Visual Arts Graduates
Graduates: or....whatever can one do with a degree in ART?
Since our first senior class in 1964 we have graduated nearly 500 majors in Visual Arts, and many have gone on to graduate school in a variety of fields. Among our Visual Arts majors who have graduated since 2000 are alumni who have earned advanced degrees from or who are enrolled in graduate programs at Bennington College, Goddard College (3), Savannah College of Art & Design (2), Rhode Island School of Design (2), International Academy of Design and Technology, Pratt Institute (2), San Francisco Art Institute (3), Maryland Institute College of Art, Kent State University, Ohio University, Clemson University, University of Florida, Florida State University, University of South Florida (6), University of Texas, University of New Mexico, Southern Illinois University, Naropa University, Pennsylvania State University, University of Delaware, Virginia Commonwealth University, Virginia Tech, Emory School of Law, Edinburgh College of Art (Scotland), University of York (England), Burren College of Art (Ireland), Ball State University, Harvard, and Yale.
Our graduates ultimately travel down a great many career paths, many of them art-related. One can find our Visual Arts alumni/ae engaged in art-related fields as varied as university or college teaching, public school teaching, sculpture, photography, design, illustration, advertising, graphic design, printing, digital effects, computer graphics, ceramics, painting, architecture, art direction, fashion design, community-based arts, film production, exhibition design, communications, performance art, woodworking, calligraphy, urban planning, theatre set design, lighting design, gallery owning, landscape architecture, stained glass restoration, and arts management.
Not all of our majors elect to pursue art as a career, for we also have alumni/ae who have chosen professions in fields as varied as civil engineering, psychotherapy, banking, retail sales, financial analysis, antiques, online networking, computer programming, music, military intelligence, social work, massage therapy, occupational therapy, nursing, youth ministry, law, radiology, real estate, and the list goes on!
You may be interested to see examples of what some of our Visual Arts ALUMNI/AE have been doing:
Selected Visual Arts alumni websites and links:
Jason Adkins '96 has been exhibiting his paintings and sculptures with the Western Artists Group, based in Los Angeles.
Grace Anne Alfiero PEL '04 is founder and Executive Director of Creative Clay, a cultural arts center dedicated to providing a non-discriminating art program to persons with developmental disabilities and mental health challenges in the Tampa Bay Community.
Robert Barnes '72 was chief cinematographer for TBS, earned an Emmy for Best Documentary, and was on the founding team of CNN. Now he’s an independent artist making digital images.
Blaze Birge '98 (and several other Eckerd alumni) formed a circus in Mendocino County, California, a “fusion of performing and visual arts.” Blaze specializes as a trapeze artist.
Margaret Brommelsiek PEL '80 is now an assistant professor in the School of Medicine and Chief of Staff to the Chancellor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. She recently (2011) had an installation of her artwork at the university, titled "Robots in the Changing Landscape."
Joy Brown '72 has exhibited her ceramic sculptures in one-person shows in Europe and Asia, and her work has been prominently featured in Ceramics Monthly. Joy is also co-founder and president of the Still Mountain Center, a nonprofit arts organization in Connecticut whose mission is to support, promote and celebrate artistic exchange between the United States and Asia.
Bede Clarke '83 is Professor of Art at the University of Missouri at Columbia, teaching ceramics.
Jay Clewis '96 was for years Editor-in-Chief at syracuse.com, but now he has moved up to become Mobile Product Manager at Advance Internet.
Neverne Covington '77 was recently a featured artist at the Morean Arts Center in St. Petersburg.
Susan DeMay '77 is Senior Lecturer in ceramics at Vanderbilt University. Both Susan DeMay and Bede Clarke were selected for inclusion in the new Lark book on ceramics, 500 Plates & Chargers: Innovative Expressions of Function & Style.
Ben Dimmitt '76 is a photographer in New York who teaches at the International Center of Photography.
frje Echeverria '66 recently retired as Professor of Painting at the University of Northern Iowa.
Brad Ennis '10 has been working as an intern at the Annie Leibovitz Studio in New York.
Paul Eppling '71 is very well-known in the Tampa Bay area for his welded metal sculptures, such as these giant Armadillos at the Boyd Hill Nature Park.
Zoe Friedman '07 is currently (2011-12) enrolled in the MFA program at the Maryland Institute College of Art.
Ben Hamburger '10 recently had a one-person exhibition at The Studio@620 in downtown St. Petersburg. The show merited a review by St. Petersburg Times critic Lennie Bennett.
Kristin Harrison '01 is now is the Strategic Communications Manager at Camfed, an international non-profit dedicated to fighting poverty and HIV/AIDS in Africa. She also continues to freelance for the Washington Post and National Geographic Traveller.
James Heaton '88 is partner in the luxury-branding firm The Tronvig Group, based in Brooklyn, New York.
Stanton Hunter '80 is Associate Professor of Ceramics and Sculpture at Chaffey College in California.
Stuart Hyatt '97 is an interdisciplinary artist, musician and collaborator, and founder of TEAM records. His cd package design for his own collaborative recording Clouds was one of five finalists for a Grammy Award in 2006. Stuart is now (2011-12) enrolled in the Masters of Architecture program at the Ball State University College of Architecture and Planning.
Martha Ensign Johnson '75 teaches printmaking at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California.
Jonathan Keeton '80 is now the Executive Creative Director at Pixomondo / Public Art, a leading international commercial digital production company.
Contina Kemp '02 is a free-lance photographer in Seattle, and Fundraising Coordinator for the Good Foot Performing Arts Company. She also serves as the Coordinator for Multi-Ethnic Programs at Seattle Pacific University.
Mary Law '69 is Senior Lecturer in ceramics at Contra Costa College, in California.
Alison Light PEL '04 was recently a Featured Artist at the Morean Arts Center in St. Petersburg.
Alex Loftus '06 recently earned her MFA in Painting from Pratt Institute.
Melinda Gaddie Marino '74 teaches art in Texas, and won honorable mention in the 2007 Texas National Juried Competition, held at the Stephen F. Austin State University, with this ceramic sculpture.
Casey McDonough '03 earned his MFA at the Rhode Island School of Design, and is now Assistant Professor of Art at Cedar Crest College in Pennsylvania.
Sydney McKenna PEL '96 owns and operates her own gallery on Anastasia Island, near St. Augustine.
Ian Meares '00 was recently (February, 2011) a resident artist at the Red Lodge Clay Center in Montana. In 2011-12 he will be Visiting Assistant Professor of Ceramics at the Henry Radford Hope School of Fine Arts at the University of Indiana.
Kelli Newton '98 is a photographer and designer, and Lecturer at Tunxis Community College and the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut.
Ingram Ober '98 is Chair of the Art Department at Palomar College in California. His work was included in the 2010 juried exhibition "Here Not There: San Diego Art Now" at the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art.
Brandice Palmer '97 is pursuing her Master's in Arts Administration at the Savannah College of Art and Design.
Mark Pauline '77 is founder of the San Francisco-based performance art group Survival Research Laboratories, which boasts of staging "the most dangerous shows on Earth."
Ruth Pettis '78 has been engaged in a years-long project rendering all 154 sonnets by Shakespeare in original calligraphy.
Elaine Raybourn '85 is into "serious games," and is a Principal Member of the Technical Staff for the Sandia Laboratory's Military Systems & Analysis Department. She is now on assignment with Team Orlando, and will lead research in game-based training for National Defense Acquisition University and participate in OSD studies on learning via social media, mobile devices, and immersive environments such as virtual worlds.
Tai Rogers '01 is currently a Resident Artist at The Clay Studio of Missoula (Montana). Also, his work has been selected for inclusion in the exhibition Uncommon Ground, co-sponsored by NCECA and the Arvada Center Gallery (Colorado).
Scott Ross '97 is now enrolled at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville in their MFA program in ceramics.
Matthew Runde '05 is a creative technologist, and a Masters candidate in Mass Communications at the Brandcenter at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Taryn Sabia-Fritz '01 is a practicing architect and activist in Tampa, and co-founder and President of the Tampa Urban Charrette.
Nick Schwartz '98 owns and operates the Flynn Creek Pottery in Comptche, California.
Katie Screven PEL '11 has been appointed Executive Director of Upstate Visual Arts, a not-for-profit organization in Greenville, SC.
Ward Shelley '72 is a New York-based sculptor and performance artist whose work has been exhibited in ten countries, featured in Art in America and Artforum, and represented in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Brooklyn Museum.
Steve Smith '74 exhibited his Artistamps at the Hillsborough Community College Ybor Campus Gallery in the spring of 2009.
Michael Specht '11 had two photographs selected by Graphis for inclusion in the 2011 edition of their New Talent Annual (Gold), and upon graduation from Eckerd Michael was hired by Apple in San Francisco, as a Quality Assessment/Assurance Engineer.
Melanie Taylor '74 was one of the first architects to participate in building the planned community of Seaside, Florida, designing Rosewalk.
Carrie Hall Tomberlin '00 teaches photography at the University of North Carolina in Asheville.
During the course of our alumni exhibition of 2004, the art critic for the St. Petersburg Times, Lennie Bennett, wrote this review.
