VCU Business. She also secured a $90,000 Richmond Neighborhood Climate Resilience Grant from the city, which supports efforts by the Storefront for Community Design and the middle Of broad studiO. She also led the TRANSIT project, a design charrette involving VCU mOb students and Richmond high schoolers, in collaboration with the Richmond Metro Transportation Authority and Storefront for Community Design. • Roberto Ventura was a member of the Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Belonging Committee for the Interior Design Educators Council. He also
served as a committee member for the AIA Virginia Design Forum XVI. His poster abstract, “Deepening the Pool: Blogs & Their Potential to Diversify Interior Design Precedents,” was accepted at the 2024 IDEC annual conference.
KINETIC IMAGING
Shawn Brixey serves as a board member of the James Leedy Foundation, which supports and preserves works by Midwest artists. He has also been invited by Boston University to join the Provost’s School of the Arts Academic Program Review Committee. • Hope Ginsburg participated in the Communicating Across Differences workshop led by the Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities in September 2023. •
SHAWNÉ MICHAELAIN HOLLOWAY attended the URSSI Winter Institute at Oregon State University in Portland and received the Pacific Northwest College of Art Winter Visiting Artist Residency in Bend, Ore. She also engaged in a process-as-practice residency at The Luminary in St. Louis, was involved with the VCU Inclusion Grant for The P.A.T.C.H. Clinic and served as a jury member for the Processing Foundation Fellowship 2023. She also served on the Clinic for Open Source Arts steering committee. • Dean Moss participated in an independent research residency in Hieidaira, near Kyoto, Japan, in summer 2023. He also contributed to the Alvin Ailey Choreographic Mentorship Lab and served on the
board of directors of the Foundation for Contemporary Art. • Semi Ryu’s research was featured on “Exploring Tertiary Orality in Virtual Reality” presented at the HCI International Conference in Rotterdam, Denmark, in July 2023. She coordinated a global collaboration with K ARTS and visited Kangwon National University in Chuncheon, Korea, in November 2023. She received a Commonwealth Cybersecurity Initiative grant for “SentimentVoice: Integrating Emotion AI and VR in Performing Arts,” in collaboration with Alberto Cano (VCU Computer Science). She hosted the Community Animation Night at the ICA at VCU as part of an Undergraduate Research Grant. • Kate Sicchio organized and moderated the Live Code RVA event and was a guest artist at Carnegie Mellon for the Art && Code event with guest artist Codie. She co-organized the Hybrid Interfaces for Live Coding workshop in December 2023 and is a member of the editorial board for the International Journal for Performance Arts with Digital Media. She served on the steering committees for the International Conference on Live Coding and the International Conference on Live Interfaces, and she participated in the Provost’s GEN AI & Teaching & Learning Committee. • Stephanie Thulin served as a Faculty Fellow in the Office of the Provost, focusing on the University Undergraduate Curriculum Committee. She was also a trained site evaluator for the National
Dean Moss
Association of Schools of Art and Design and a member of the Society of Photographic Education. • Pamela Turner worked on the Future Cities Carver Station project, aiming to create an art community. She also served on the editorial and advisory board for the book Animation: Practice, Process and Production, published by Intellect Books. • Stephen Vitiello received an ArtLab residency at the Mountain Lake Biological Station in Pembroke. He contributed to the audio compilation “Tribute to Ryuichi Sakamoto: Micro Ambient Music,” which won the Music Critics Award 2023 in Berlin. He was also on the editorial board for the Journal of Sonic Studies and served on the artist advisory board for The Kitchen in New York City.
MUSIC
Duane Coston received an $11,000 grant for his work on the Greater Richmond Youth Wind Ensemble project, funded by the Blank Foundation.
• Sandy Goldie participated in the Future Music Educators Symposium with the Richmond Symphony and
served as editor in chief of the AST Journal, distributed by the American String Teacher Association. • Daniel Myssyk served as assistant conductor of the Richmond Symphony and was the conductor at Camp Musical des Laurentides in St. Adolphe d’Howard, Quebec, Canada, in summer 2023.
• Rex Richardson recorded a new trumpet concerto by British composer Peter Graham, titled “Master of Suspense.” He also performed in a brass quintet at the Sardinia Brass Festival with prominent brass artists from Europe. • James Wiznerowicz received a $20,000 grant from the REB Foundation for his work in the Mary Anne Rennolds Chamber Music Series at VCUarts.
PAINTING + PRINTMAKING
Cara Benedetto presented “Horror, Erotica and Death at the UDC” at the ICA at VCU, where she read excerpts from her novel, Mask of the Red Death. She then was joined by VCU professors and artists J. Molina Garcia, Sandy Monsieur Zohore and
Pia Bakala for a discussion on their theoretical positions regarding representations of the erotic and horror.
• Jacob Broussard was selected for the Painters Painting Paintings Artist Residency in the Netherlands.
• Noah Simblist received a $10,000 grant from the Graham Foundation to research a future exhibition and publication project focused on a site designed by Oscar Niemeyer in Tripoli, Lebanon. He secured a $70,000 grant from the Teiger Foundation for curatorial research related to an exhibition at the ICA at VCU and cochaired a development campaign for the Black Ground Cultural Lab in Cali, Colombia. He advised Creative Time on responses to the war in the Middle East, and he conducted external evaluations for Maayan Amir at Ben Gurion University, Israel, in summer 2023, and for professor Sheida Soleimani at Brandeis University in fall 2023. He was also a member of the external program review committee at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill in February 2024. • Sandy Monsieur Zohore received the Adhesivo Residency in Mexico City and the Farha Fakri Residency in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, in early 2024.
PHOTOGRAPHY + FILM
John Freyer participated in the public humanities workshop Care for the Public at Columbia University in New York City in February 2023. His Free Hot Coffee Bike project through
Stephen Vitiello
Sandy Monsieur Zohore
Faculty News
Recovery Connections has been expanded to additional partners, including the University of Virginia and Penn State. His Free Narcan Bike was designated a Harm Reduction Partner by the Virginia Department of Health. He served as a steering committee member for the RVA Chapter of Ben’s Friends, organized the Rams in Recovery / Ben’s Friends scholarship fundraiser at the ICA at VCU, and contributed to the Studio 23 charity auction, raising over $10,000 through the sale and resale of his assisted readymade piece, “The Vest.” • J. MolinaGarcia participated in the group exhibition Legible / Illegible at PS122 Gallery in New York City,. and presented What It’s Like to Be a Uterus: Reflections on ‘Terramancy’ at the SPE South Central Chapter conference in Columbus, Ga., in October 2023. She also was involved in the Youth Voices PhotoVoice project with high school students, collaborating with Fantasy Lozada (VCU Pscyhology) and contributed to Visualizing Joy, Activism, and Healing among LGBTQ Latine Folks: A PhotoVoice Study of Resistance and Resilience in Central Texas, working with Jacob Goffnett (VCU Social Work). • Nadiya I. Nacorda exhibited And Let It Remain So: Women of the African Diaspora at the Phoenix Art Museum in Arizona. • Mary Beth Reed served as an external reviewer for Tenure & Promotion at the University of Central Florida in summer 2023. • Jon-Phillip Sheridan was a juror for The Trawick Prize, Bethesda Urban Partnership, in fall 2023. • Sasha Waters exhibited Ashes of Roses: Eight Films by Sasha Waters at Microscope Gallery in New York City and screened Garry Winogrand: All Things are Photographable at Bucharest Photofest in Romania and Ciclo Narrativa in Lisbon, Portugal. Waters was contracted by Thirteen/WNET to develop a feature documentary, tentatively titled Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World, for the PBS series American Masters. She submitted a grant proposal to the National Endowment for the Humanities in August 2023 and
Sasha Waters
filmed an interview with filmmaker John Waters in November 2023. She also collaborated with Köln-based artist and writer Jeffrey Ladd, publisher D.A.P. and the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona on the photography book Garry Winogrand Archive 1948-1984.
The project received a $10,000 AHSS grant from the VCU Provost’s Office in May 2023 and a $5,000 grant from the LMF Foundation in December 2023. Two of her short films, Fragile and Ashes of Roses, were screened at national and international film festivals and exhibitions, including
J. Molina-Garcia
Traverse Vidéo XXVI Int’l Encounters in Toulouse, France, and Microscope Gallery in New York City. She also received a Friedlander Foundation grant for the Winogrand book.
SCULPTURE + EXTENDED MEDIA
Lily Cox-Richard was awarded the Nancy Graves Award for Artists, which supports artists exploring techniques, mediums or disciplines different from their primary practice. She was invited to complete a second Arts and Industry Residency at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, Wis., during summer 2023, where she was commissioned to create and fabricate a permanent fountain for the center’s grounds. • Corin Hewitt, in collaboration with co-principal investigators Jesse Goldstein and Aspen Brinton, received a Virginia Humanities Grant of $14,925 for their project “Loose Parts: Exploring the Public Humanities of Child-Directed Adventure Play.” He completed several public art projects: The Fountain at Patrick Henry School of Science and Arts, The Tree at John B. Cary Elementary and The Shed at Blue Sky Fund in Bryan Park, all in Richmond. He also worked as a consultant for Creative Capital. • Michael Jones McKean was named the first Artist in Residence at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Cerro Pachon and Tololo, Chile. This fiveyear residency is the first of its kind at the largest observatory on earth, fostering a unique relationship between McKean and the observatory’s scientists. He is also serving as an editor for ArtPapers • Massa Lemu received an Emergency Grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts ($1,000) to present the exhibition Subaltern Speakers at Gallery of the University of Stellenbosch in Stellenbosch, South Africa. He also received the Awesome on the Water Grant from the Awesome Foundation ($1,000) and the SudKultur Fonds ($1,000), all in summer 2023. • Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste joined the faculty in fall 2023. He presented his work and a lecture at Stanford University’s Metaspore Symposium. He was the sound designer and performer for Will Rawls’ piece “Siccer,” which was presented at On the Boards in Seattle and the Portland Institute
of Contemporary Art. He isan Artists Council member at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, a board of directors member at the Rivers Institute for Contemporary Thought and an advisory board member at Montez Press Radio.
THEATRE
Aaron Anderson provided fight direction for the Contemporary American Theatre Festival, including the world premieres of The Overview Effect (by Lynn Rosen and directed by Courtney Sale) and Your Name Means Dream (written and directed by José Rivera). He conducted a stage combat teacher certification workshop in London in summer 2023. He also led the design and construction of a theater for hospitalized children at the Children’s Hospital of Richmond, collaborating with Child Life Services and producing a promotional video for VCU Health System Volunteer Services. • Elizabeth Byland was nominated for Best Supporting Performance (Play) and Breakout Performance by the Richmond Theatre Community Circle for their role in POTUS at Virginia Repertory Theatre. • Desiree Dabney Shuler served as an adjunct awards adjudicator from October 2023 to April 2024 in Atlanta. She was
also nominated for Best Supporting Performance (Musical) by the Richmond Theatre Community Circle for their role in BKLYN: The Musical at Swift Creek Mill Theatre. • Tawnya Pettiford-Wates performed at the National Education Association’s annual conference in Seattle, where 900 attendees watched her performance of “uncle tom: deconstructed.” She also led a half-day workshop exploring themes from the play. She was also named an Ida Beam Distinguished Scholar by the University of Iowa in Iowa City. She was also nominated for Best Direction (Play) by the Richmond Theatre Community Circle for their direction of Berta, Berta at Firehouse Theatre. • Chris Raintree was nominated for Outstanding Achievement in Set Design (Musical) by the Richmond Theatre Community Circle for their designs in 9 to 5: The Musical at Virginia Repertory Theatre; they were also nominated for Outstanding Achievement in Set Design (Play) for their design of Berta, Berta at Firehouse Theatre. • Preston Spence was named secretary for the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local 87. • David Toney’s new work, Elysian Fields, was performed at the Olney Theatre Center in Maryland.
Lily Cox-Richard
Student News
ART FOUNDATION
Levi Mason received a Visual Arts Fellowship from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
CINEMA
ART EDUCATION
Jenna Gabriel reviewed “Centering Diverse Bodyminds in Critical Qualitative Inquiry,” edited by Jessica Nina Lester and Emily A. Nusbaum, in the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education. She also contributed “Becoming Against the Construct of Normative Motherhood” to the journal. • Amy Keenan-Amago received $75,000 from the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation for The Arc Studio, a visual arts program and studio space located at The Arc of the Piedmont in Charlottesville, Va. The Arc Studio program provides a supportive, open studio environment
where adult artists with developmental disabilities can create, experiment, explore, and connect through authentic art making experiences. • Oscar Keyes and Cas Skinner authored the chapter “TakeBreakMake: A Pedagogical Reflection on Learning How to Teach Glitch,” which appears in Teaching Civic Participation with Digital Media in Art Education: Critical Approaches for Classrooms and Communities. Keyes also co-authored “Hands are Hard: Unlearning How We Talk About Machine Learning in the Arts” for the journal Tradition Innovations in Arts, Design and Media Higher Education
Aurelio Babbit shadowed the writer’s room for The Boroughs, a Netflix series executive-produced by the Duffer Brothers. • Ben Clark completed an internship as a video editor with CoStar Group. • Sofie Edwards and fellow collaborators won a VCUarts Undergraduate Research Grant for the short film Floating, which is about a ghost who falls in love with a balloon. • Emily Huse and collaborators won a VCUarts Undergraduate Research Grant for Honk, an animated stop-motion short film that follows a very serious man born in the body of a clown who must work to overcome others’ preconceived notions about him and show the world who he really is.
COMMUNICATION ARTS
Olivia Davis completed 40 hours of work with Grimalkin Records over a semester. • Elise Markle completed 120 hours of work with Oakwood Arts over a semester. • Kyra Morris completed 40 hours of work with 1708 Gallery over a semester. • Hannah O’Neill completed 120 hours of work with the Highland Support Project over a semester. • Amparo Ramos completed 120 hours of work with Union & Partners over a semester. • Diana Rose Penaloza completed 120 hours of work with the Highland Support Project over a semester. • Trinity Rucker was appointed innovator-in-residence by the VCU Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation for summer 2023 • Julianna Sigler completed 120 hours of work with Her Campus Media over a semester.
CRAFT/MATERIAL STUDIES
Justin Cockrell interned with and assisted Nastassja Swift in summer 2023. • Deb Dowden-Crockett exhibited three pieces in the Virginia Glass Guild annual juried exhibition in summer 2023 and six pieces in the Small Works juried exhibition in winter 2023-24 at the Charles H. Taylor Visual Arts Center in Hampton. She also participated in the Tiny Shiny exhibition and sale at Dransfield
Tendai Mupita
Jewelers in Richmond, where 30% of the proceeds ($1,400) were donated to Crafting the Future. • Graduate students Nyasha Chigama (Crafts, Ceramics) and Tendai Mupita (Sculpture) exhibited work in the fundraising-focused Sadza Series. Organized by Wes Taylor, the series included two exhibitions, dinners and artist talks, and it raised over $15,000 toward tuition and living expenses.
DANCE
Frances Baker worked with Maia Claire Garrison, who previously danced with Urban Bush, from June through August to help kickstart the Shapeshifter Lab in Park Slope Brooklyn. • Sophia Berger, Khiana Gilmer, Chynia Harris and Moriah Jackson were chosen to represent VCU Dance at the American College Dance Association. • Adi Denenberg attended the Orsolina 28 Gaga Lab in Italy during July. The Gaga classes were taught by Batsheva dancers and specialist Ohad Naharin. • Chynia Harris was awarded a VCUarts Undergraduate Research Grant as part of an interdisciplinary group creating the short film 3:01
FASHION DESIGN + MERCHANDISING
Colter Beach, Isa Clay, Brendan Kavanagh and Caralyne Speicher featured work at the Artisanship exhibition at the VCUarts Fashion Event at the VMFA in Richmond in May 2023. • Alex Britto featured his Tactile Knowledge collection in the Fashion Future Graduate Showcase in September 2023. • Mone’t Burrell, Sarah Dickens, Jessica Foreman, Miguel George, Scarlett Gutierrez, Ariana Monterrosa, Caralyne Speicher, Ray Wondracek and Dawei Zhou exhibited work at the Material Exploration exhibition at the VCUarts Fashion Event at the VMFA in Richmond in May 2023. • Laila Carey completed an internship with Fashion Snoops. • Emma Cario completed an internship with ObscurO Jewelry. • Ryan Carson completed an internship with Fashion Snoops. • Leah Cherington completed an internship with 4AM Skin. • Madden Cook completed an internship with Fashion Snoops. • Jessica Foreman featured her “Into the Matrix” collection in the Fashion Future Graduate Showcase in
September 2023. • Dyanna Gamarro Gamboa completed an internship with Fashion Snoops. • Taisha GavinCollins completed an internship with RippleMatch. • Odessa Hott completed an internship with Fashion Snoops. • Ariana Mannino completed an internship with Her Campus. • Maggie Mateja completed an internship with Fashion Snoops. • Ruby North-Sandel completed an internship with Fashion Snoops. • Moira Schofield completed an internship with Nexcom. • Anna Schroeder completed an internship with Fashion Snoops. • Jalyn Tillerson completed an internship with BitterSweet Mercantile. • Dat Truong, Jeri Neumann and Lucy Bolin completed a project at middle Of broad studio related to the Richmond City Hall Observation Deck exhibition space. • Meghna Vemuri completed an internship with Fashion Snoops. • Janae Worsley completed an internship with Fashion Snoops.
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Abbi Bennett worked with M Creative in Winston-Salem, N.C. • Jennifer Bui completed an internship with Chica Project in Quincy, Ma. • Ana Campos, Sydney Folsom, Felipe Fonseca and Garrit Lichtenberg participated in a research practicum with faculty member Lauren Thorsen to develop branding for ACCESS,
the 2023 VCUarts Fashion Event, in collaboration with the Department of Fashion Design + Merchandising. • Paige Cassidy completed an internship with SingleStone Consulting in Richmond. • Kai Chu Chuang’s “The Forge Taiwanese” was presented at the North American Taiwan Studies Association annual conference at the University of California Irvine in June 2023. • Eric Couture served as a studio monitor/instructor at Studio Two Three in Richmond. • Nuran Cicek completed an internship with Energage LLC in Exton, Pa. • Alyssa Dixon participated in the Penguin Random House Adobe Ambassador Program in New York City. • Callum Doty completed an internship with VCU’s Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation. • Nhan La completed a global internship with Dentsu Creative. • Esther Lee completed an internship with the VCU da Vinci Center for Innovation. • Joy Lee was a designer at Creative One Media in Austin, Texas. • Yejin Lee completed an internship with Pro Sports Outlook Inc. • Jess Mayrides worked as a designer at 1455 Literary Arts in Reston. • Lesly Melendez worked as a graphic designer at Leading Edge Screen Printing in Warrenton. • Lindsay O’Neill completed an internship with Jackson Spalding in Atlanta. • Emmeline Osayah interned with Alta Media
2024 Fashion Event, CONTEXT
Student News
Inc. in Dover, Del. • Ariana Osornio completed an internship with VCU’s College of Humanities and Sciences. • Inho Park interned as a UX/UI design intern with Bank of America in New York City and completed an internship with Great Minds in Richmond. • David Reyes worked as a graphic designer at Bon Secours in Petersburg. • Hannah Robinson was an illustrator and designer at Mary Washington University’s Department of German Language in Fredericksburg. • Solimar Santoyo interned with the VCU Student Media Center. • Jade Stella worked with The Anderson gallery’s communications and social media and was a studio intern at Studio Two Three in Richmond. • Priya Sugathan interned with Next Media Group in Greenwood Village, Colo. • Wendy Thi Nguyen worked on the Modern Nursery website and social media in Hartford, Conn. • Tenzin Tsering worked with VCU Athletics and Zen3 Info Solutions in Richmond. • Taehee Whang completed a summer internship with Forbes magazine in New York City and presented “Trans-ition Transcendence: 3D Interactive Web Space as a Mutable Narrative Platform” at the AIGA national conference’s “Lens” symposium in October 2023.
INTERIOR DESIGN
Chelcey Dunham’s abstract was accepted to the 2024 Interior Design Educators Council annual conference in New York City. • Andrew Grider received $1,000 from the Decorative Arts Trust for his work on the Hill House Museum in Portsmouth, Va.
KINETIC IMAGING
Undergraduate students Achilles Braziel, Kiara Brown, Patrick Griffin, Sarah Cornell, Eunice Kim, Zachary Kennedy, Uday Illa, Ryan Alvarado and Tony Dhillon received an Undergraduate Research Grant (with faculty member and project mentor Semi Ryu) to create an animated archive of Richmond’s oral history. The team hosted a community event, including a screening of short animations from the project. • Savvy Figueroa completed an internship at Grimalkin Records in Richmond in fall 2023. • Maia Hollien had a solo exhibition at The Anderson gallery in conjunction with KINE 474: Research & Production I. Her installation, “You Tough, Right,” included a 30-minute film and a communal coloring project in the Sponge Gallery, as part of her senior research project titled “N*gg*s Get Shot Every Day, B: A Rejection of the Survivalist Nature of Black Excellence.” • Kristopher Jean-Louis completed an internship at Verify Sounds in Richmond in fall 2023. • Sarah Tilghman completed an internship at Artspace gallery in Richmond during the summer. •
Rebecca Trigo completed an internship at The Broadberry / Camel in Richmond in fall 2023.
MUSIC
Maddy Bailey advanced with honors in the First Year Treble contest at the Virginia Chapter of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (VANATS) conference. • Maya Collins placed third with honors in the Third Year Treble competition at the VANATS conference. • Edwin Dogan placed second with honors in the Second Year Tenor/ Baritone/Bass section at the VANATS conference. • Layne Hopkins attended the International Women’s Brass Conference in Mito, Japan. Layne received partial funding for the trip through a VCUarts Dean’s International Research Grant. • Carson Longacre participated in the VCU Medical Orchestra in fall 2023. • Lauren Maho attended the Taos Opera Institute in Taos Ski Valley N.M., where she spent 5 weeks learning new scenes and arias. Maho also placed second with honors in the Third Year Treble contest at the VANATS conference, and advanced to the semi-finals of the National Student Auditions. • Libby Mullins placed second with honors in the Second Year Treble competition at the VANATS conference. • Rachel Perlish was awarded a VCUarts Undergraduate research grant to collaborate on an interdisciplinary short film, Floating. • John Rose attended the National Music
Taehee Whang
Kiara Brown
Festival in Chestertown, Md. as part of a trumpet apprenticeship with the festival Symphony Orchestra. • Adagio Simon placed third with honors in the 4th/5th year Tenor/Baritone/Bass contest. • The VCUarts Music Flute Ensemble was accepted into and performed at the 52nd National Flute Convention in San Antonio, Texas, under the guidance of Associate Professor of Flute Tabatha Easley. They performed Ocean Storm by VCUarts faculty member Felipe Leitão, and Anima Animus by VCUarts Music alum Myrick Crampton
PAINTING + PRINTMAKING
Cory Caulfield completed an internship at Studio Two Three in Richmond. • Rita English completed an internship at 1708 Gallery in Richmond. • Graduate student Rebecca Oh received a 2024–25 VMFA VIsual Arts Fellowship. • Zoe Moreland completed an internship at Great Graphics Framing in Richmond.
PHOTOGRAPHY + FILM
Ella Floyd exhibited in From These Hills: Contemporary Art in the Southern Appalachian Highlands at William King Museum of Art in Abingdon and at the Global Visionary Summit open walkthrough, held at the Virginia Museum of History & Culture as part of the Richmond International Film Festival. • David Guarnizo exhibited La Vida Buena at Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellin in Colombia, Viceversa at Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogota in Colombia and participated in a group exhibition at Salon Acme in Mexico City. • Sydney Harrison received a VMFA undergraduate fellowship. • Richard Howard exhibited in Unbound 12 at Candela Gallery in Richmond. • Walker Moore received a VMFA undergraduate fellowship. • LA Ricks received a VMFA undergraduate fellowship.
SCULPTURE + EXTENDED MEDIA
Tyna Ontko was awarded the Cy Twombly Graduate Fellowship by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. She was also featured in Seedlings, a group exhibition at Well Well Projects in Portland, Ore. • Hannah Rotwein and Häsler Gómez were in the group exhibition phone, wallet, KEYS at the Coco Hunday Gallery in Tampa, Fla.
THEATRE
The Firehouse Theatre’s Roman a Clef featured several VCUarts Theatre students, alumni and faculty, including Sharon Ott as director, Juliet Grochowski as assistant stage manager, Molly Marsh as assistant director, Chris Raintree as scenic designer and BJ Wilkinson as lighting designer. Cast members included Tippi Hart, Reese Bucher, Lukas D’Errico, Tatjana Shields, Andrew Bryce and Landon Nagle, with Aidan Campbell, Evan
Kagarise, Kylie Marquez-Downie and Thomas Kaupish as understudies. • Adri Ulm and Cole Edwards were awarded a VCUarts Undergraduate Research Grant as part of an interdisciplinary group creating 3:01, a short film. • Kay Williams, Apple DeGeorge and Elayna Fairno were awarded a VCUarts Undergraduate Research Grant to produce the stylized musical Firebringer under the guidance of VCUarts Theatre assistant professor Emily Mattison
Tyna Ontko
Rebecca Oh
Alumni News
ART EDUCATION
Kelly Bisogno (B.F.A. ’06) was named Virginia Art Educator of the Year for 2023. • Anjali Diezman (B.F.A. ’22) will attend George Washington University, pursuing a master’s degree in museum education. • Luke Meeken (M.A.E. ’13) began a position as assistant professor of art education at the University of Miami of Ohio. • Erika Ogier (M.A.E. ’15) was named Virginia Elementary Art Educator of the Year for 2023.
ART HISTORY
Mary Catherine Langston (M.A./ Historical Studies ’24) presented “Nadar’s ‘Études d’expression de Charles Deburau en Pierrot’” at SECAC (formerly the Southeastern College Art Conference) in Richmond in October 2023. • Elizabeth Chung (M.A./Museum Studies ’24) presented “Where are You (Really) From? Korean Artists in Diaspora and Exploring Notions of Home and Homeland” at the TRANS/art: Transborder and Multilayered Art Histories conference, organized by Arizona State University’s Council of Graduate Art Historians, in November 2023. • Brooke Heiche (M.A./ Museum Studies ’22) accepted a new position as major gifts officer at the Army Historical Foundation. • Samantha (Hendricks) Richardson (M.A./Historical Studies ’19) was hired as collections manager for works on paper at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
CINEMA
Autumn Dea (B.A. ’12) edited the feature film Bleeding Love • Lindsey Paulette (B.A. ’22) produced The Trip, their first feature film. Multiple current and former VCU students worked on the project. • May Suri (B.A. ’24) interviewed for competitive
M.F.A. programs at the American Film Institute and Columbia University.
CRAFT/MATERIAL STUDIES
Osgood Bender (B.F.A. ’21) will attend Parsons School of Design at The New School, pursuing a master’s degree in history of design and curatorial studies. • Anne Bujold (M.F.A. ’18) accepted a tenure-track assistant professor position at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. • Ambrose DeVine (B.F.A. ’22) earned a summer internship at the Metal Museum in Memphis, Tenn. • Mia Donalson (B.F.A. ’23) completed an internship with Caroline Woolard in summer 2023. She was also named a 2024 Penland Core Fellow. • Everett Hoffman (M.F.A. ’18) was a panelist at the Museum of Art and Design, discussing queer identities in the field of jewelry and metalsmithing, as part of New York City Jewelry Week. He co-curated several exhibitions, including the traveling exhibition Tender Presence. • Yifei Kong (M.F.A. ’24) participated in an East Carolina University symposium and presented at the Enamelist Society slideshow. • Shannon Kurzyniec (M.F.A. ’24) showcased work at the Truth or Dare exhibition at AdornAxis as part of New York City Jewelry week, and she was invited to present work at Brushes with Cancer at the Henry Ford Cancer hospital in Detroit. • Andy Lowrie (M.F.A. ’20) had a two-person exhibition at Iridian Gallery; a solo exhibition, Fulfillment, at Baltimore Jewelry Center; and participated in Tender Presence, a traveling exhibition curated by Everett Hoffman and Adam Atkinson. Locations included Alma’s Gallery in Richmond; Penland Gallery in Penland, N.C.; and Gallery 2052 in Chicago. Lowrie was also one of the finalists for the international Rejewelry Competition and Exhibition
that premiered during New York City Jewelry Week and had an opening at Alma’s Gallery in Richmond. • Eileen Morley (B.F.A. ’23) received a Windgate Fellowship to attend Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in summer 2023. She will attend the Royal College of Art in London. • Abi Ogle (M.F.A ’23) had a solo exhibition at the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts in Lubbock, Texas. • Chelsea Rowe (B.F.A. ’24) served as a juror for the So Fresh + So Clean online exhibition, presented by Ethical Metalsmiths, and participated in the Memento Mori exhibition at Night Shift Studio in Philadelphia. She also took part in the REFINED Competition and Exhibition 2023, juried by Frankie Flood, in Nacogdoches, Texas, and presented at Artificial Intelligems. She also was invited to speak at the Chicago Responsible Jewelry Conference and contributed to We are SNAG: Anthology Ed. 2 • Caitie Sellers (B.F.A. ’07) purchased and is now co-owner of Dransfield Jewelers in Richmond. • Nastassja Swift (B.F.A ’15) received the Craft Research Fund Artist Fellowship from the Center for Craft. • Frankie Toan (B.F.A. ’12) had a solo exhibition at the Craft Alliance in St. Louis. • Kristen Wheatley (B.F.A. ’23) accepted a position at A-Z West near Joshua Tree National Park. • Taylor Zarkades King (M.F.A ’19), Corey Pemberton (B.F.A. ’12) and Mattie Hinkley (B.F.A. ’20) participated in the traveling exhibition Tender Presence • Numerous
Andy Lowrie
graduates had solo exhibitions, including Megan Biddle (M.F.A ’05), Victoria Ahmadizadeh Mendez (M.F.A. ’16), Fumi Amano (M.F.A. ’17), Fumiaki Odajima (M.F.A. ’06), Paige Morris (M.F.A. ’24), Kazue Taguchi (M.F.A. ’07) and Hiromi Takizawa (M.F.A. ’10).
DANCE
Ligia Lewis’ (B.F.A ’05) film, A Plot, A Scandal, was included in the 2024 Whitney Biennial. • Solana Rios (B.F.A. ’24) and Khiana Gilmer (B.F.A. ’24) attended the Early Mosley Institute of the Arts International Summer Intensive in New York. • Holly Trenbath (B.F.A. ’24) served as the inaugural Operations Intern at the Bates Dance Festival at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine.
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Sam Adkins (B.F.A. ’17) was hired as a graphic designer at the Virginia Department of Health in Richmond. • Archerd Aparejo (B.F.A. ’21) was hired as a graphic designer at Helmut Lang NYC. • Shannon Baker (B.F.A. ’22) was hired as an exhibitions graphic designer at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond. • Aliza
Bucci (B.F.A. ’22) was accepted to M.F.A. programs at Pratt Institute and Kent State University. • Emma Coté (B.F.A. ’18) was hired as a graphic designer at the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia. • Victoria Crouch (B.F.A. ’21) was hired as a senior designer at Starch Creative in New Orleans. • Julia Dann (M.F.A. ’21) curated a show at the Anderson, including works by alumni Mariah Jones (M.F.A. ’21) and HH Hiaasen (M.F.A. ’22), and faculty nicole killian and Lauren Thorson • Nan He (B.F.A. ’22) was hired as a UX designer at the Florida Disability Access and Awareness Foundation. • HH Hiassen (M.F.A. ’22) showed work at the Leslie-Lohman Museum in New York City and with ONE Archives at the USC Libraries in Los Angeles. • Grace Hoffman (B.F.A. ’19) was hired as a designer at Coterie in Richmond. • Mariah Jones (M.F.A. ’21) gave a lecture at Brand Bureau in New York City entitled “Reality TV and Design Research.” She served as a visiting faculty member at Virginia Tech in the 2022–23 and 2023–24 academic years. • Jiani Liu (B.F.A. ’22) is attending the Human-Centered Interaction Design program at
Harrisburg University in Pennsylvania. • Lucie Mullen (B.F.A. ’18) was hired as a multimedia designer at Coolr in London and Los Angeles. • Katrina Navasca (B.F.A. ’18) was hired as a designer at The Martin Agency in Richmond. • Jayce Nguyen (B.F.A. ’22) was hired as a graphic designer at Bergdorf Goodman in New York City. • Quynh Nguyen (B.F.A. ’22) was hired as a fellow at the Clinton Global Initiative. • Nicole Orsolini (B.F.A. ’21) was hired as a graphic designer at Berkshire Hathaway in Boston. • Tara Pairoj-Boriboon (M.F.A. ’18) was hired as a visual designer at Amazon in Arlington County. • Luis Quintanilla (B.F.A ’22) received an M.F.A. from the Cranbrook Academy of Art. • DeAudrea (Sha) Rich Aguado (B.F.A. ’17) was hired as a visual identity manager and graphic designer at Genworth in Richmond. • Ren Schwarz (B.F.A. ’17) was hired as a graphic designer at Instrument in Brooklyn, N.Y. • Drew Sisk (M.F.A. ’18) was hired as a full-time tenure-track professor at Clemson University. • Yi Song (B.F.A. ’19) earned an M.F.A. from the Yale School of Art. • Megan Urban (M.F.A. ’05) received a Ph.D. in transition design at Carnegie Mellon University. • Huiyu Wang (M.F.A. ’22) was hired as an intern graphic designer at Wolff/ Olins agency in New York City. • Ivan Witteborg (B.F.A. ’18) was hired as a UX motion designer at Google. • Lauren White (B.F.A. ’18) was hired as a digital consultant and strategist at Repairers of the Breach in Goldsboro, N.C. • Sami Wittwer (B.F.A. ’15) was hired as a senior brand designer at Win Brands Group in New York City.
INTERIOR DESIGN
The Interior Design department was well represented this year at the Richmond Symphony League Designer House. Alumni Mindy Carter Bain’s (M.F.A. ’08) work on the first-floor den and Lindsey Frank’s (B.F.A ’08) Duet Design Studio work on a second-floor bedroom were featured at the Taylor Estate, an Italian Renaissance Revival home on Richmond’s Monument Avenue. • Quinton Mason (B.F.A. ’19) received first prize in Gensler’s 2022 Rising Black Designers Scholarship + Design Challenge. He works with 3North in Richmond.
Mindy Carter Bain
Alumni News
KINETIC IMAGING
Marie Anderson (B.F.A. ’23) designed and directed a multiweek sound workshop for teens at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts’ Museum Leaders in Training Program in conjunction with the recent Willie Anne Wright exhibition, Artist and Alchemist. She was also the audio guide editor for the students who created the museum exhibition. • Anna George (B.F.A. ’22), advised by Professor Semi Ryu, worked as a research assistant for the VR Guru project, creating 3D skin and muscle tissues that aims to enhance surgical outcomes. • Esther Kim (B.F.A. ’22) is pursuing graduate work at the University of Connecticut. • Eric Millikin (M.F.A. ’21) was hired as assistant professor of animation and interactive media at University of Maryland Baltimore County. • Baotran Vo (B.F.A. ’22) is pursuing graduate work at the University of Texas Dallas. • Ruiqi Zhang (M.F.A. ’19) was hired as assistant professor at the University of Missouri in its digital storytelling program.
MUSIC
Lida Bourhill (B.M. ’20) received Virginia Band and Orchestra Directors Association (VBODA) superior ratings for all ensembles at Elizabeth Davis Middle School in Chesterfield County, Va. • Brianna Gatch (B.M. ’15) received VBODA blue-ribbon school and straight superior ratings for all ensembles at Clover Hill High School in Chesterfield County, Va. • Vincent Guzman (B.M. ’21) was recognized as New Teacher of the Year at Hanover High School in Hanover County, Va. • Gordy Haab (B.M. ’00) won a Grammy for Best Score Soundtrack for Video Games and Other Interactive Media for his work on Star Wars Jedi: Survivor
• Cathern Hazelwood (B.M. ’20) received VBODA blue-ribbon school and superior ratings at Mechanicsville High School in Hanover County, Va.
• Nick Leonard (B.M. ’15) was named Teacher of the Year at Greenfield Elementary School in Chesterfield County, Va. • Chris Mosely (M.M.
’18) was promoted to music supervisor for Henrico County Public Schools in Virginia. • Kevin Newton (B.M. ’16), french horn, won a Grammy as a member of the quintet Imani Winds for Best Classical Compendium for their album, Passion For Bach and Coltrane. • Zachary Short (B.M. ’22) was named New Teacher of the Year and received VBODA blue-ribbon school and superior ratings for all ensembles at Freedom Middle School in Fredericksburg, Va.
PAINTING + PRINTMAKING
Leah Beeferman (M.F.A. ’10) exhibited Cloud-Scale Uncertainties at Peeler Art Center at Depauw University in Greencastle, Ind., and Penumbra Foundation Project Space in New York City. • Trudy Benson (B.F.A. ’07) exhibited Plastic Paintings at Galerie Krinzinger in Vienna, Austria, and showed work at Weber Fine Art in Greenwich, Conn. • Lauren Clay (M.F.A. ’07) had a solo show, Threshold Drawings, at Cris Worley Fine Arts in Dallas. • Loie Hollowell (M.F.A. ’12) exhibited Space Between: A Survey of Ten Years at the Aldrich Museum in Ridgefield, Conn., (now on view at the
ICA at VCU through March 9, 2025) and presented The Third Stage at Pace Gallery in Geneva, Switzerland, in 2023. • Andy Meerow (M.F.A. ’12) exhibited Slanted Andy at Derosia Gallery in New York City. • Veronika Pausova (M.F.A. ’13) exhibited Fertile Cloth at Simone Subal in New York City. • LaRissa Rogers (B.F.A. ’19) has accepted a position as assistant professor and head of sculpture department at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. • Nikolas Soren Goodich (B.F.A. ’19) presented “Community and Recovery” as part of the VCUarts Lecture Series at the ICA at VCU in November 2023. • Keith Varadi (M.F.A. ’11) presented The Book of Ma at Sarah Brook Gallery in Los Angeles.
PHOTOGRAPHY + FILM
Hannah Altman (M.F.A. ’20) received the 10 Under 10 VCU Distinguished Alumni Award. She exhibited in the Blanksteen Artist in Residence Exhibition at the Rabinowitz Gallery of the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale University. She also exhibited With Rifts and Collapses at Perspectives Gallery at the Milwaukee
Kat Thompson
Institute of Art & Design and We Will Return To You at Abakus Projects in Boston. • Johannes Barfield (M.F.A. ’18) participated in Marauders, a three-person exhibition at the Greenville Museum of Art in North Carolina, received the Black Public Media Plus grant in New York City and received a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. • John Cappello (B.F.A. ’12) screened Floppies in several locations, receiving the Outstanding Narrative Short award at the Art of Brooklyn Film Festival in New York City the Emerging Filmmaker Award at Filmhaus in Berlin and the Best Short Narrative award at the Festival of Cinema in New York City. • Daniel Diasgranados (B.F.A. ’19) received the Aperture and Google Creator Labs Photo Fund Award and participated in the Vermont Center of Photography juried exhibition in 2023. • Stephanie Dowda DeMer (M.F.A. ’18) accepted a position as assistant professor of art, photo and video at Wesleyan College in Macon, Ga. • Jack Fox (B.F.A. ’23) became an M.F.A. candidate at the Royal College of Art in London. • Riley Goodman (B.F.A. ’18) exhibited “From Yonder Wooded Hill” (solo exhibition) at Fall Line Studio in Atlanta and participated in “Unbound12!” (group exhibition) at Candela Gallery in Richmond. • Mireille Heidbreder (M.F.A. ’21) accepted a position as assistant professor in cinema and photography at Ithaca College in New York. • Arghavan Heydareslam (M.F.A. ’24) screened at the Bright Lights Cinema Series at the Visual and Media Arts Department at
Emerson College in Boston. • Maya Jackson (B.F.A. ’19) became an M.F.A. candidate at the University of Arizona. • Cecilia Kim (M.F.A. ’21) accepted a position as assistant professor of film at the University of Notre Dame, received the 2023 WPA Wherewithal Grant, exhibited Doing the Work at the Kreeger Museum in Washington, D.C. and was awarded the Trawick Prize: 20th Anniversary Emerald Award at the American University Museum in Washington, D.C. • Dom Khun (B.F.A. ’20) became a master’s candidate at VCU Brandcenter. • Enza Marcy (B.F.A. ’21) won an Emmy for her video journalism at WTVR for “Sophia Goes Big: There is a Genuine Honesty to Her Artwork.” • Samuel Lo (B.F.A. ’20) became an M.F.A. candidate at Ohio State University. • Fanxi Sun (M.F.A. ’23) participated in the SECAC (formerly the Southeastern College Art Conference) juried exhibition at Try-Me Gallery in Richmond and was a finalist for the Trawick Prize at the Bethesda Contemporary Art Awards at Gallery B in Bethesda, Md. They also had screenings at the 2023 Experimental Series in Salt Lake City and the 2023 Videoaktion #4 in Berlin. They completed the Alex Brown Foundation Artist Residency at Mainframes Studio in Des Moines, Iowa. • Kat Thompson (M.F.A. ’23) was named a Hamiltonian Artist Fellow for 2023. • Jessica Tifase (M.F.A. ’24) completed a Television Academy internship in marketing in Los Angeles. • Jennifer VanSteenburgh (B.F.A. ’16) accepted a role as photographer in residence at Clark Construction Group.
SCULPTURE AND EXTENDED MEDIA
Stephanie Germosen Salazar (M.F.A. ’24) received a Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowship Grant. • Bridget Hamel (M.F.A. ’23) was named a Yale Norfolk School of Art participant for summer 2023. • Jermaine Ollivierre (M.F.A. ’24) had the work From Adversity He Creates Art featured in the 2022–23 edition of Ignite Magazine.
THEATRE
Calie Bain (B.F.A. ’21) and Kendall Walker (M.F.A. ’23), as part of Richmond Triangle Players, presented Airswimming by Charlotte Jones.
• Gracie Berneche (B.F.A. ’24) was nominated for Best Supporting Performance (Musical) by the Richmond Theatre Community Circle for their role in Into The Woods with Richmond Shakespeare. • Joshua Boone (B.F.A. ’10) was nominated for a 2024 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical for The Outsiders. The show, based on the S.E. Hinton novel, won four Tony Awards, including Best Musical. • Sophia Choi (B.F.A. ’14) was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Costume Design of a Musical for KPOP and a Drama Desk Award in Outstanding Costume Design of a Musical. • Weston Corey (B.F.A. ’16) was nominated for Outstanding Achievement in Lighting Design (Musical) by the Richmond Theatre Community Circle for their designs in Scrooge in Rouge at Richmond Triangle Players. • Tevin Davis (B.F.A. ’21) was a contestant on the recent season of TV reality show Survivor. • Lukas D’Errico (B.F.A. ’24) and Gracie Berneche (B.F.A. ’24) performed in Richmond Shakespeare’s Into the Woods in March 2024 as Jack and Little Red Ridinghood, respectively. • Tyler Fauntleroy (B.F.A. ’17) was cast as Alexander Hamilton in Hamilton’s Angelica cast national tour. • Ger Grandfield (B.F.A ’24) was accepted into the University of Central Florida-Orlando to pursue an M.F.A. in acting. • Avery Johnson (B.F.A ’23), as part of Richmond Shakespeare, presented the East Coast premiere of Liz Duffy Adams’ Born with Teeth • Joshua Quinn (M.F.A. ’13) was nominated for an Academy Award for his work as assistant costume designer for Oppenheimer. His work on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel was also nominated for an Emmy Award. • Amita Rao (B.A. ’20) was cast as a lead in the FX Comedy Pilot Snowflakes, a twenty-something ensemble comedy following a group of codependent housemates. • Emily Rosko (B.F.A. ’11) and Matthew Armentrout (B.F.A. ’13) received a 2023 Emmy nomination for Outstanding Period and/ or Character Hairstyling for The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel • Kendall Walker (M.F.A. ’23) was nominated for Best Direction (Musical) by the Richmond Theatre Community Circle for their direction of Scrooge in Rouge at Richmond Triangle Players.
Cecilia Kim
Last Look: From the Archives
The Bang Arts Festival, also known as the Spring Arts Festival, occurred four times at the Richmond Professional Institute (the predecessor institution to VCU) between 1964 and 1967. The festival was created by faculty in the Communication Arts & Design department with the goal of bringing contemporary art, music, theater, dance and more to Richmond. The festival brought significant artists—such as John Cage, Roy Lichtenstein and Twyla Tharp—for events including dance pieces, artist panels, film festivals, theater performances, and more. RPI students participated alongside faculty, staff and Richmond community members. Though short-lived, the festival helped set the stage for the thriving art scene that has developed in the city in the half-century since.
For more information about the Bang Arts Festival, view the VCU Libraries online exhibit by scanning the QR code or visting: scholarscompass.vcu.edu/exhibit/bang-arts-festival-1964-1967
2024-25 Lecture Series
THE VCUARTS LECTURE SERIES PROVIDES AN OPPORTUNITY FOR FACULTY AND ALUMNI TO SHARE THEIR RESEARCH AND CREATIVE WORKS WITH THE WIDER COMMUNITY. THROUGH LECTURES ON INTERDISCIPLINARY COLLABORATION, RESEARCH, CULTURE AND INNOVATIVE PRACTICES, THE SERIES IS INTENDED TO INSPIRE CONVERSATION AND PASSIONATE DEBATE. SCAN THE QR CODE TO LEARN MORE.
Jessica Bell Brown
LECTURE AND COMMUNITY RECEPTION
Wednesday, November 13, 5:30 p.m.
Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU
Michael Walker
(B.F.A. ‘16)
Executive Director, Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU
Senior Product Designer
LECTURE
Tuesday, January 14, 5:30 p.m. Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU
Amber Esseiva
(B.A. ‘12)
LECTURE
Tuesday, Febuary 4, 5:30 p.m. Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU
Tobias Wofford
LECTURE
Tuesday, April 8, 5:30 p.m.
Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU
Acting Senior Curator, Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU
Chair, VCUarts Department of Art History
Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts
325 North Harrison Street, Suite 201
Box 842519
Richmond, VA 23284-2519
ON THE COVER
E. Gaynell Sherrod, Ed.D., professor of dance and choreography at the School of the Arts, led a team of alumni and faculty in contributing a powerful, motion-fueled soundtrack to a film component of renowned photographer and MacArthur “genius grant” winner Dawoud Bey’s Elegy. The exhibition, hosted by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, explored the harrowing experience of the enslaved in Richmond and other parts of the country. Read more on Page 16.
