The 2010 Master of Fine Arts Exhibition, “Me and You and Everyone We Know,” opens Wednesday at Ohio State’s Urban Arts Space downtown. For the 27 participating Master of Fine Arts students, the exhibition will serve as both a beginning and an end.

The participating artists are wrapping up their time at OSU and the exhibition is their final showcase.

But Jennifer Bedford, the exhibition’s curator, said the exhibition should also be a new start for these students.

“The exhibition allows them to conclude their time at OSU, and it’s also to sort of launch them,” Bedford said.

Bedford has met with all the students, and they each have their own committee as well, she said.

Bedford said the artwork on display should represent the artist as an individual, but it should also demonstrate the group’s talent as a whole.

The exhibition should “showcase their work to the best of their ability and also as a group,” she said. “It’s not meant to be a portfolio, though.”

The participating artists work with different mediums and have different specializations, including painting and drawing, sculpture, photography and printmaking, among others. They each have different styles that produce very different end results.

Danielle Thomas, a painting and drawing student, is inspired by “whatever the idea calls for,” she said.

Her section of the exhibition asks people to make a tool, take it home with them and videotape themselves using it. She hopes people will actually get involved.

“This is the first time I’ve ever done anything like this before. I’m interested to see if people are interested to participate in this kind of thing,” Thomas said of her hands-on work.

Thomas, who has a background in art education and ultimately hopes to teach, said she “likes to get people physically engaged.”

Rather than asking the audience to create something new, Julie Ward, a student specializing in sculpture, used old, unwanted items to create her art.

Ward’s sculptures are made of items she didn’t need anymore, along with a few pieces she found in a scrapyard.

“It’s all junk, stuff that no one wants,” Ward said. “Really, it’s the story behind the artwork.”
Despite the different styles and focuses each artist has, Bedford said there was something each piece had in common.

“We decided that after seeing the work, there was something that tied a lot of the work together,” Bedford said. “So much of it was very personal.”

Bedford chose the theme “Me and You and Everyone We Know” to sum up the exhibition as a whole based on the personal nature of the work, she said.

“Putting the title on it just sort of brought it together to take it past the point of just being a Master thesis show,” she said.

Bedford said she hopes the students are able to learn from the process behind the exhibition, but her ultimate goal is their happiness with the end result.

Once the artists finish their degrees and go on to begin their careers, they will take separate paths. Some, such as Thomas, hope to go on to teach. Some hope to show their work in galleries.

No matter what path they choose, their passion for art will follow them.

“All I know is I’m just gonna make stuff,” Ward said.

The exhibition will be at OSU’s Urban Arts Space through Thursday, May 21. The exhibition is open to everyone, and admission is free.