Alumni Profiles

A year ago, the Department of Art and Art History recognized some of the incredible social and cultural contributions of our alumni.  The Kittredge Gallery hosted an art alumni exhibit and an affiliated panel on art careers that demonstrated the rich range of our studio art graduates’ practices and professions and the department celebrated the scholarship and diverse careers of our art history alumni during the Art History Alumni Colloquium.  This blog post continues where last year’s exhibit and colloquium left off, showcasing several art alumni’s varied paths.

We will continue to profile alumni throughout the semester and hope this engagement with our graduates will inspire and enhance connections amongst members our ever-growing Department of Art and Art History community.

Please share your stories by emailing photos and messages to art@pugetsound.edu.

Haley Andres ’14

Haley Andres

Majoring in art honed my skills in communication.  As an art student, I developed an ability to tell a story, make an argument, or raise a point in creative and compelling ways. My professors, studio practice, and assignments constantly encouraged me to evaluate my own opinions and interests, and how best to compellingly present those to an audience. After graduating from the University of Puget Sound, I traveled the world as a Thomas J. Watson Fellow, investigating the intersections between experiences of trauma and creative practice. I know my education in art enhanced my ability to effectively communicate and connect across disparate cultures and people, often without sharing a language.

Other skills I learned as an art student, like utilizing multi-faceted approaches to problems, multi-tasking, time management, and a willingness to fail (and to lean into those failures for means of learning/discovery), have translated to strengths in my professional life after college working in arts administration.

Screenprint on glass

I currently work as a Development Assistant at UrbanGlass in Brooklyn, NY.

In five to ten years I hope to attend graduate school to further pursue my interests in socially engaged art practices, ideally earning a Ph.D. I would love to teach or work in a role directly with communities and creative thinkers. I plan to always be asking questions, learning, and creating.

Priscilla Dobler ’09

Priscilla Dobler

Every opportunity, from working for international artists in NYC to fully funded residencies in Mexico and USA, has resulted from studying art at Puget Sound. Art has taught me how to value my relationships with people, how to be determined, focused, and passionate; giving everything I have in order to complete a project while conceptually pushing the boundaries of dialogue in craft and fine art.

It is important to stay in touch with mentors over time and Puget Sound’s small community fosters sustained relationships with faculty and peers.

La Cocina, 2016

I am currently preparing for an Art Residency at Mass MoCA, and building a multi-media woven living room installation for an art opening in Tacoma and Seattle at the end of this year. With my hard work and constant persistence, I will be showing internationally with gallery representation in the next 5-10 years.

Eden Ferry ’10

Eden Ferry

Studying art at the University of Puget Sound taught me the skills needed to thrive in various creative industries. Through the diversity in methods and mediums taught, I have been able to draw on my education to work in printmaking, graphic design, and landscape architecture. While at UPS I was able to integrate my minor in environmental policy into my artwork, these explorations eventually lead me to a graduate degree in Landscape Architecture. In my graduate program, I was able to draw on tools I had learning at UPS to thrive, specifically time management, studio culture and critiques, and the ability to translate a concept into a visual representation. Now working within the profession of landscape architecture, I am able to manage projects from concept to construction administration with the tools and creative thinking I learned at UPS.

LA River Models

I am currently working at Studio-MLA in Los Angeles where I work on a range of projects from the Los Angeles River Revitalization to civic and commercial landscapes throughout the city. In the next year, I will begin my licensure exams.

Emily Menk ’14

Emily Menk

Studying art at Puget Sound really gave me so much more than what is shown in a course description or a catalog. Creative problem-solving, effective communication (written, verbal, and non-verbal), and sharp critical thinking skills are just a few of the skills that have been integral to my success after graduation. Even outside of the skills I developed in the program, I also built the foundation for life-long learning and creative exploration, developed a passion for experiential learning, and learned to recognize the intersections of culture in every place I go and in every encounter.

Art is a surprisingly interdisciplinary field; it’s not simply about images and design. History, psychology, communication, technology, sociology, math, chemistry, philosophy, and more are all found among the coursework and the learning outcomes within the program, preparing students to work in a variety of fields. I’m a testament to this—while I have worked in a photo studio, I also spent two years working for a (large) tech company before transitioning into higher education. These days, I’m wrapping up an M.S. in Counseling and Student Personnel (College Student Affairs), advising the MSU, Mankato campus programming board, and working with New Student and Family Programs. I’m still using the design skills on a regular basis, but I’m also able to build on my love of experiential education and help college students discover their passions. I’m planning on continuing my career in Student Affairs, and perhaps in a few years, I’ll begin working on a doctorate degree!

Peter Stanley ’09

Peter Stanley

I love big picture, strategic thinking and I love physical, on-the-ground work. Every point in my career has been a mix of those two passions, and I think that my studies in art were too. As an art major, I spent hours planning, studying, researching, and designing projects. However, the real work was done in the studio and was hands-on and relentless. Both types of labor have been important to my work in museums, design, and business.

Kittredge Gallery

I am Manager of Kittredge Gallery here at Puget Sound, and I’m enjoying the mix of scholarly, physical, and managerial work I get to do here. I look forward to continuing to bring in meaningful shows, working with the whole campus, and highlighting the work of people in the department.

Experiential learning is integral to the opportunities for learning and growth that our department supports.  Students, staff, and faculty engage in high impact, experiential learning practices.  Puget Sound defines experiential as follows:

Experiential learning utilizes direct experiences to integrate academic theories and skills by encouraging intellectual risk, uncertainty, or indeterminacy. Direct experiences encompass a variety of activities including internships, service learning, undergraduate research, study abroad, field work, simulations, public presentations or exhibits, publications, and other creative and professional work experiences.

Enjoy the following profiles of how members of our department’s community engage in experiential learning.

Walker in Vienna!

Junior Walker Hewitt is studying this fall at the IES Vienna European Society and Culture program this fall.  Many of our majors have selected this program because of its focus on the arts.

As a visitor who doesn’t speak German in Austria, just navigating the city on a daily basis is an adventure. It pushes me to do my best to learn new language and respectfully interact with a new culture. This position has given me a new self-awareness about how I go about everyday life and exist as a part of a community. 

The most impactful way the Austrian culture has affected me during my study abroad experience is the saturation of art in the city of Vienna. This sentiment applies to a majority of major European countries, but I feel like I’m being steeped in an arts focused environment. Being in Europe has made seeing so many highly regarded art works, movements, and ideas so accessible. Especially with my program we have museum passes and take weekly trips to art museums, collections, and significant architectural accomplishments. I’m so privileged to receive this opportunity and it’s deeply enriching. 

Walker visiting the Reichstag in Berlin

Exposure to art past and present are a strength of this and multiple other study abroad programs!

Walking taking in the spectacular scenery near Vienna

Kiri in Dijon!

Senior Kiri Bolles studied in Dijon, France last spring semester.  The Dijon Semester in France program was started by Professor Emeritus Michel Rocchi in 1985 and is run by Puget Sound’s Department of French Studies.

My study abroad program provided one experience above all that I will never forget – we were put with host families. My family was new to the program, which can create a lot of difficulties, but I found in my host mother a second mom, a teacher, a confidant, and a friend. Neither of my host parents spoke any English, which challenged me to really improve my French in order to connect with them. My host mom (her name is Elisabeth) works for the mayor of Dijon as a city planner – a job that challenges her and pushes her limits as a creative thinker. Even with all the work she has to do through her job, Elisabeth still somehow finds time to create. She works with watercolor, sculpts clay, and even paints on porcelain. It was fascinating for me to observe and work with such a talented and complex woman, who more than anything strove to create images with as few strokes of the brush or pencil as she could. Coming from an artist much older and wiser, this fascinated me as someone who obsesses over detail. I think she influenced the way I think about art in a huge way, not to mention life in general.

We all learn about the famous, French impressionists in art history. When you’ve made it through countless years of art schooling you grow to know Monet’s and Van Gogh’s paintings as well as your own work. You know the waterlilies and orchards they’ve portrayed. Visiting France is like stepping through the paintings into the artists’ world. Setting foot on the places they stood with your own easel and paints, seeing what they saw through your own eyes and brush.

Kiri in Beaune, France

Kiri at a castle filled with wonderful art!

Painting en plein air

2017 AHSS Summer Research recipient Andriana Cunningham and Elayna Caron spent the summer engaging in research that informs their art while making new work.  Their projects embody the liberal arts ethos and speak to the importance of independent research in promoting serious artistic growth.

Andriana Cunningham

nectobibulus de aminicus
foam, paint, wood

This sculpture was inspired by a number of different natural forms where the connection between these forms was the influence of water.  Of the images included here, the two photographs of red rock nodules were taken in Little Wild Horse Canyon in Utah. The multi-colored, drippy drawing was also done in the canyon. Little Wild Horse Canyon is a slot canyon formed by water billowing through these narrow passages during flash floods.  The canyons are dangerous to be in even when the sky above is blue because a rainstorm miles away can induce a flash flood in the canyon, where water rushing through and can become a dangerous wall of fast moving water that is no match for a hiker.  The other photograph and drawing are from a Middle Piney Lake in one of Wyoming’s State Parks. When I was there in June the lake was still halfway frozen over and the vacillating pattern of the melting ice reminded me of the smooth rocks in the canyon.  When I was in the studio after my road trip, these abstracted, holey images were present in many of my sketches and it only made sense to attempt to translate them into sculptures.  I imagine this sculpture to be an undulating, alive creature that lives in streams and rivers.  I see the holes being a dynamic- opening and closing- capturing bacteria and small fish for the creature to eat. 

Elayna Caron, A Study of a Practice

In the summer of 2017 I created a research project called ‘The Study of a Practice’. In this research project, I interviewed yoga teachers and artists about what it means to have a spiritual or artistic practice. In my interviewing, I found the most important part of a practice is to show up for oneself fully committed to taking time to find a flow between breath, mind, and body. If that is on a yoga mat, in the studio or in nature, showing up is both the hardest and most important part of creating a practice. After interviewing each person, I created a practice for myself in reflection to each person I interviewed. I attempted to take on the rituals of each practice by doing research on what kind of work they created. I was able to create a room for myself in which I embodied each person I interviewed, through color, scent, sound and touch I meditated on the lesson from each person I talked to. The idea of having a room of one’s own was both liberating and necessary to make the deeply emotional work I was trying to express. Each time I entered the space I made a conscious effort to leave any negative feelings at the door. I practiced meditation when I first entered, then planned a yoga practice around the painting I was working on at the time. I kept a journal of my meditations and used those writings as ways to enter into my painting practice.  I brought the studies of yoga philosophy into my practices by reading about modern ideas about philosophy and journaling about the Yamas and Niyamas (rules and restraints) of yogic philosophy and adapting them into my daily life. I cultivated a consistent practice of yoga, painting, and mindfulness over my summer and I could not have done this without a room of my own. I learned that sometimes, stepping away from a painting or a practice can be the most powerful thing an artist can do. I allowed myself to let my work breathe, and with that, I was allowed to breathe.

Elayna at the 2017 AHSS Research Symposium

Heart Center, oil on canvas

Mulahbanda, oil on canvas

Printmaking Workshop in San Francisco

Professor Janet Marcavage attended an intensive advanced etching workshop at Crown Point Press in San Francisco. Faculty perpetually engage in the risk taking, collaboration, and direct learning practices that are hallmarks of experiential learning!

This past July, I was thrilled to attend a week-long advanced etching workshop at Crown Point Press in San Francisco as part of my pre-sabbatical activities. Crown Point Press is a long-established print publisher specializing in limited edition etchings; they hold workshops for only a few weeks in July. The workshop allowed a group of us from all over the US and from other countries to learn from Crown Point’s knowledgeable and talented Master Printers. Crown Point has a very large workspace with several presses, tables, and specialized equipment for making etchings with various approaches. I was able to refine my plate-making approaches with a particular focus on aquatint, a process that allows for soft values.  I really enjoyed working with spit bite aquatints, where the mordant is painted directly onto a rosined plate. From the experience at Crown Point, my hand-wiping technique also improved, allowing for greater nuance in my prints. It was fun to make new prints, meet other artists, collaborate, and see a wide range of prints being developed.

 A work in progress

Fun with ink!

Hot off the press!

Bay Area Field Trip

Seven senior art majors, Assistant Professor Chad Gunderson, Professor Janet Marcavage, and Professor Elise Richman spent Fall Break in the Bay Area visiting artists’ studios, galleries, and museums. Additionally, participants in this multi-day adventure were able to connect with a couple of art alumni, enjoy one another’s company over meals and on BART rides, and even fit in some thrift store shopping! Learn more about this incredible bonding and learning experience in the posts below, which capture the first-hand perspectives of six of the participating seniors.

DAY I
Mairan Smith:
On the first day in the Bay Area we began exploring Oakland by visiting Magnolia Editions, a printmaking studio that collaborates with artists to develop new techniques and innovative solutions. This was a really amazing experience and probably my favorite place we visited on the trip. This is the printmaking studio Chuck Close works with, so there were complete and test prints of his art all around.

Magnolia Press

While we were there we learned about the different types of projects they work on and see some of the current projects in process. In addition to various printmaking techniques we learned about tapestry making and papermaking. We were able to really see how this studio experiments and tinkers with process to try and create new effects. They especially try and incorporate new digital technology into more traditional processes. For example, they were working on a piece for a San Francisco subway station in Chinatown and were experimenting with printing on tiles.

While we were there the director also showed us how to make paper with real money! He also was super enthusiastic in sharing about his project to try and recreate 16th century paper. He explained how he worked with sheep geneticists to source the most authentic felt and is currently trying to figure out the best way to break down the fibers of modern linen. His current plan is to use mushrooms. It was amazing. Everyone was so warm and friendly and open to sharing what they were working on. It was a really wonderful look into a different, more experimental approach to art making. I think it made everyone think about new ways we could experiment with our own art making.

Magnolia Press

Walker Edison:
During the second half of our day in Oakland we walked around visiting several different galleries. We saw a wide variety of art and we also got the chance to speak with some of the artists as well as see some of their studio spaces.

Mairan Smith, Oakland Galleries

Group Shot!  Oakland Galleries

Sequoia Leech-Kritchman and Megan Breiter, Oakland Galleries

One of the galleries that I found most interesting was an artist run gallery called Mercury20. The gallery had several rooms and each room was rented out by a different artist who could plan shows however they wished in their space. One artist actually converted half of his space to use as his studio and used the rest of his gallery space show work from a number of other ceramic artists. So, he was essentially running a gallery within a gallery. I thought Mercury20 was really cool because it was great to see all these artists working together to create a positive creative community centered around the artists. The same artist who had split his space into half gallery and half studio suggested that we should check out the space next door to Mercury20 which was a large studio space shared by 8 or 9 artists. I thought it was great to see another example of a shared creative space. It was really interesting not only to get to see so many different places and different kinds of work but also to get to talk to the people who worked in these places and made art. It was very cool to get to hear about what paths different people have taken on their way to becoming professional artists and to hear all the enthusiasm that people have for their work.

After visiting all the galleries, we got to have dinner with a couple of Puget Sound Art alums. It was nice getting to talk to people who had recently been where we are now and to hear about what they have done since leaving Puget Sound. We got to hear about their experiences with grad school as well as what kind of career paths they are on and thinking about the all the different possibilities of what to do with an art degree.

Dinner with alumna Gaby Yoque

DAY II
Ally Hembree, Emily Katz, and Sequoia Leech-Kritchman:
It’s a sunny morning in San Francisco, as we ride into the city, excited for the day. The smoke of the recent fires has begun to clear and we are excited to start a new day of our adventure. Soon we arrive in San Francisco and we can already tell that the art we see today will be different.

We are greeted by Victor Cartagena outside of a building complex neither of us could be aware of what is held inside. As we go through the gates and down the hallways it is clearly evident that there is a community of arts living inside. As we come upon Victor’s studio one might miss the door altogether as it is camouflaged by an array of pictures, flyers, and other extraneous pieces that are glittered haphazardly in an array of collage.

There is nothing quite like seeing an artist’s studio. How an artist works, where they work, what they decide to surround themselves with all contributes to the art they are creating. There is art in every corner, on every spot of the walls, on the floor and between the chairs of Victor’s studio. We sit there and listen to his stories, we ask him questions and take it all in. Within such a space time is easily lost in the art. When we finally gather our things to leave it feels like a different day as Victor’s words still play back in my mind as we walk down the streets of San Francisco to our next destination for the day.

Victor Cartagena

Next, we are off to the SFMOMA.

By the time we arrive, the excitement of being in Victor’s studio has started to wear off. We realize just how hungry we are and take a moment to replenish our bodies before immersing ourselves in more art. As soon as we begin to wander through this enormous space, we immediately start to recognize pieces that we have only ever seen in our art history classes. We stand in awe as we take in Louise Bourgeois’ immense spider sculptures and feel astounded as we walk through Richard Serra’s Sequence, perplexed by how such a piece was created.

Louise Bourgeois

Over the next couple of hours, we each find pieces that move us and others that we don’t quite understand. We are pushed to think differently about our own work and inspired to try things we hadn’t considered before. Far too soon, the museum reaches closing, and we reluctantly file back out into bustling city streets of San Francisco.

Soon enough, we find ourselves asleep in a city park, exhausted from an exciting day. Feeling rejuvenated, we wander through the city, trying to take in all that it has to offer. Finally, with some Ethiopian food and egg tarts in our bellies, we board BART back to our cozy Airbnb, smiling from the day’s adventures and excited for what tomorrow might bring.

Nap in the Yerba Buena Gardens

Day III
Megan Breiter:
For Sunday of our Fall Break trip we all spent the day exploring the Berkeley area. Compared to Friday and Saturday, we had much more free time to wander around and see different stores and places, taking a bit more of the pedestrian side along with the art scene.

One of the main places we visited was the UC Berkeley Museum of Art and Film Archive at the Berkeley campus. While there were only a few exhibits open at the time, some of the art collections they had on display there were highly impressive. The pieces that stood out the most to me were the works by Martin Wong, an artist from the Bay Area who was prominent from the 70s onward until his death in the 90s. His works were incredibly varied and spanned a large gamut of subjects, from constellations to sign language to architecture and portraits of prisons. He meticulously painted buildings brick by brick, finding colors that you would never expect and creating figures and objects from those building blocks. Some of my favorite pieces of his were his works depicting his memories and feelings of San Francisco’s Chinatown and his own heritage, showing larger-than-life dragons in parades or honoring icons like Bruce Lee in mythical forms. I greatly admired his use of line and color in his acrylic paintings and found them to be some of the most compelling pieces of the entire trip.

Martin Wong

After the Berkeley museum, we had free time to wander the area, checking out different stores and food stops around the campus, mainly on Telegraph Avenue. From there we travelled back to Oakland to meet Robb Putnam at his home and studio where he creates giant animal sculptures from fabric and found materials. His works were impressive in their scale, and they were reminiscent of taxidermy and uncanny childhood toys all at once. Robb was also kind enough to talk to us about his artistic path and the choices he made in continuing his education and exploring different options in his life which was valuable to hear.

Robb Putnam’s Studio

When evening rolled around we stopped by another massive thrift stop called Urban Ore, a large warehouse filled with anything you could possibly imagine, from old prints and family photos to wooden doors to rusted industrial machines. It was such a massive place that we barely scratched the surface of what it had to offer, but it was recommended to us as a prime place to find raw materials for use in artistic projects. If nothing else, it was somewhere you could spend literal hours in and still uncover strange new things.

Finally, to finish the day we walked to an Indian cafeteria which was immensely popular and served authentic made-to-order food that was quite delicious! After travelling and three full days of walking and absorbing art, we were all exhausted but inspired. From my impressions, we were all buzzing with different ideas taken from the vast amounts of art we saw and artists we met, which I believe proved just how valuable our experience was.

Sophia Munic’s campus project

Junior art major Sophia Munic independently proposed an interactive chalk mural in the Wheelock Student Center.  Her proposal was successful and has opened up a space in the campus’ main social hub for students to have a voice.  Check out images of different stages in the mural’s development and Sophia’s statement, which eloquently expresses the mural’s purpose.

Chalk to Me
The Wheelock Student Center is a space for students to express their ideas and opinions. I want the walls of this building to reflect that this is student space, and that starts with incorporating more student art. I made this chalkboard to act as a vessel for students to write and doodle their thoughts in a space that is theirs. By posting different questions and prompts regularly on this mural as well as inviting students to create temporary murals on the chalkboard, I invite you to share your ideas with our Puget Sound community in a respectful and inclusive* manner by using the chalk provided to write, draw, and contribute to this mural.

*This mural does not tolerate words of discrimination or hate, and the words on this mural should be written in context of the ASUPS principles of Equity, Accessibility, Inclusion, Justice, and Community. If this space is abused with words of intolerance or hate, your words will be erased.