Vanessa Albury | A. Bills-Levi | Gayle Brooker | Lisa Chou | Margaret Clarke | T. Davidson | Steven Davis | John Duckworth | Meghan Henley | Krist Mills | Sue Murray | Dorothy Netherlands | Rachel O’Neal | Larissa Patel | Lynn Patterson | Matt Smithson | Jonathan Walsh

To create an exhibit drawn from works by Studio Art graduates may seem to be a daunting task; faced with so many choices, the result could become merely arbitrary or too disparate to cohere as an exhibition. But in fact, my experience was quite the contrary. All artists have at least one thing in common—they all have influences. And for all of these artists, one of their most influential experiences was the time they spent as Studio Art students at the College of Charleston.

In this exhibit, I see the influences as well as the individual accomplishments of artists who studied here at the College. Whether faintly or pronounced, the impressions of their Studio Art professors resonate in these works. The goal, however, of myself and Dr. Marian Mazzone was to choose a select group of Studio Art alumni whose works have continued to develop, becoming their own unique creations and contributions. By limiting the selection to Studio Art graduates of the past ten years, we were able to look at the work of artists who are still developing their sense of “self” in the art world, while also still having some identity with the College.

Dorothy was born in Alexandria, VA in 1962, and began studying art in her mid-thirties after a move to Charlotte, NC. Upon relocating once again to Charleston she studied art seriously here at the College of Charleston, graduating with a Studio Art degree in 2000. While at the college she won several awards, including the Liberace Scholarship, the Laura Bragg Award, and an Outstanding Student Award. After having a child in 2002, she began experimenting with painting on glass. These first glass paintings were exhibited in the Contemporary Charleston show for Spoleto 2004. Dorothy continues to paint on glass, and her work will be shown in the Triennial at the State Museum in Columbia in November.