Mississippi State will host Epitome, an art display, starting Thursday, April 21 honoring 11 bachelor of fine arts degree students.  
   A reception will be held prior to the display from 5 to 6 p.m. on Thursday in the art gallery in McComas Hall and will continue in the Visual Arts Center from 6 to 7 p.m. at 808 University Drive. 
    From 12 to 4 p.m. Monday through Thursday, the McComas display will be open to the public, as well as from 12:30 to 5 p.m. on Monday through Thursday in the CAAD Visual Arts Center Gallery. The display will continue until April 28.
  Katye Drew, senior bachelor of fine arts with an emphasis in portrait painting, described Epitome as a project that “brings a lot of diversity to the table” with many artists such as mixed media artists, painters, ceramicists, sculpture artists and also a printmaker for the first time. 
   Drew said artwork can be from portraits, self-portraits figural, still life, ceramic vessels and installation ceramic pieces. The group has invented new ways to make art which is where the name Epitome originated. 
     Drew shared her path to becoming a fine arts major and how fulfilling it has been. She said she started out as a biology pre-med major and switched majors at the end of her freshman year, transferring to art. 
      “I’ve been so happy ever since Alex Bostic became my mentor,” Drew said.  “I’ve apprenticed under him, and he got me to start painting after school in addition to 15 hours of studio classes. So I painted portraits in addition to that, and every semester I’ve entered in the competitions.” 
She said this breakthrough taught Drew that portraiture is the route she desired to take. Later she chose to focus her thesis on females in male dominated careers.
  Drew, who will be graduating in May, shared her takeaways as a fine arts major and how it has affected her.
  “I think one of the strongest things I’ve learned as an art major is to not let views of the society sort of influence you and tell you not to follow your dreams,” Drew said. 
   Drew said that people belittle art majors and say they are going to be “starving artists.”
    “We are lively,” Drew said.  “We will prevail, and that is one of the strongest things I think that younger students in elementary school, middle school and high school need to know that there are jobs in the fine arts and careers.  We are not a dying breed. We are still alive.” 
 
 Drew said in order to be an art major you have to be very strong because there are a lot of people trying to “squash” you but if you persevere you can go through anything. 
    “I think it’s been a really good past four years,” Drew said. “It has been a breeze. I have really enjoyed it, and I figured out that this is where my heart was. My heart was in it the whole time, and it’s a great community, everyone here, once they decide they want to be art majors. It’s not an easy choice to make, and we really bond through the classes. It’s a very one-on-one environment. You get to know your teachers, you get to know everyone in your classroom and you get feedback on every piece that you make.” 
 Drew shared the significance of having to complete a senior project and how it will be influential to her future. 
     “It’s very important because it gives us a taste of what a real life exhibition would be like,” Drew said. “We go through all of the stages of deciding what body of work we want to do, completing that body of work with a committee, getting information back from them. They’re almost our clients, basically, except we get to decide the subject matter and the medium.” 
   All facets are completed in preparation for the exhibition, which according to Drew, is important because of the experience it provides. 
    “We really don’t get the one-on-one of being in galleries and putting on the show,” Drew said in describing all of the efforts as the “grunt” work.  “We do everything through the PR and down to ordering the food. We do every bit of it. We hang the pieces, we put the nails in the walls, we move the lights.” 
  Eric Jackson, student of fine art with an emphasis in sculpture, who previously obtained a bachelor of science degree in education in 1971 from Mississippi State, said the capstone project showcases an accumulation of the students’ work over the past four years.
     68-year-old Jackson has a had a long-time passion for art but spent many years in counseling and education. Through the years Jackson sought opportunities to satisfy his aspiration for art through drawing, painting, being involved with PTA fundraisers and creating paper mache sculptures for kids’ birthday parties but he chose other means to support his family.
    “After I retired, I decided that maybe I should go back in and actually become an artist,” Jackson said. “So I came back to Mississippi State and then studied art and will graduate this time.”
   Jackson, who returned to MSU in the fall of 2010, described why he decided on an emphasis in sculpture because of past experience. 
    
    
 
 “I chose the Sculpture because so much of my background in industrial education is related to shop equipment,” Jackson said. 
   Jackson was familiar with tools and processes, which is what led him toward Sculpture as opposed to other areas such as painting, drawing or ceramics. 
 Brent Funderburk and William L. Giles Distinguished professors in the Department of Art, teaches the senior thesis class. 
       “This class is a business class,” Funderburk said.  “It’s a class that deals with planning, running a schedule, professional behavior. It deals with graduate schools. It deals with how to write a resume or CV. The business of budget planning for artists and designers.”
Funderburk said that it is a two part thing, one part being a business class, which is like an entrepreneurial company where the students all have various tasks and offices. They both learn and teach each other in the group serving each other. The other class is the studio class, which is held with a faculty member. This class is made up of two semesters and gives them a studio space, which is rare to undergraduate programs. Funderburk said they have a faculty chair and a committee of three faculty members that is set up much like an MFA or PhD model.
    “A: that’s the best model and B: to be treated professionally because this is their first professional show,” Funderburk said. “There’s that two-fold way that they are taught, to be a good business person and to be a good creative person.” 
   Funderburk described the work that the students are doing tells a story about their lives.
     Epitome is an expression of the full body of work the students have created in three months, which Drew said is a dramatic and intense labor of creating art. 
Drew said in preparation for the display the students are all on strict time schedules.
    “We are journaling the whole time, sketching, putting our heart and souls into this. Spending ‘all-nighters’ in our studio,” Drew said and expressed gratitude for the studio providing space for students to work. 
    Drew said community was established, working alongside and encouraging fellow artists. She said they inspire each other to finish things and get the works framed and ready to hang and show. 
  “It’s gonna be a wonderful event, and I think it’s really gonna be a nice way to show off exactly what we’ve been up to,” Drew said. “Not a lot of people have gotten to see us because we’ve been so busy this semester so it will be a nice time to shine.”