The walls of Biggin Gallery were lined with photography that was meant to send a message, while 'usable' pieces of art filled the space.
The department of art and art history presented, It Goes Together, a senior project exhibition. Harling Wespiser, senior in fine arts, displayed The Alsace Series, a feature of her usable work, specifically kitchen sets.
Nicole Degree, senior in photography, revealed her prints that signified the struggle of body issues.
Wespiser has taken her focus on art to the kitchen, and created ceramic pieces for dining sets.
The Alsace Series was presented in the gallery as a classic dining table with Wespiser’s work filling the table. Her hope is to influence more people to buy handmade sets such as her own, instead of store-bought plates and other dining utensils.
Wespiser said her kitchen cabinets are filled with her own pieces of work, including plates, cups and bowls. However, for this exhibition she wanted to do things different.
“I tried some new things like the cake stands, and the berry bowls and butter bells,” Wespiser said. “These pieces are a bit more personal that not a lot of people know about.”
The artist began working with ceramics in high school and has pursued this art form since then.
“There is something about spinning the wheel that makes you focus in, and you forget about everything else,” Wespiser said. “I think it’s really cool that I can make all the things that I use instead of making something that I just look at.”
This exhibition brought Wespiser an opportunity to sell her plates and other kitchen sets and she hopes to continue doing this upon Graduation.
Nicole Degree, senior photographer, was featured in this gallery exhibition as well. Her work, Self-Portrait During Ritual, showed the daily struggle of body image and getting dressed every day. The piece was a series of 15 photographs that served as a time lapse, each depicting different feelings and stages.
“The photography is really just about struggling with body image and with getting dressed, and how difficult that can be when you’re so self-aware of your body and the way it feels and looks underneath clothes,” Degree said.
Degree captured this feeling of discomfort in larger images that serves as an expansion of the smaller series of photographs.
The Self-Portrait During Ritual series was meant to capture one moment in time, but the larger images are feelings that occur daily. These images captured women struggling to put on formal wear, casual attire and even while in bed.
It Goes Together senior project exhibition is open to the public until December 2.
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