Wayfarers: Senior art exhibit looks forward to launching into life

Home Culture Wayfarers: Senior art exhibit looks forward to launching into life

On Monday, this semester’s only senior art exhibit will open in Sage’s Daughtrey Art Gallery.

The exhibit, titled “Wayfarers,” is a collaboration between long-time friends, housemates, and art accomplices Maggy Smith and Kittie Helmick.

“We’ve been friends pretty much the entire four years and have been living together for three… yeah, three because I slept on your couch,” Smith said to Helmick as they laughed together.

Helmick explained that the title of the exhibit has a duel meaning.

“‘Wayfarers’ is about traveling,” she said. “As seniors we are about to embark, and then in a larger way, Maggy and I, our faith is very important to us, and we see ourselves as travelers on this world.”

Smith and Helmick will each have about 20 pieces on display composed of a wide assortment of media from all four years of their art studies.

“I know both Maggy and Kittie – I’ve known them since freshman year,” junior Faith Lamb said. “Maggy has a couple of illustrations she’s done for graphic novels so I’m really excited to see those. And Kittie has a couple of black and white photographs that are really great.”

Smith’s work includes, “sculpture, a lot of graphic design, a painting, and several drawings. I do a lot of different things,” she said. “I see myself as a renaissance man within the artist sphere.”

Although she deals in numerous mediums, Smith’s true passion is for graphic novels. As an art and English double major, she is well suited for the art form. Smith participated in a year-long independent study with Professors Brad Birzer and Sam Knecht studying the art of creating a graphic novel.

The results of this and other personal studies will be on display in the exhibit. Of particular interest is a five-page graphic short story which Smith has been putting together gradually for the last two years as well as three sets of comic strips recreating her waking hours on Feb. 1 of the past three years.

Helmick’s work focuses on charcoal drawing and digital photography.

“I love portraiture so a lot of my photos and drawings will be portraits,” she said.

Like Smith, Helmick has spent a great deal of time outside of studio classes working on her artwork.

“I did an unofficial independent study of studio portraiture last spring,” she said. “I had a lot of friends come into the studio with me and I practiced with the studio lights.”

Helmick said that a defining feature of her work is its local subject matter.

“So many of the pieces are about friends or related to friends and because of the heavy emphasis on portraiture there will be students who people will recognize from being around the college.”

After next semester, Smith hopes to pursue an MFA in Creative Writing at Notre Dame. Helmick, a Spanish minor, will be awaiting news regarding a possible Fulbright scholarship to do photography in Ecuador.

“Wayfarers” will be on display in the Sage Center for the Arts from Nov. 17 to 24. The reception for Smith and Helmick will take place at the gallery from 2 to 4 p.m. on Nov. 23 and will feature live music performed by Smith’s bother, Ian Smith.