Meet the Graduating Class

Jason Luo 
BFA

Hometown: Wuhan, China

Three words that describe you: Positive, inventive, kind

What’s your most memorable moment at SAIC? The most memorable moment would have to be the retreat I went on as part of the resident advisor (RA) training. We spent two fun-filled days at a beautiful resort in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. It was an incredible opportunity for all RAs and professional staff to relax and bond after a lengthy training.

What’s something you learned at SAIC? SAIC gives artists freedom when it comes to disciplines. I did not expect that I could focus on filmmaking while studying new media and technology on the side. 

What was your favorite class, or who was your favorite teacher? I like many teachers in the Film, Video, New Media, and Animation department. If I had to pick a favorite, it would be Jerzy Rose (BFA 2008). He is very creative and patient when it comes to teaching, and he gave me lots of amazing advice.

What inspires you? Hearing a touching story, seeing a beautiful view, or imagining the future. 

What’s one sentence that describes your work? I use modern tools and technology to explore the narrative world that could be in the past, the present, or the future. 

What advice would you give to incoming students? If you feel lost about your art, focus, pay attention to the first-year core studio, and connect with your professors. The core studio class will give you opportunities to explore different practices, and your professor may offer you great advice on moving forward.

Hugo Ivan Juarez
MFA

Hometown: Dallas, Texas

What are three words that describe you? Tepetlapanec, amequense, parkie

What’s your most memorable moment at SAIC? Orientation Day, when I explored as many spaces as I could and reveled in the gift of this new world.

What’s something you learned at SAIC? Art is the most powerful thing we can do.

What was your favorite class, or who was your favorite teacher? Present Tensions: Future Practice with Frances Whitehead. It truly was a once-in-a-lifetime class that trained my sensibilities as an artist. 

What inspires you? The land and every person that I meet.

What’s one sentence that describes your work? Relational experiences that collaborate with materials and performativity. 

What advice would you give to incoming students? Do as much as you can to find your people as soon as possible.
_{Photo: @5mportraits}

Anna Olson
MA

Hometown: St. Louis, Missouri

What are three words that describe you? Dependable, empathetic, genuine

What’s your most memorable moment at SAIC? I enjoyed attending many in-person guest lectures before the pandemic including Nikole Hannah-Jones, Diedrick Brackens, and Jeffrey Gibson (BFA 1995). Also, it’s been wonderful working with and getting to know staff in Student Affairs and Residence Life!

What’s something you learned at SAIC? I’ve grown a lot in my abilities to understand and critically examine the field of art therapy and counseling, my identities and privileges, and my connections with mad studies and the mad movement.

What was your favorite class, or who was your favorite teacher? I had so many fantastic professors and courses in the Art Therapy and Counseling department, including Katharine Houpt (MAAT 2011), Leah Gipson (MAAT 2010), Katie Kamholz (MAAT 2004), Eva Marxen, and Savneet Talwar, to name just a few. One class I’d like to shout out is Introduction to Mad Studies: Beyond Deviance and Pathology with Katie O’Neill (MFA 2019).

What inspires you? Mad activists and artists, taking walks, textiles, and resilience. 

What’s one sentence that describes your work? My weavings and watercolors explore self-reflexivity, mental health, and memory; my practice as an art therapist and counselor-in-training includes destigmatization, empowerment, and collective care. 

What advice would you give to incoming students? Engage with the SAIC community (attend events! Find an on-campus position!), get to know Google Calendar well, and connect with your amazing peers and professors.

Eden Sanders (Eden’s Apple)
BFA

Hometown: Washington, DC

What are three words that describe you? Colorful, flamboyant, effervescent (Alternately: sour patch kid)

What’s your most memorable moment at SAIC? When my Sophomore Seminar professor sat down with me one-on-one and told me she found my work exciting. She described it back to me with such a deep understanding of what my art is about that it became the basis of how I explain it to other people.

What’s something you learned at SAIC? You should go look at art if you want to make some. You don’t know all the work that’s out there. Why I make art, the importance of an artist community, that being an artist is a viable career and having a 9-to-5 job isn’t the only way to have stability. My job doesn’t have to be something I love. My practice is what I love. And, I think, most importantly, I learned the struggle and joy of making work without external validation, believing your work is worth it, and that I should demand the attention others have taught me to only ever ask for. None of that is easy, but they’re goals I’ve learned to aspire to and how to work toward.

What was your favorite class, or who was your favorite teacher? In no particular order: Judith Brotman (BFA 1989, MFA 1994), Jerry Bleem (MFA 1992), and Jade Yumang (Fiber and Material Studies); Josh Rios (BA 2013, Contemporary Practices), Kristi McGuire, Joseph Grigely, and Karen Morris (Visual and Critical Studies); Sara Black (Sculpture); and Kathryn Schaffer (Liberal Arts). All of the classes with these teachers were immensely formative for me as an artist and just as a person. If you’re reading this and your name is listed above, each of your classes has left me with something I carry with me everyday. Entirely because you taught me.

What inspires you? Random things: garbage I see on the street, squiggly lines I draw in my sketchbook that turn into people, all the things I've collected over the years, art I don’t understand and find intimidating, being trans, the glory of failure and self resurrection, and people I'll never meet but hear stories of.

What’s one sentence that describes your work? A friend once described my work in critique as always being recognizable, not by any visual style, but because of the tenderness and attractive yet disgusting rawness of it. 

What advice would you give to incoming students? There’s this huge culture shock that I think most of us go through when we come here. For many of us we get to finally be surrounded by people who are just like us, and that can be really intimidating. None of this is easy, but take that discomfort as carte-blanche permission to expand infinitely outward. Decide to be more yourself than you’ve ever allowed yourself to be before, and then suddenly everything’s fine. No one’s going to think twice about you doing or being your most unfiltered accurate self. ■

Illustrations by Sydney Kamuda