The members include: Arlene Acevedo, Alexis Carter, Tiahna Sterling and Aline Vasquez Martinez. The musicians have been together as a group since high school and their musical talent strengthened alongside their friendship. The name Recap comes from the idea of “recapping the memories and accomplishments we have achieved together.” Along with representing friendship, they hope to inspire people to pursue their goals and dreams.

New College’s educational experience encourages students to follow their passions and even combine them at times. Recap is a perfect example of how to combine several passions, and the success that can follow.

Acevedo is a 21-year-old student at Middlesex County College, working toward a career as a dental hygienist. Carter is a 21-year-old student at Rutgers University, pursuing a career as a physician’s assistant in plastic surgery. Sterling is a 20-year-old student at Montclair State University, studying music therapy and psychology. Martinez is 21 and working toward a business law career.

The group’s debut album, Count to Five, was released in 2021 and has been on NPR’s Top 10 “Classical Albums of the Year” and “Top 100 Songs of the Year” lists. The group represents the ability to choose to follow your dreams, and the idea that one should not be limited to a future following a singular interest. There is room in life to take both paths.

Speaking of dreams, that’s exactly what the performance felt like. The stage and performers were highlighted in pink and blue. The choreographed movements and the music that followed created a hauntingly beautiful scene that repeated throughout the show. The group captured the audience’s attention immediately and held it for the rest of the performance.

The songs performed included Hold by Lainie Fefferman, Moving Through Fog by Hannah Boissonneault, Hammers by Allison Loggins-Hull, by the time we look for it by Jenny Beck, Count to Five by Angélica Negrón, moi toute seule by Mahak Sadeghzadeh, and Drip by Sage Shurman. This includes several “found percussion” pieces, where the instruments used are nontraditional. For example, Recap used wine glasses, fans, newspaper, playing cards, chairs and bubble wrap. The result was intriguing and beautiful music that piqued the listeners’ curiosity. The creativity used for the group’s music was inspirational.

When asked about advice they would give students studying music with similar goals, the musicians said to never give up and don’t listen to people discouraging you. They are truly a group that will go far in the music industry and encourage others to follow their example.

New Music New College has several performances coming up:

Learn more about Recap Quartet on Instagram and Spotify.

Learn more and purchase tickets for New Music New College (free to attend with NCF ID, artist conversations are free to all): ncf.edu/nmnc

The environmental studies and anthropology student will join the French component of the African Flagship Language Initiative (AFLI), applying the scholarship funds from the competitive award (up to $25,000) to intensive language study and immersion in Dakar.

“Four months of this kind of immersion will really shake up my perspectives on life, a career, my goals, and whatever I may think I understand now,” Bolesh said, adding that he will also participate in domestic language study with the program this summer prior to his trip overseas. “Also, I eventually want to do the Peace Corps and/or go to grad school outside the states, so this is a critical stepping stone to get out of my comfort zone.”

The AFLI French Program, sponsored by the National Security Education Program, is a special initiative of the Boren Awards for International Study. The summer program is administered by the University of Florida, while the overseas portion is overseen by the American Councils for International Education. Abroad, scholars participate in intensive small group language instruction (in class and conversational sessions) with language partners in a range of settings.

“Boren scholarships provide funds to U.S. undergraduate students to study abroad in areas of the world that are critical to U.S. interests and underrepresented in study abroad,” said Duane H. Smith, Ph.D., a scholarship adviser and assistant director of career education for the Center for Career Engagement and Opportunity (CEO) at New College. “Central to the student’s international study experience is the study of a critical need language—in this case, the study of French in an African francophone country.”

Previous New College of Florida Boren scholarship (undergraduate-level award) recipients included: Val Bacharach (Estonia, 1995), Scot Kirksey (Indonesia, 1998), Isabella Cibelli du Terroil (Azerbaijan, 2020), and Alana Swartz (Japan, 2020). In 2021, Hailey Greeney McGleam received a Boren Fellowship (graduate-level award) to support her participation in the Johns-Hopkins-Nanjing Center program, which was held in Taiwan this past year.

Bolesh (who is originally from Flackville, New York), worked alongside a team at New College to secure the Boren scholarship. Assisting him were Smith; Associate Professor of Anthropology Erin Dean, Ph.D.; Professor of French and Gender Studies Amy Reid, Ph.D.; and Assistant Director of Off Campus Study/Study Abroad Florence Zamsky, Ph.D.

It was Dean who gave Bolesh the book Garbage Citizenship: Vital Infrastructures of Labor in Dakar, Senegal (Duke University Press, 2018), which provided him with the tools to write a captivating essay for the Boren application.

“I believe that the solutions being employed by the Dakarois and, by extension, the Sénégalais, are critical to understand (for waste management in general),” said Bolesh, who transferred to New College as a sophomore from Clarkson School/University. “These past three semesters at New College have been nothing short of transformational for me, and—using what I’ve learned from the Boren program—I wish to eventually institute a bio-digestion system here at New College for my thesis.”

For more information on the Boren awards, visit borenawards.org.

Click here for more information on Study Abroad & Exchange Programs.

Abby Weingarten is the senior editor in the Office of Communications & Marketing.

When we first meet this group of four parents and the school principal in Jonathan Spector’s “Eureka Day” at Asolo Repertory Theatre, they’re discussing whether the ethnic identity categories on the school’s website are inclusive enough, or potentially exclusive.

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They all seem so content, yet the smiles are often tight, subtly betraying their true feelings, which will give way as the school erupts in a mumps epidemic that creates a deepening rift on how best to handle things. Should the school require parents to have their children vaccinated, or should it be more tolerant of different points of view?

The committee only moves forward through consensus, but that’s going to be difficult this time. And just wait until they open up the conversation to the full school community in a virtual meeting, where parents use the online chat system to insult, taunt and humiliate one another.

Spector, a New College of Florida graduate, wrote this play in 2017, well before the coronavirus pandemic erupted, causing more than a million deaths in the U.S. and dividing our nation politically.

It’s a comedic drama that pokes fun at the efforts for understanding, compassion and acceptance, but dig a little (not too far) and you’ll see the hatred and racism emerge through name-calling and more that can turn a meeting into a battlefield.

On one level Spector’s script seems prescient in the way he wrote about all the conflicting issues we have dealt with during the COVID pandemic. On the other, these Eureka Day meetings pale in dramatic comparison to the fireworks that erupt regularly at Sarasota County School Board meetings, which have generated some national attention.

“Eureka Day” may not be as dramatic as the real thing, but it is certainly more entertaining, even as it makes you think and sometimes squirm about points of view that contrast with your own.

The production is set in the school library, inventively designed by Riw Rakkulchon in the school’s orange and purple colors, with curved benches, bookshelves and some visual surprises.

Director Bianca Laverne Jones allows for a casual build-up of emotions during the introductory part of the play. The characters may get a little testy at first, but a deep breath gets them all centered again. You might appreciate the way some of the characters fumble around for the right word choices as they desperately try not to offend anyone.

The group is led by Paul Slade Smith, the milquetoast principal, who likes to quote the poet Rumi while searching for calm and rationality. He is easily flustered by some of the stronger personalities around him, particularly the president Suzanne, the bouncy tennis-loving mother played by Anne Bowles, who exudes confidence as long as the agreements go her way. That’s why she casts a wary eye on Jasmine Bracey as Carina, the newest committee member, a Black woman who recently moved from Maryland. She says a lot with facial reactions and cut-off phrases that are never quite completed.

The cast also includes Chris Amos as the wealthy Eli (he must be some kind of tech wiz), whose personal life becomes central to the story, and Celia Mei Rubin as Meiko, who is open and friendly at the start but becomes more withdrawn as the play goes on. The cast works well together with a grounded, believable quality. And we feel we know them a bit more through the costumes by Devario D. Simmons.

At times, Spector’s script competes with itself with overlapping conversations or the way the often hilarious chat comments take us away from committee debate. I wanted to take in all of it. But the play also turns a light on all of us, how we behave and how we respond to information when we can’t agree on the basic facts. It gives us something to contemplate in an entertaining format.

Read the full story here.

Spector graduated from New College of Florida in 2001 with a bachelor’s degree in theatre and literature, and his well-rounded academic trajectory ultimately helped him pursue his creative path.

To share these insights with students, Spector is giving two on-campus talks—one about Eureka Day and another about theatre careers—at 1 and 2 p.m. Fri. May 13 in the Black Box Theater. Both discussions are sponsored by the Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies area of concentration at New College.

“There is no career path in playwriting; it’s not even a career in any real sense, even for those of us making a living at it. This means that anyone who has had any success has carved their own idiosyncratic path,” said Spector, who now lives in Oakland, California. “This isn’t unique to writing. I see and admire it in so many of my New College alum friends who have been out in the world doing remarkable things over the past two decades. Nobody was following a map. They were all just stumbling forward in pursuit of what was meaningful to them.”

What was meaningful to Spector was storytelling, and that is evident in Eureka Day, which will be featured until June 4 at the Asolo Rep under the direction of Bianca LaVerne Jones. A New York Times Critic’s Pick, the play’s premise is as follows:

“An illness is spreading through the progressive and painstakingly accepting Eureka Day School—and it’s more than the mumps. When the outbreak threatens to become an epidemic, it’s a race to see what will destroy this community first: the disease or each other. Despite the safe-space mentality, gluten-free scones from the local bakery, and open marriages that have moved beyond monogamy, secrets and lies still run rampant and childhood vaccinations ignite fury. An explosive comedy that skewers sanctimony and the nature of our politics, Eureka Day asks: When does ‘us’ become ‘them’?”

To delve further into this story, New College offered a dynamic dramaturgy workshop for students (with staff from the Asolo Rep) on April 25.

In the workshop, students collaborated with professional theatre artists to take a closer look at one of the scenes from Eureka Day, while actively discussing the major themes of the script and the production. The workshop was taught by Lauren Jackson (assistant director for Eureka Day), Elizabeth Guilbert (education coordinator and dramaturg for the Asolo Rep’s touring show), and Gaby Rodriguez (a community engagement associate).

Eureka Day is just one part of Spector’s playwriting portfolio, which also includes This Much I Know, Best Available, In From The Cold, Siesta Key., and Good. Better. Best. Bested. Spector is a recipient of the Will Glickman Award, the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award and the Rella Lossy Award. He is a Playwrights’ Center core writer, a MacDowell fellow, an Ingram New Works fellow, an Ithaca College New Voices fellow, and a Playwrights Foundation resident playwright alum.

On returning to Sarasota and seeing Eureka Day take the stage in his college town, Spector said: “It’s wild and very moving. Asolo was the first place I encountered professional theatre artists. I was the assistant director for a play in the conservatory my last year at New College, so it’s thrilling to come back and see a play of mine on that same stage.”

It is equally thrilling for Spector to return to his alma mater as a mentor and speaker. He recalls the mentorship he received while he was a student—working closely with late professors John McDiarmid and John Moore.

“John McDiarmid always brought a rigorous critical inquiry to work, and John Moore had this overwhelmingly boisterous enthusiasm for intellectual ideas (both are crucial for an artist, as the process of creation is very much a constant toggling back and forth between these two poles),” Spector said. “But, if I’m being fully honest, I learned more from my fellow students than I did from any professor or class.”

In Spector’s opinion, New College is a prime institution for nurturing creative types, and he is proof.

“It reminds me of this line from Annie Dillard’s wonderful book, The Writing Life: ‘A writer looking for subjects asks not what he loves best, but what only he alone loves at all,’” Spector said. “New College was the rare place that insisted you find the thing that you alone love, and pursue it relentlessly.”

For more information on Eureka Day, visit asolorep.org/events/detail/eurekaday.

Abby Weingarten is the senior editor in the Office of Communications & Marketing.

Prescott sent me an email listing six different schools in the EcoLeague consortium’s exchange program that I could attend, and New College caught my eye. I never thought I would go far away for college. I was content to be what we Arizonans call a “desert rat” indefinitely.

But New College—with its writing and environmental studies classes, plus the location of the campus on Sarasota Bay—was too good of an opportunity to pass up for a landlocked girl like me.

EcoLeague lined up everything. And, as if I needed another reason to seal the deal, my sister (an aspiring marine biologist) wanted to go on exchange to New College, too!

I’m currently double majoring in writing and literature, and environmental studies. I want my writing to be fun but relevant, like C.S. Lewis or Octavia E. Butler.

After college, I hope to work in the publishing field and eventually be a novelist or content strategist. My classes this semester connect directly to my goals of producing creative, engaging writing in genres from business to fictional fantasy.

My “Writing with Communities and Nonprofits” class with Director of Writing Jennifer Wells, Ph.D. teaches me about networking, as well as how to write resumes, grant proposals and blogs. I’m in my fourth year of college and have never been in such a practical class; it even connected me to an internship with New College’s very own news team.

My “Poetry Recess” class with Visiting Assistant Professor of Creative Writing Emily Carr, Ph.D. meets in the grass at The Ringling Museum of Art every week. I got to sit under a banyan tree last week with a fellow classmate as we did a workshop for our poetry. I am getting college credit for writing poetry in a magical circus reality (10/10 recommend).

My “Pedagogy in Practice” class with Assistant Director of Writing Alexandra Maass teaches me how to share my writing and English skills. Class time is full of discussions and learning how to be a writing tutor. Soon, I’ll get to be a Student Writing Assistant (SWA) in training for the Writing Resource Center. I’ve heard the SWAs are super swa[ggy], so I’m pretty excited.

In my “Analysis of Manatee Mortality Events” class with Assistant Professor of Biology and Marine Science Athena Rycyk, Ph.D., we are learning about the extent of the impact that 1,000-plus manatee deaths will have on the manatee population. We get to have Zoom lectures with leading researchers in the field who are working with manatees. After being trained on what to look for in a starving, freezing manatee, we examine drone footage to identify possible problem cases in the wild. I’ve never taken such a relevant course.

I came to Florida to experience the East Coast. All of my previous studies have taken place in the Sonoran Desert region and the Gulf of California at Prescott’s Kino Bay Center.

The Florida palm trees and moss dangling from the leaves are foreign to me. The Sailing Club along New College’s waterfront has helped me get my feet wet. On day one, I was in the water, taking my role as skipper very seriously. I truly couldn’t believe they let me navigate the boat on the first day, but they did. Now I have a new hobby that makes me sound infinitely cool and lets me see marine life up close.

Participating in EcoLeague has allowed me to experience the beautiful culture of Florida and greatly expand my knowledge in my field. The program is open to all students at New College.

There are six U.S. liberal arts colleges currently participating in the EcoLeague consortium: New College, Alaska Pacific University, College of the Atlantic, Dickinson College, Northland College and Prescott College.

“New College students have exchanged at almost all the [EcoLeague] campuses,” said Florence Zamsky, Ph.D., the assistant director of off-campus study/study abroad programs (as well as the EcoLeague coordinator) for New College.

In the 2021-2022 academic year, two New College students went away on exchange and five have already been accepted for the 2022 Fall program, Zamsky said. New College joined the program in Spring 2019.

This spring, New College has its first set of visiting EcoLeague exchange students: my sister and I from Prescott College; and a student from Dickinson College.

Zamsky highly recommends the program to students. Not only do students get to live in a different state, but they also gain access to new courses and hands-on learning opportunities, all while paying New College tuition.

I hope one day you—my new friends and those of you reading this—will choose Prescott College for a semester. Maybe I’ll see you there.

For more information on exchange programs at New College, visit ncf.edu/academics/study-abroad-exchange-programs.

Abigail Juchs is an intern in the Office of Communications & Marketing.

Every spring, the event brings together professional authors, artists and activists who are producing revolutionary work—work that inspires New College students to use their own creativity in groundbreaking ways. This year, the “Finding Your True Purpose”-themed festival will be held from March 8 to 16, both on the New College campus and in the local community.

“Our ambition is to radically re-envision creative writing beyond its disciplinary bounds and situate it within a larger social context of work, writing and literacy in action,” said Emily Carr, Ph.D., a visiting assistant professor of creative writing at New College and the festival’s founder.

This re-envisioning is done by showcasing the way individuals in writing-adjacent fields (from editors and librarians to tarot readers and podcast hosts) apply their skills to a broad array of careers. For 2022, the featured festival artists are Michelle Tea, a post-punk performance poet who explores class, queer identity and feminism in her writing; and Cristy C.Road, a Cuban-American artist who expresses herself through illustration, storytelling and punk rock.

“Michelle and Cristy really exemplify what it means to be artists, activists and role models in today’s world,” Carr said. “They role model not just making rad, amazing, revolutionary art, but also creating radical, revolutionary community with art making as the catalyst. That’s what this year’s festival is all about—using art as a catalyst to generate revolutionary activism, connection and personal change. And all of that is going to happen across all of the festival events this year.”

Support for the festival is provided by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the New College Gender Studies Program, and the event sponsor is the Creative Writing Area of Concentration at New College.

This year’s events include:

Character Café

Noon to 4 p.m. Tues. March 8 on the Cook Hall lawn

An immersive, interactive theatrical experiment featuring New College students—inspired by the cosplay cafés of Japan. Collaborate with student actors who have been training under the guidance of New College student Kyla Hunter, who is hosting the café as part of her thesis.

Null Set Launch

5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Tues. March 8 in Hamilton Classroom 8

A brand-new online emporium featuring creative work by New College students and alumni.

Tiny Impossible Truths: An I Scream Social

6 to 7:30 p.m. Thurs. March 10 at the Payne Park Amphitheater

Student authors will channel their timely anger into meaningful literary performances. Learn life-changing truths from student poets from New College and Booker Middle School Teacher Joanna Fox’s Dragonfly Café.

Following Your True Purpose, Featuring Michelle Tea and Cristy C.Road

7 to 8:30 p.m. Mon. March 14 in Hamilton Classroom 8

Join queer memoirist, post-punk performance artist and tarot reader Michelle Tea; and punk musician, tarot artist and zine author Cristy C. Road in a conversation about art making, magic, spirituality, being a misfit, paying the bills, tapping into your intuition and following your true purpose (which is to make, create and relate)! This talk-show-style event is for dreamers, disruptors and creatives of all stripes.

Queer Memoir Workshop with Michelle Tea 

9 to 11 a.m. Tues. March 15 in the Cook Hall lobby

Draw inspiration from existing queer memoirs and memoirists to create story leads and new material. Learn crafting tips and troubleshoot issues unique to queer memoir. Tea will be available to answer questions and share her experience in queer memoir—from beginning a project to promoting a published work.

Queering the Tarot with Cristy C.Road

Noon to 2 p.m. Tues. March 15 in the Cook Hall lobby

Cristy Road Carrera is the author and illustrator of the Next World Tarot—a deck designed to demystify traditional norms associated with the tarot (both visually and historically). Often seen through images of European nobility, class structure, patriarchy and white supremacy, the tarot remains a tool that existed long before colonization (as ancient civilizations developed divination rituals with tangible objects—from sea shells to paper goods). Learn new spreads and ways of identifying with the tarot’s abilities. As the goal of the Next World Tarot was to be a battle cry of the unheard, this workshop will shine light on the unheard powers of the tarot.

Finding Your True Purpose Redux with Professor Emily Carr, Ph.D. 

2:30 to 3:45 p.m. Tues. March 15 in the Black Box Theater

So often, we attend festivals and then we just go our own ways—what an energetic letdown after so much creativity and inspiration! This event is an opportunity to connect informally, share and process experiences, and plan next steps. What are you going to go out and create? What are you inspired to do, to make? Join this inspired conversation about art making and risk taking. 

To learn more about “Words in Action,” visit ncf.edu/event/words-in-action.

Abby Weingarten is the senior editor in the Office of Communications & Marketing.

It is an opportunity to share scholarly perspectives and find intellectual camaraderie. The conversations are fascinating, for sure, but not only to academics in specific subfields.

Hundreds of attendees come from numerous countries and disciplines. Some industry experts travel from across the globe. Others are simply lifelong learners who live in Sarasota-Manatee. This year, they will congregate from Thurs. March 3 to Sun. March 5, both in person and virtually.

“For a lot of people in our field, this conference is the reason people have heard of New College,” said New College Professor of Medieval and Renaissance History Carrie Beneš, Ph.D., who co-chaired the 22^nd event with Professor of English and Theater & Performance Studies Nova Myhill, Ph.D. “They look forward to it every two years [although it was canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic].”

One of the largest regular conferences in the southeastern United States, the New College Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Studies is internationally recognized as a preeminent venue for researchers. Three full days of panels will cover European and Mediterranean history, literature, art and religion from the fourth to the 17^th centuries.

“The conference prides itself on creating a collegial atmosphere that is conducive to developing intellectual community,” Myhill said. “And we’re so glad to be a part of recreating some of the personal and academic connections that the pandemic disrupted.”

While there has often been a misconception that this conference is akin to a “medieval fair” (it is not), there is more to it than a roster of speakers and lectures. The turkey legs and jousting matches may be absent, but there is still plenty of entertainment (including associated performances of literature works and medieval music, and tours of The Ringling Museum of Art).

Beneš and Myhill have been co-organizing the event since 2006, and the amount of preparation involved is enormous. The two painstakingly organize the lineup, making sure the topics do not overlap at concurrent times, and that the program is sufficiently varied content-wise. They seek out dynamic speakers who not only have compelling research to share but who can share it in such a way that it is digestible to various listeners.

Several of the presenters come from surrounding institutions like the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee and Ringling College of Art and Design, and multiple New College professors will be presenting.

“It’s a great way to try out ideas for books and papers you’re working on, for grad students to share dissertation ideas, and for students to meet the authors they read in class,” Beneš said.

There will be 45 panels involving more than 150 speakers, three performances, and plenary lectures by three leading scholars. Jonathan Phillips, Ph.D., “Writing the History of Saladin”; and Mary Floyd-Wilson, Ph.D., “The Habitation of Airy Nothings,” will serve as the usual two keynote talks.

But the 2022 Conference is also hosting the annual meeting of the Dante Society of America, whose chosen theme is “Dante and the Global Middle Ages,” with a plenary by the Jamaican poet laureate Lorna Goodison, Ph.D., called “Dante, Between Dread and Hope.” Goodison’s talk on Saturday evening is being co-sponsored by the Conference, the Dante Society of America and New College’s Black History Month celebration.

Anyone (academic or non-academic, anywhere in the world) can pay a virtual-only registration fee of $25 for Zoom access to the entire conference. The three plenary lectures will be livestreamed for free on New College’s YouTube channel, too.

“We’re running the conference in a hybrid format this year to accommodate both those who are very enthusiastic about resuming in-person conferences after two years on Zoom and those who prefer to participate remotely,” Myhill said. “We hope the hybrid format will allow people to attend the conference who might otherwise not be able to.”

For more information on the conference, visit newcollegeconference.org/2022-program and newcollegeconference.org/registration/virtual-access.

Abby Weingarten is the senior editor in the Office of Communications & Marketing.

From Yahoo News, February 6, 2022

SOUTH BEND — An art exhibit with eight pieces at the South Bend Museum of Art explores how digital art and the reliance on technology alters our experience of the world. On display through April 3, it draws on works by seven artists, titled “Enmeshed: Our Changing Relationship With Space and Time in a World of Digital Interdependence.”

It’s organized by Thomas Cornell, teaching scholar in the art, art history and design department at the University of Notre Dame. Among the pieces:

A large digital print, “Agriiborz,” created in 2009 by European artist Nick Ervinck, looks like a 3D tangle of black and gold arteries, but you get the mixed sense of a cyborg, plants and animals.

Read the entire article here.

Black representation in art is deeply meaningful to New College of Florida third-year student Precious Darling. So, when her digital collage was selected for the local Visions in Black exhibition, she harnessed the opportunity to share the spotlight with other emerging artists of color.

“This exhibit is important to me because, up until now, I’ve been resigned to believing that the color of my skin is the reason my work will be sidelined by museums and exhibitions,” said Darling, who is studying art and humanities at New College. “African Americans have been a stable contributor to visual arts and culture for years. This exhibition allows us to get recognition along with those artists before us and future artists who will see this exhibition and be inspired and unafraid to make their art.”

The exhibition, focusing on the theme of “Black Identity in the Arts: Generational Perspectives,” is juried by the Suncoast Black Arts Collaborative (SBAC) and open to the public at Art Center Sarasota. It launched on January 27 and continues throughout all of Black History Month and until March 5, with more than two dozen works to view.

Darling’s piece in the show, Unearthed Feeling, features highly saturated photos of Black men, documents, and a woman of a religious stature. In her work, Darling “practices conceptual and 3-D art principles that meditate on the feminine body and queer intimacy,” she said.

She is among several Visions in Black contributors from area higher education institutions (such as Ringling College of Art and Design and the University of South Florida), as well as other artists of African descent who reside in Florida.

The SBAC, a nonprofit organization founded by Michéle Des Verney Redwine, consistently advocates for exposure of African-American artists and artists of African descent throughout the greater Sarasota-Manatee region. The organization also provides educational forums and symposia to expose residents, visitors and students to the work of these artists. The Visions in Black exhibition is sponsored by a grant from the Gulf Coast Community Foundation with financial support from the Cordelia Lee Battie Foundation.

Darling produced her piece for the exhibition during a collage course at New College in Fall 2020.

“I’m proud to see Precious feature her work alongside such a talented group of artists, and to be part of this important community arts group,” said New College Professor of Art Kim Anderson. “The exhibition looks incredible and it is an honor to see New College represented in this show.”

For Darling, studying art at New College continues to be a creatively liberating experience.

“What I enjoy most about the art program here at New College is that it doesn’t confine or force me to one path of self-expression and communication,” Darling said. “There is a plethora of opportunities for me to explore various mediums and alter them to best fit me and my work.”

For more information on the Visions in Black exhibit, visit suncoastblackartscollaborative.org/2022-visions-in-black.

For more information on the art program at New College, visit ncf.edu/programs/art

Abby Weingarten is the senior editor in the Office of Communications & Marketing.