Schaffer's installations debunk the perpetrated myths of trans people.

Last month, Cleveland Institute of Art (CIA) graduating seniors’ capstone projects were displayed throughout the University Circle campus. The public was invited to view and engage with students during the year-end show during graduation weekend in early May.

More than 112 senior capstone projects were featured in concentrations that range from animation, illustration, and drawing to design and specialty interests like glass, industrial design, interior architecture, life sciences illustration, to jewelry-metals, photography and filmmaking, and other disciplines.

O'Brient's feminized glass objects defy the male-dominated craft of Venetian glassblowingSix graduating seniors who earned the President’s Traveling Scholarship were the highlights of the show. Chosen from a group of 20 participants, the winners were awarded travel money grants to “dive deeper into their creative process.”

The six scholarship winners were: glass major Annie O’Brien; interior architecture major Ashley DeRuvo; sculpture + expanded media major Casey Wehrman; printmaking major Gwen Putz; drawing and painting double major James Schaffer; and drawing major Jazzee Rozier.

Annie O’Brien
O’Brien’s glass work display of feminized objects focuses on breaking the male-dominated craft of Venetian glassblowing that favors men by following the path of the pioneering women of the American Studio Glass Movement through “breaking the glass goblet and creating a space for women investigating Venetian craft.”

Ashley DeRuvo
DeRuvo’s Interior Architecture capstone project focuses on design for modern sustainable domestic architecture, “helping people to find balance and peace in a digital world.” Homes are designed as a sanctuary with a focus on sustainability, integration, biophilia, and self-sufficiency. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater is featured as an excellent example of how architecture and nature connect through indoor-outdoor spaces. DeRuvo created designs for a sustainable community named Eden Haven in Portland Oregon that envision ecofriendly living.

Casey Wehrman
Wehrman’s “Still Life: Now Now Now,” a naturalistic sculpture installation of “insect cocoons, rhizomatic fungi, and other natural elements” is playful with repeating elements with organic patterns. This whimsical work offers viewers an opportunity to give themselves over to a soft and strange experience. Viewers are transported into a world of fibrous webs, honeycomb growths, coils, and cocoons bringing a sense of connectedness.

Images assembled into visual poetry evoke Rozier's feelings on vulnerability and trauma.Gwen Putz
Putz presents an exhibit space of handmade prints that explores her familial heritage in the non-existent country of Karelia. The prints grapple with the past and present through the labor of “creating textile, intaglio, and text-based works.” Traditions, culture, and generations of family history are preserved through storytelling by incorporating photos memorializing loved ones sacrifices.

James Schaffer
Schaffer’s “Plausible Histories” queer narrative captures the past and present in an archive of the artist’s understanding of “trans people and their experiences.” Reworked objects from childhood are incorporated into the visual experience. Oil paintings, embroidery, prints, drawings, and vitrines draw the viewer into the artist’s life “where time is non-linear.” The perpetrated myths of trans people are debunked in this thought-provoking installation.

Jazzee Rozier
Rozier’s body of work in her capstone project “Tragic Optimism” is a visual collection of “vibrant colors, handwritten text, patterns, and shapes.” Images are assembled into visual poetry evoking the artists feelings on vulnerability and trauma.