Winter 2022 Graduating Art and Design Students' Exit Exhibition

Opening Reception: Tuesday, May 3, 2022, 4:30 – 7 P.M.

The exhibition will be open May 4 – 6, 2022, at the following times:

• Wednesday, May 4, 2022, Noon – 5 P.M.
• Thursday, May 5, and Friday, May 6, 2022, 5 – 8 P.M.

Paige Deon

I am an oil painter and ceramicist based in Woodhaven, MI. My work is based on vintage patterns, people, animals, and nature. It's a reflection of how I view the world in a bright and colorful way. My first painting series, "Connecting Through Nature" is inspired by the human connection we get from animals and the outdoors. My second painting series, "Vintage Daily Life" is inspired by interiors and people from the '60s and '70s with an emphasis on the vivid patterns from those decades. My ceramics and jewelry are all hand built and painted to reflect my same painting inspirations. This summer I will also be selling my paintings, ceramics, and jewelry at various art fairs such as Palmer Park, Crosby Festival of the Arts, Plymouth Art in the Park, and Ann Arbor State Street.

Katherine "Katie" Warden (She/Her)

As an artist I look to explore an array of topics as well as mediums. At HFC I have done some digital work, but I have mainly been working within the realm of ceramics. I draw a lot of my inspiration from nature as well as mythological stories from across the world. A view of some of my nature based craft would be that of my burning tree candle holders, based around trees that burn from the inside out, looking wholly intact but still on fire. And my mythological inspired pieces are best viewed by my Kitsune sculpture, a Japanese Fox Demon. I also draw from my nerd side, recently exploring the creation of Dice and Dice Towers. I can be found on Instagram at @Hexadecimal_01.

Amanda Correa

Art has always been close to my heart growing up. It was a way to communicate my feelings, vent out my frustrations, and spread wisdom about topics I was passionate about. In my life, I was always heavily sexualized in multiple instances by various people. At experiencing being sexually coerced by my ex-partner of 5 years, I couldn't look at my own body in the mirror, and I had an overall negative image of myself physically and mentally. Then I took a Life Drawing class here at HFC while i was recovering from that trauma and something about seeing nude bodies normalized made me see the beauty in it. I really enjoyed intertwining the therapeutic nature of art with experiencing the human body without any degree of sexuality behind it. This grew into a passion I had for creating characters and pieces that showed off their bodies. This was a way to heal from my past – that any inch of skin shown was either condemned for being inappropriate or "caused" unwanted attention and advances even in non-sexual situations. I'm hoping that my art can break this social stigma towards our bodies, and that it's nothing we should hide away or consider inherently sexual, inappropriate or deserving of uninvited sexualization. You can find more of my work on Instagram at @ikittenn, on Etsy at iKittenDraws, on Ko-Fi as iKitten, or on Artfol as ikitten.

Destinee Lewis

My interest in the arts started back in grade school. I remember being fascinated by the caricatures and other artwork my childhood art teacher would create around the classroom. I found myself constantly sketching and using my imagination or anything around to inspire me. My art consists of pencil-based drawings, particularly hyper-realism. I studies many techniques for years to master drawing things exactly as I see them. I soon expanded my creativity and gained a passion for graphic design and photography, which created a new excitement in my art and the opportunity to approach my work from new perspectives.

Hannah Daniel

My love for the arts started at a very young age. You could always find me working on some sort of craft. I have never been one to shy away from trying any medium I can get my hands on, from pencil to photography to spinach juice and everything in between. While I primarily work with portrait drawing and stippling in my own work, I have explored many different areas of the arts while in school. I found a love for photography, as well as finding the things that really inspire me. I'm heavily inspired by music, and I love conveying what a song makes me see or feel in a piece. It's like seeing a song come to life for me. I also take inspiration from nature, using its colors and process to create my pieces.

Working With the Weather

An anthotype is an early photographic process used to create prints using the sun and organic plant materials. Compared to today's standard photographic printing, they are environmentally friendly and can be made using easily accessible materials. A light sensitive liquid emulsion is made with a plant or spice and is painted onto a piece of paper. Once dry, an object such as a leaf, or photo negative, is placed over the paper. Glass is laid over top, and it's set out in the sun to expose a silhouette of the object. Through my research spinach was discovered to work great when the weather is warm and sunny. When the weather got colder, the sun became weaker. As a result, the spinach took a week to expose instead of six hours and created a lower quality print. Searching for a new emulsion, a mixture of turmeric and 91% isopropyl alcohol was tried. The emulsion takes three to five hours and works in weaker sunlight and colder weather. If one has the patience, creating an anthotype serves as an accessible and more environmentally friendly way of making photographic prints.