As graduation rounds the corner, senior art majors are wrapping up their capstone projects on campus. After spending hours upon hours in the studio and preparing their artwork for installation, student artists are participating in the Festival of Scholars and Artists (FOSA) with their creations on display in the Hoffman Gallery. On Friday, April 11, the gallery doors opened to the public, showcasing the theses of 23 senior art majors, who , from 2-3:30 p.m. and 3:40-5:10 p.m., will present their work at “Artist Talks.” Interviews with four seniors shed light upon their reflections, memories, goals and experiences as they wrap up their final semester of creating art on the CAS campus.
Sophie Abbassian ’25 describes herself first and foremost as an illustrator, but she also plays the harp, belly dances and is involved with theater.
“I’ve explored all types of art, but I consider myself an illustrator,” Abbassian said. “I like storybook-style illustrations. I’ve created some for children’s books. I’m also interested in murals, so (my thesis) is a storybook and a mural together.”
Abbassian’s two-dimensional art piece comprises nine images on a 3×3 grid, all of which thread together a story relevant to LC’s past, present and future.
“The story being told is the history of the Rose Garden here at Lewis & Clark, which I’ve been restoring for the past four years,” Abbassian said. “I’ve found this great passion in restoring this garden, and when I first started this project, most students didn’t know this rose garden existed. It used to be a big part of the school. … and it’s just been left to decay.”
Initially, Abbassian planned to make an illustrated storybook of the Rose Garden’s history but pivoted her plans to create a larger-scale piece that could be displayed in Hoffman as part of the senior art majors’ capstone gallery. Abbassian pointed out how her canvas is split into three sections: past, present and future. The three images on the top row depict the garden in its glory, after its initial restoration in the 1940s. In the central image, a book with vines growing out of it represents the detailed garden plans left behind by Victor Creed, who first undertook the daunting task of restoring the Rose Garden to its original state with a group of volunteers who called themselves “the jungle fighters.”
“Up above it shows the garden flourishing and then down here is the underworld. It shows the chaos of what it was like, the jungle … all the overgrown vines,” Abbassian said.
In the center row of the mural, Abbassian depicts the “jungle fighters” working to tame the encroaching vines and the wild deer of the unkempt garden — in this present-day “underworld,” the garden is characterized by dark, contrasting colors and a foreboding sense of chaos.
“Down here we get to the present day where all of these deer — they love to snack on roses — basically encroached onto the Rose Garden and were blamed for its destruction, but it’s mostly because of budget problems,” Abbassian said. “Around ten years ago, they decided to decommission the Rose Garden, but they blamed it on the deer and not budget problems, so I showed them being comically evil with glowing eyes and attacking the roses … and then this is sort of the effect of the destruction, comparing Victor’s perfect garden with all the roses and what it looks like now.”
The final row of images depicts the present-day and future-oriented work of planting roses and restoring the space in alignment with Creed’s vision for the Rose Garden’s future.
“This is me trying to pull away the vines and revealing this story underneath,” Abbassian said as she pointed to the final image in the piece. “I wanted to do something really impactful, and you only get one senior art show, so I wanted to go all out.”
In the months to come, Abbassian plans to keep creating art in several different capacities.
“After graduation, I’ve got a book that I’m (working on) for an author … and a mural, and some pet portraits, so I’ve got a few months of work lined up for me, but I’m not exactly sure what I want to do yet,” Abbassian said. “Hopefully find another job at a gallery, or art store, art supply store, something like that.”
She spoke fondly about the art community at LC, highlighting how it allowed her creativity to expand from being a solitary process to a more communal one.
“Before Lewis & Clark, making art was always a really solitary practice,” Abbassian said. “I’ve met lots of friends who are also artists. We can bounce ideas off of each other and it’s chaotic the night before a big art project is due — everyone’s in the studio working together and helping each other and the energy of that is something that I will definitely miss.”
Abbassian’s long-term goal is to keep illustrating children’s books.
“One thing I’ve always dreamed of is continuing with my children’s book illustrations and one day having a library of books that I’ve illustrated to show my children and grandchildren,” she said. “Well, not a library. Maybe more like a shelf.”
Kincaid DeBell ’25, who is majoring in art and minoring in Middle Eastern & North African studies, specializes in sculpture and installation work. They described how the 3D art class requirement for their major led them to choose sculpting as their preferred medium.
Between their classes, their work as a sculpture monitor and the time spent working on projects outside of class, they spend approximately 25 hours a week in the studio.
“It’s like my second house,” DeBell said. “I’m a sculpture monitor … We watch the space and open tools and make sure everything’s cleaned up, no one’s cutting off fingers or hands.”
Their capstone project is just one of several art projects they are currently working on.
“My thesis is essentially a recreation of a forsythia bush that I had at my childhood home. I don’t live there anymore and haven’t lived there for a long time, but I remember as a kid that when it would snow out, I would crawl under the forsythia bush and make myself a little bed of snow and look up through the trees and all the branches, so I’m trying to recreate that memory,” DeBell said. “It’s kind of a false recreation because I’m looking at how we perceive memory through our current state and looking at childhood memories through all we’ve experienced now. It kind of alters them, and we’re never gonna quite get back to the purity or joy of that childhood state. So recreating it as best I can, understanding it’ll never be the same.”
The multimedia piece consists of bedding materials, felt, fabric, sticks, branches and machinery.
“I also have a small machine I’ve built, which will be used to project an image of falling snow onto the scene of the forsythia bush, so a lot of wood and plywood,” DeBell said.
They described how 3D art allows them to interact more meaningfully with their creations.
“I like 3D art because I can make it really big, and I can make it feel lived-in, if that makes sense,” DeBell said. “I think 3D art has a much better relationship to the body than 2D art for me. I can make it feel like a body, or not like a body, or have a relationship to the body in a way that I can’t with other forms.”
DeBell described how they were going to miss the instructors — Associate Professor of Art Jess Perlitz and 3D Technical Support Dylan Beck — and access to the studio after graduation.
“I think a big struggle for a lot of art majors postgrad, especially those of us who use studios, is not having access to these tools anymore, and having to work with what we have — which is also really fun and can be creative, but being like ‘Darn, I wish I could saw this thing right now.’ So I’ll miss the variety of access I have,” DeBell said. “I mean, we have so many different tools, it really allows for a lot of freedom in creativity and a lot of experimentation. If I have a goal in mind, I know that through this studio, I can always get to that goal.”
Postgrad, DeBell will be pursuing their master’s degree in art education at LC’s graduate school, along with a few friends.
“I’ll keep being an artist through teaching others how to be artists,” they said. “I’m hoping to be a high school teacher, and then outside that, I’ll continue my practice.”
DeBell subtly hinted at puppets emerging from their creative practice in the months to come.
“I’m not sure exactly what that’s gonna look like, but I’m trying to get more in touch with street art and political art and activism, and how street and community art can be really impactful in advocacy. So hopefully, this summer, my friends and I are gonna make some really big puppets. That’s the plan … It’s puppet summer, baby. Keep your eyes peeled.”
Will Merchant ’25, whose first art class at LC was Ceramics I, now specializes in ceramics and woodworking.
“It’s a total flow state thing, where you’re both working with the material and responding to it,” Merchant said. “I’ve connected wheel throwing and this specific type of wood carving back to my background in surfing, because it’s very integrated with the material, kind of the same way riding the wave works. I think there’s something really special about anything you can disappear into.”
Merchant’s capstone project — a wall-mounted construction of debarked branches and naturally-softened driftwood from the Oregon coast — navigates themes of mourning, grief and loss. The materials are entirely repurposed rather than harvested, either gathered from tree trimmings around campus or collected from existing driftwood on the seashore.
“It’s really come through a process of mourning and grief and loss, but on micro and macro scales,” Merchant said. “So thinking about the fleeting moment of us leaving college, or a huge death in the family. Everything from losing your keys to losing your mother … A big part of my thesis work is responding to making connections.”
In the weeks leading up to the opening at the Hoffman Gallery, Merchant spent, on average, four to six hours in the studio per day.
“A lot of the work, as funny as it is, to me at least, has been making wooden nails and then taking two pieces of driftwood and nailing them together,” Merchant said. “I’m basically debarking branches, and each of those takes an hour. Now I’ve got almost a hundred of them for the thesis show. That’s the cool thing about the program, is you can put in as much time as you want — you’ll get something out of working in the studio 10 hours a week and you’ll get something out of working in here 40 hours a week.”
Merchant shared that he would miss LC’s art community most after graduating.
“As we’re wrapping up thesis and starting to install our work in Hoffman for our show, it’s really just the community,” Merchant said. “That community is irreplaceable, so I’m really, really going to miss that, and I think it’s one of the greatest things about our tight-knit art major community.”
Once he graduates, Merchant hopes to integrate his creativity into more functional work before considering graduate school.
“There’s some programs that deal with more traditional woodworking, or building tiny homes is something I’ve been really jazzed about lately,” Merchant said. “Or landscape architecture, doing lawn furniture and building out porches. I’m really hoping to make things that can be integrated into people’s lives more than going into fine art right away.”
He plans to continue spending time in Portland throughout this next year but will simultaneously be taking steps to connect with his family and travel.
“I have a dream of going and studying in Norway for a year, starting in January, so who knows, but Portland’s definitely gonna be home forever in some way,” Merchant said.
Sam Starks ’25, whose art centers around painting and installation work, originally oscillated between an English major and a computer science major before settling on studio art.
“I took a painting class and really enjoyed it. I’ve been painting for a long time, since elementary school,” Starks said. “I kept painting, and then (realized) I should just accept it.”
Her capstone project consists of five canvas banners with hand-painted lettering, along with veils displaying language from emails sent out by the LC administration that will be hung on the statues outside of the Hoffman Gallery.
“I’m focusing on invisible ways the institution runs our lives … and so I’m looking into surveillance on campus, and how they’re putting up different cameras all over campus without any prior warning,” Starks said. “The cameras are CCTV cameras, so they see text in reverse. I’m making banners for students or faculty to hold in front of the cameras to talk to the people watching them.”
Starks hopes that her project will inspire her audience to consider their complicity in allowing institutions to make changes without notifying the public.
“I’m also making giant veils with words on them to hang over the statues that are outside the Hoffman Gallery,” Starks said. “It’s gonna be made out of different words that the administration has sent us through emails. Their vernacular and wording is not exactly what they’re saying. It’s meant to pacify us rather than activate us.”
Starks’ past projects have addressed similar themes. In the past few years, she has transitioned from painting to installation work.
“I made another installation about the school policy because I found out that the school policy can change at any time without any notice, and takes effect immediately … I was looking more into other things they can do without telling people,’” Starks said. “In my past (project)about the school policy, I printed out 200 pages of the 2024 school policy and compared it to the 2021 school policy, then I blacked out all the policy that was changed without our knowledge and hung it up so people could see how much as changed from our freshman year.”
Starks echoed sentiments about the value of the arts community at LC to her.
“All 23 of us are really in it together, and I really appreciate that. It’s really nice to come to the art building and know that I’m gonna have a community of people that wanna hear what I’m talking about and give me feedback on my art,” Starks said. “When I leave, I’m gonna miss coming here and running into people. You could just grab anyone and ask them for their opinion on your art and they’ll give you an honest answer. I’m gonna miss that community.”
Starks shared that she has been spending five to six hours in the arts studio every day as their thesis deadline approaches.
“I was here a couple days ago, at midnight,” Starks said, “and I was walking around the building and was like ‘Yep, all of the thesis people are just here, grinding.’”
Starks hopes to balance her own creative work with arts education work postgrad.
“I’m planning on staying in Portland for a year or so after I graduate, and planning on getting into arts education,” Starks said. “I’m looking at summer opportunities where I can be a studio assistant, manager, and it’s mostly in places where it’s an art school, and kids do art. I really want to have an arts job and then I wanna have my art studio on the side, so I can do both at the same time.”
Starks is looking forward to seeing the community engage with her art once the Hoffman Gallery opens its doors to the public.
“My work invites people to participate. I’m allow(ing) people to take (the banners) off the wall and bring them around campus to hold in front of different security cameras, so I’m excited for people to start interacting with my work,” Starks said. “Right now, it’s just here in my studio, so I wanna see it in motion. I’m really excited for that.”
The Hoffman Gallery showcasing this year’s 23 senior art majors’ capstone projects will be open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., from April 11 to May 10.
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