Many courses within the Art and Design department focus on a project based final exams. For many Graduating Art and Design students these projects vary from large displays to tiny ‘easter eggs’ within their art. Imagine having a 8-foot-tall receipt due at midnight. Graduating Winona State Art and Design students have done just that by working all semester to put together an exhibition in the Laird Norton Center for Art and Design. On the night of Apr. 29, a reception was held for the students to host a talk about their art right before they graduate. Showcasing their final exhibition, “The Human Condition” is the title for the collection of bodies of work. Within this exhibition, there are three groups presented: Unfold, Proprioception, and Syzygy.
Graduating Art and Design student, Simon Pell, explains to the audience that the theme of their group, “Unfold” is about ‘a change in development through different periods of time’. Graduating Art and Design student, Madison Ketterling, began to explain her exhibit “The Catalyst”. Implementing video elements, her exhibit is about a ‘catalyst moment’. She notes that this moment can come from struggle, self-realization, or deep reflection.
“The purpose of my exhibition is to shine a light on that crucial moment. Often when we think about transformation, we focus on the final result, the success, the new version of ourselves, the afterbirth, the story. But we don’t always stop and think about the before, about the moment when everything shifts,” Ketterling said. “I wanted to give that moment that spark of attention and appreciation it deserves. This idea ties directly to the group, Unfold, because it focuses on the process of transformation.Without the catalyst, the unfolding would never happen.”
She notes, along with every student, has faced her own set of unique challenges along the way. One challenge was breaking away from a familiar style of literal and clean-cut design to something more abstract.
“Learning programs such as After Effects, Adobe Express, and CapCut were definitely a big learning curve,” Ketterling said. ”There were a lot of moments where just things were not working out, and I had to push through the frustration, and it just ended up all being part of the unfolding process, just like the transformation itself. In the end, I’m very proud about my project.”
The students also stressed the importance of having the exhibit be immersive and interactive. This ranges from having objects you can take home with you, art that engages each of the five senses, to even having the opportunity to interact and become a part of the piece, there were many ways students and community members could have a unique experience at the exhibition. One specific takeaway object captured the purpose of an exhibit. Titled “Reflux” , graduating Art and Design student Kaylee Olson gave out small glass shapes for people to take and remember the beauty of transformation.
“The purpose of my work is to help people understand that throughout the different phases and transitions of life, every form of transformation is beautiful,” Olson said. “The way the light reflects and refracts off glass shapes symbolizes life’s uncertainties, reminding us that every stage of the experience is part of a meaningful journey. This ties into our group theme as it highlights life’s transformative moments through the use of glass shapes.”
Many student’s processes included mood boarding, blueprinting their space in Laird Norton, and making mini foam replicas of the room to arrange their exhibits. One exhibit titled “Yearn” showcased appreciation for nature and moths by using 20 yards of brown fabric.
“For anyone who knows me, my biggest personality trait this past year has been learning how to sew, whether that be garments, or perhaps a cocoon that hangs all in the air…I took a lot of inspiration from the natural world around me,” graduating Art and Design student Meghan Cooper said. “I chose moths because they played a very symbolic role in my life. I used to work in a summer camp where I would see luna moths every single summer…so I wanted to pay tribute to that.”
Cooper also adds an interactive element by creating moths sewed from their grandma’s sewing machine. The exhibit invited attendees to pin moths on the cocoon as they have a chance to think about where they are in life and where they’re going.
Graduating Art and Design student Kendal Banes talks about their exhibit titled “Tiny Worlds”. Using vinyl records and posters, this exhibit portrays what the world can look like to a child.
“I wanted to focus on all of the different needs that you have as a child, specifically the psychological ones,” Banes said. “Music is fun and playful, but also you don’t really know what to expect. It has different phases, just like the growth that we were talking about with our exhibit, it is always changing, but yet it’s still beautiful and still wonderful.”
Banes created 5 posters showcasing her five different needs; autonomy, belonging, love, security, and play. Hung right below the poster is its own corresponding record with a designed sleeve and label on the record itself all surrounding that certain need.
Gaining inspiration from street art, graduating Art and Design student Simon Pell describes his exhibit using hanging art titled “Sonas”.
“I came onto Sonas, which is a Gaelic word. It’s a term meaning happiness, but specifically referring to a deep, twisted happiness. So, this is more of a happiness that you feel deep within yourself.” Pell said.
The next group of students then introduced their theme for their exhibits. Titled “Proprioception”, this group of five created art based on the five senses. Proprioception was described as a type of sixth sense or awareness to know where your body is.
Despite being color blind, graduating Art and Design student Luke Krzyszkowski created his exhibit titled “Sight” surrounding the sense of sight. Using a combination of colors from a screen printing technique called overprint and risographs he was able to put together his exhibit. Using a black light provided and created by Kryzszkowski. These a 3-D printed blacklights all included an eye based off his group-mates’ eye colors when using this light, observers were able to see the secret messages or ‘easter eggs’ relayed through the piece.
“My main goal with this project was to kind of dive into what we as humans don’t see. My project really just asks, what aren’t we seeing and what can other things possibly see?” Kryzszkowski said. “When you deal with risographs, you’re not dealing with the same colors as you paint. When you take two panes of glass that have that color and put a piece of white paper behind it, and that’s the color you’re getting.”
To make the posters, it took 45 minutes to print each poster and then he had to cut a perfectly straight line with an Exacto knife on a 14-foot poster. Kryzszkowski said it was ‘one of the hardest things’ he’s ever done.
Showcasing twelve different candle scents and designs, graduating Art and Design student Laurel Rau uses bright colors to make eye-catching designs to complete her exhibit titled “Smell”.
“In the beginning of this project, I was a bit nervous because I really didn’t know what I was going to do with the sense of smell. I started by doing just some simple research and I learned that there are actually a bunch of different types of smell categories,” Rau said. “Then I got the great idea to make candles from scratch. Not only is this idea perfect for an interactive element for my senior show, I also got the opportunity to design a brand, which is something that I’m really interested in as a designer.”
Committing herself to creating these candles, she mentions that her kitchen was sacrificed in order to create these candles. Despite her kitchen now covered in wax, she could call her project almost finished as she moved to install, which she notes was the trickiest part for her and other students as well.
Having an extensive background with the piano since she was a little girl, graduating Art and Design student Jadyn Bennett used the sense of hearing in her exhibit titled “Sound & Hearing”.
“There are quite a few pianos on Facebook Marketplace for free. I found one and decided that this is what my show was going to be, and I decided that in November, which is before our semester even started,” Bennett said. “From there, we went and we picked up the piano. I can see why a lot of pianos are free, because they are not easy to move, but I had some really good friends who came out and helped.”
Bennett hand-painted music notes on the side of the piano as well. Moving the piano to the Laird Norton Building was another difficult trip. This time, they used carts with wheels on them and using zip ties, they were able to push the piano all the way from campus to Laird Norton, which she notes was very difficult, but ends by saying that overall it was a fun final project.
First doing research on how the human tongue works, graduating Art and Design student Stephanie Dasbach discovered the five different taste buds on the human tongue (salty, sweet, umami, sour, and bitter) to integrate into her exhibit titled “Taste”. Creating her own ‘sample box’ she cut, sanded, and painted wood to create an interactive piece to highlight her sense of taste.
“I wanted some type of giant tongue showcasing those five different sections of taste buds on our tongue,” Dasbach said. “So, once I kind of got the lids down, it was time to decorate the boxes.”
With this interactive element, Dasbach also created a large-scale tongue, an 8-foot-tall receipt, and many take-away elements. These elements included a design of a sticker for each taste, little forks, and mini receipts to match the 8-foot-tall receipt. One issue she ran into was that she intended her tongue to print in color so when it printed in black and white, she had to make a choice.
“My giant tongue…That was kind of the main prize possession of my show and of course, it printed without color. So I had two options: I could either reprint it for a lot of money, or I could just color it myself…I just took the challenge, and I had a couple friends that helped me along the way to kind of color this giant three-foot tongue,” Dasbach said. “The receipt has a bunch of little Easter eggs in it, if you can find them. The dates of our show are on there a couple times.”
Each person in the class were also tasked with creating promotional materials. Each student did and invited attendees to grab a copy for themselves to have and read more about their exhibits on the cards.
“Typically for art exhibits, you’re not meant to touch your artwork. I really wanted to emphasize why we should kind of come back to having this huge understanding and appreciation of touch,” Graduating Art and Design student Alexandra Trainor said about their exhibit titled “Touch”. “I thought if I made something that was more alien, more foreign-looking, it would be unlike anything you guys ever saw, and you would want to be more playful and more exploring with it.”
During the installation part of the process, despite best efforts, sometimes disaster strikes.
“I was really worried, because with me, typically, if things are going to go wrong, they will. Unfortunately, I was right in this instance,” Trainor said. “We had to go through the skinny back doors, and so I’m holding the door open, and I’m hearing the plaster just snap and crack and pop and hit the ground and shatter.”
Joking, they say to the audience, ‘I got plenty of time to fix it- It’s a week until the show.’ After working hours and watching every transformer movie while reconstructing the piece, the piece is displayed in Lard Norton for audiences to see and touch.
The third and final exhibit, Syzygy, explores the parallels between human experiences and celestial bodies. Celestial objects, such as the sun, the earth, and the moon was the focus for this pair of students. Titled “Mareluna” graduating Art & Design student Kyurim Oh talked to the audience about their interactive exhibit. “Mareluna” showcased an interactive animation where attendees can have conversations with non-playing characters (NPCs) and explore the room using a controller.
“Through this project, I wanted to offer viewers a special experience, a chance to explore the room in a way that feels personal and meaningful,” Oh said. “Previously, I had mainly worked with Blender, which is a modeling tool, and was working with Unity, which is an actual game engine development, but this time, I challenged myself to study both Blender and Unity. I started by building a map for the project, and after creating the initial design, I was building a prototype of the map in Unity.”
Titled “Solace”, Kaia Peterson exhibit focused on the parallel between the sun and human connection.
“I wanted to have big collages of people with their friends and family in it and the sun illuminating these pictures. So I started gathering photos on Google Drive and I sent a link out to all of my family and friends,” Peterson said. “So when they came to visit, they could see themselves in this exhibit…I ended up with about 200 pictures, which is really awesome and really fun to look at.”
From April 21-May 9, the Laird Norton Center will host the exhibition “The Human Condition.”
