Molly Bender has always been the occasional doodler, and at Â鶹ӳ»´«Ã½ she was able to feed her artistic bug when she took a painting class to fulfill a credit requirement.<\/p>\n
She found her artistic voice when she was finally able to apply paint to canvas.<\/p>\n
Two years later and with the guidance of Carla Poindexter, her mentoring professor and associate director of art at Â鶹ӳ»´«Ã½, senior Molly Bender will graduate this semester with a B.F.A. in studio art, specializing in painting.<\/p>\n
After graduation, Bender wants to make a career out of painting.<\/p>\n
Senior painting major, Jessica De Salvo said she respects the struggle in the paint strokes found in Bender’s paintings.<\/p>\n
“What I mean by struggling in her strokes is that when an artist has made a stroke and decided she didn’t want it anymore, she goes back over it with another layer of paint,” De Salvo said. “It’s always good to see a struggle in a painting, because you know that the artist is putting a lot of thought in their piece of work.”<\/p>\n
Poindexter said the Â鶹ӳ»´«Ã½ Art Department aims to get art students in a good graduate program, and help students develop a series of related work that shows skillful rendering and application.<\/p>\n
“It’s really important to help students find their visual voice, and that is what Molly is attempting to do,” Poindexter said. “Plus, we try to prepare them professionally for the art world; to guide them in an understanding of contemporary issues, and we prepare them to speak and write about their work.”<\/p>\n