Christopher Center Library

Maiah Deogracias, The People Are the Place. Digital Illustration, 2020.

  • As I sat in my home during quarantine, increasingly aware of the looming weight of the pandemic, I missed leaving my house. Not only just leaving the house in general, but leaving to go on adventures. Leaving to see things that I’d never seen before; experiences I’d never experienced before. My spirits were especially crushed when I found out that my symphony orchestra trip to perform at Carnegie Hall in New York City was indeed cancelled like much of my last semester of senior year of high school. I had been looking forward to this trip since the previous fall when our performance of “Mars” and “Pines of Rome” allowed us to qualify for participating in a festival at Carnegie. New York City had always been on my bucket list, and our itinerary for the trip was going to cover all the NYC sights to see. However, upon further thought, I realized that even if I had been able to travel and see all the hotspots of a big city, I would not have been fully experiencing the place during this time of the pandemic. The streets would not have been bustling and teeming with life. The energy and dynamism of walking on the street would have been nonexistent. The people of the city, the people that are the city, would not have been out. Everyone was trapped in quarantine. So I look forward now to the day when I can go out again and experience not just the buildings and structures of a city, but the entire place itself. The people that are the place. In order to convey the people in this piece, I have incorporated two different types of silhouettes: solid and outlined. The people shown as repeating outlines convey the movement that existed no longer due to the pandemic. The solid silhouettes are meant to convey people who were in the present time quarantined. They no longer take to the streets as they once had. The place is no longer what it was because the people are no longer where they were.

Zion Gifford, BAILEAD. Paper collage, bells acrylic paint, 2022

  • The preservation of folklore is an important duty. Stories need to be retold, stoked, sung, and fed. This piece shares scenes from three ballads from the Scottish Borders.

    A scene from Thomas the Rhymer is told at the bottom of the canvas: after sealing the deal with a kiss, the King of Elfland whisks the mortal Thomas the Rhymer away to serve him for seven years in Elfland. A scene from The Elfin Knight is told by the outer figures connected by bells: after hearing an elfin knight in the distance play her horn, a mortal woman wishes the knight would take her as her wife. Finally, a scene from Tam Lin is told by the figures encircled by the bells: to save their lover, Tam Lin, from their fairy captors, the mortal Janet must hold onto them as they are transformed by the fairies into various animals and objects.

    If you would like to hear the rest of these stories, I encourage you to listen to modern renditions of their ballads using the internet. We are connected across time and space through the stories we tell and make our own.

Maiah Deogracias, The Future is Now. Digital Illustration, 2022

  • As a college student, I, like countless others here at Valpo, have the future on my mind quite a lot. Whether it is something in the near future, like my plans for the upcoming weekend or a looming project deadline, or, something further out like graduation, the future is a constant concern for me. In high school, I felt that nearly everything I did was in preparation for my future as a college student: get good grades to go to a good university, get involved to stand out in a college application, apply to the correct number of schools so you have options and back-up plans. Now that I am attending college, it is a similar cycle: get good grades to go to that stellar graduate school, create a top-tier resume to get hired, grades aren’t everything, so make all the connections you can to help you later down the road. For most in college, including myself, the thinking of the future stimulates emotions of excitement and anticipation, but simultaneously, anxiety and a daunting lack of control. There is an overwhelming sense that all that the future brings will be affected by what we decide to do right now. In this piece, I sought to create a piece that encapsulated my sentiment towards the future: an intriguing but so intimidating mystery.

Maiah Deogracias, Spinny Chair. Giclee print, 2023

  • As a student of the arts, it becomes very clear that there is a distinction between our classrooms and those of our peer counterparts; whether that be the student art hanging on the wall, equipment and materials, or oftentimes a still life set-up or some sort of model arranged in the center of the room. Every space is individualized by the objects and furniture it possesses, however, this is especially true in regards to places where art is made. When I had my Drawing and 2D/3D studio classes in Valpo’s Art and Psychology building, I remember my favorite part about that place was how it had become claimed over time by art. Originally serving as an engineering building, it was clear that it had become a space for students to express themselves. It was a place where we could explore ideas, execute visions, and be inspired by our colleagues. I remember specifically loving a little painted, green skeleton on a filing cabinet I had stumbled upon. In our new studio space housed within the campus’ Center for the Arts, I captured our swivel chairs equipped for allowing students to create work sitting at the tall easels or desks. While the swiveling is functional for movement to create with liberty, it also is reminiscent of how students are able to turn any which way to collaborate and bounce ideas off one another, an integral part of the creative process. Not only did I want to show the fun “spinny” aspect of these chairs, but also draw a piece of furniture specific to a space dedicated to art making.

Zion Gifford, Bide Lady Bide. Printed collage, 2023

  • Bide, lady, Bide tells the story of The Two Magicians, a ballad from Scotland and England. A blacksmith threatens to take the virginity of a maiden. She turns into various forms to evade him, and he becomes complementary forms to catch up to her. A drake to her duck, a greyhound to her hare, and a saddle to her mare. The ballad can be playful, with the maiden playing coy, or it can be more seriously a depiction of sexual violence. In some versions the maiden escapes the blacksmith: becoming a fox before he can change from a hen, or becoming a bright shooting star after he becomes a shadow on the moon. In other versions, however, she is caught: she a bed and he a bedcover, or she a corpse and he the clay smothering her.

Zion Gifford, VHARE. Printed collage, 2024

  • The middle VHS-C of VHARE’s body, “Pact maker”, was an original linocut print of my own creation. Professor Sarah Jantzi tasked me with letting go of how precious I found the original and completely alter the work and its context. I went all out with its transformation; I knew that if I tried to just make a “better” or “different” version of the original I would only miss what it used to be. The background is composed of genuine magnetic tape, sourced from an evangelical Christian VHS.

    Death and Change are inexorable: nunc est bibendum, nunc pede libero pulsanda tellus.