Moving forward as college graduates, 21 design majors used their final thesis project to showcase their personal growth as both artists and designers.
One senior, Joe Lanzilotta, said his project showed his hometown as a struggling region with potential to improve.
“Cleveland, it’s not really the most desirable place to live, you know?” he said. “It’s a dying city.”
Brainstorming his final thesis project, Lanzilotta said he traced back to his roots in drawing. The project is for his final thesis exhibit, “Marks and Bleeds,” which opened yesterday.
Students combined personal elements with exploring interesting design fields for their final projects. Lanzilotta brought together his base skills in fine arts and love for his hometown in the piece. He exhibits all he’s learned in his four years in Athens in a work titled, “The City of Giant Potential.”
Across from the city of Cleveland lays a piece which exhibits a different, almost rival, sense of community — an outline plan for a Pittsburgh basketball team titled “Pride is Primal.”
Creator Jesse Mathew Deegan moved frequently as a child, living in San Francisco, Dallas and finally Dayton before entering college. In all three cities, he said, he found one thing in common: black and yellow. His best friend from Dayton lived in a family of dedicated Pittsburgh fans.
“There’s so much allegiance there,” Deegan said.
Pittsburgh is the only city in the country where all of the sports teams have the same colors, said Deegan. The basketball team “Pride” features a lion mascot as well as a jersey, book and an insignia, which is half lion head, half graphic of the steel city.
“I used (the team) basically as a metaphor for that sense of belonging you get from being from Pittsburgh,” he said.
These projects allowed graduating design majors to best combine their interests. Designer Brandon Eifert paired a recording of his drumming at 3 Elliott
Studio with an acrylic painting on wood panels for his piece “Optical Pulse.”
Eifert painted for six years and drummed for about 15. He said his final project allowed him the opportunity to step back and view his landmark project, which combines both his passion for design and for music.
“It’s kind of like the icing on the cake,” Eifert said. “It feels good to complete what I came to college for.”
The exhibit “Marks and Bleeds” is in the Ohio University Art Gallery, located in Seigfred Hall. It will run until Saturday, May 28.
sd476308@ohiou.edu
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