Day 84 - Another Inspiring Artist Alumni Day - George Ratkevich - BPS Fine Arts Coordinator

This post originally appeared on Ms. Chang's Blog 

Alumni Artist Day 2015
Report by George Ratkevich

Thanks go out to all the alumni who showed up for our seventh annual Alumni Artist Day. On Friday, January 9, 2015, the Burlington High School Art Department hosted the event from 7:30 am until 2 pm.  For the past seven years, the Burlington High School Art Department has welcomed back former students to discuss their careers as artists. Alumni in college talked about their experiences at art school and shared their portfolios, senior college students talked about how they were preparing to enter the workforce, and alumni who are working as designers, artists, and architects shared their experiences and day-to-day activities at their jobs.

All the high school’s art students attended the event during their art periods. They learned about careers in the arts and had a chance to ask questions of the alumni. As often happens at the event, in addition to connecting alumni with current students, this year’s Alumni Artist Day brought opportunities for alumni to network.

Christoforo Magliozzi (BHS Class of 2007), Principal Researcher and Project Coordinator at the metaLAB at Harvard University, is also a director, cinematographer, and editor. Cris showed his documentary film, Cold Storage. Cold Storage will premiere locally alongside ( “in dialogue with”) French director Alan Resnais’ 1956 documentary, All the World’s Memory, which served as an inspiration and from which much of the narration in Chris’ film is derived. The film will premiere on February 2 in Piper Auditorium at Harvard University, but our students were treated to a first glimpse. The premiere at Harvard will also debut its accompanying interactive web-based media archive as well. The premiere is being held in conjunction with an exhibition called Icons of Knowledge at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, which looks at the history of national library buildings through models, murals, and drawings. Students asked about Chris’ previous experience at the White House, where he served on a film crew. Chris’ work can be viewed at cristoforomagliozzi.com and at metalab.harvard.edu.

Chris Coe (BHS Class of 2013) spoke to Burlington students several times throughout the day, sharing his experiences as a freelance photographer and as a sophomore at Rochester Institute of Technology, where his focus is advertising photography. His portfolio can be viewed at chriscoephoto.com. Chris assured us that he would be attending every Alumni Artist Day for the next thirty years.

Rachel Faller (BHS Class of 2004) used video conferencing through Google Hangout to speak to our classes. She spoke to us from her home in San Francisco, where she recently moved to further develop her international business. Rachel is the owner and founder of Tonle Zero Waste Fashion (www.tonledesign.com), and she shared her experiences as a creative and an entrepreneur. Press on Tonle can be found at The Chic Ecologist (http://www.thechicecologist.com/2014/10/tonle-fashion/) and Ecouterre (http://www.ecouterre.com/cambodias-largest-ethical-apparel-brand-employs-zero-waste-principles/), among other sites. Rachel is a graduate of Maryland Institute College of Art who had focused on textiles.

Rachel's talk with BHS can be viewed below:

Other presenters at the event included: 
Dan Barrera (BHS Class of 2013), a sophomore at Becker College focusing on Interactive Media and Game Design; 

Elizabeth Johnson, a senior at Framingham State studying Fashion Merchandising;

Daniel Fitzpatrick (BHS Class of 2003), a graduate of Rhode Island School of Design working as the User Experience Developer at Smashfly Technologies;

Gamuchirai Dhliwayo (BHS Class of 2013), in her sophomore year at Massachusetts College of Art and Design majoring in Graphic Design; 

Anesu Dhliwayo, a graduate of the Boston Architectural College. She is a designer at LAB (labarchitecturegroup.com) who is working toward becoming a registered architect; 

Jen Vachon, a graduate of Syracuse University working in architectural design at Isgenuity,

Michael Guleserian, a freshman at Lasell College majoring in graphic design and working as a freelance graphic designer of logos

Marissa Cote (BHS Class of 2013), who shared the experiences of her sophomore year at School of the Art Institute of Technology (SAIC)

The common thread throughout the day was the gratitude that the alumni had for Burlington High School and all that the art department has to offer. Alumni told the current students numerous times " you are so fortunate to have the resources that you have in the BHS Art Department!"