Scripps Senior Art Exhibition

The Scripps College Senior Art Exhibition reveals many things, including the passions and secrets of budding artists every spring. Just don’t bother asking its age.

Sure, there’s anecdotal evidence of its longevity – alumnae swear they participated in similarly-titled events as early as 1958 – but it has no official birth certificate. Files maintained by the College contain exhibit announcements and little else; the records are, as Sally Preston Swan Librarian Judy Harvey Sahak ’64 notes, “all loosey goosey.”


Not that mysterious origins detract in any way from the Senior Art Exhibition’s vibrant history. Each annual event features provocative work from Scripps (and occasionally other consortium) students at the Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery, with each exhibit meticulously designed by the artist and defended in a manner very similar to how a doctoral candidate defends her thesis. This year’s exhibition, “Comparisons are Odious,” is the end result of 10 seniors working in concert with one another.

“Art faculty are very involved and committed to the process,” says Susan Rankaitis, Fletcher Jones Chair in Studio Art. “It’s the highlight of our academic year.”

Exhibits routinely challenge the status quo, whether the subject is positive psychological theory, contemporary transhumanism, or the link between art, fashion, and identity. Many times, the piece extends beyond the gallery’s walls: the Arizona desert was faithfully recreated in 2010, and Lili Salzberg’s upcoming installation dominates the center of the gallery floor.

“I’m doing 12 million different activities,” says Krista Sharpe ’12 of her animated videoAwakening. “I believe the best art is created by the marriage of skills and interesting ideas. You develop your technical abilities in order to express yourself, but you must have interesting concepts to express.”

“The Senior Art Exhibition was one of my first opportunities to show my work to the public,” says artist Monica Furmanski ’96. “For others to see your work and to experience it is both nerve-wracking and exhilarating; the concepts I work with now are directly related to the work I created at Scripps.”

The result is an experience as timeless as the exhibition itself. “[Professor of art] Ken Gonzales-Day often reminds students that art alumae come to the opening of the show,” says Rankaitis. “The alums challenge them; it’s like an initiation rite into the art world for our seniors.”

Original source here.