A little fashion, a little flavor, a little flair, a pinch of this, a pinch of that. 

The first Artstravaganza, held inside and outside of the Richmond Art Center (RAC) on Wednesday, May 21, spotlighted the work of students this spring, ranging from paintings, drawings, prints, and ceramics to interactive games created by 3D Fabrication students and work by the Video and Animation class. 

Inside the RAC, Ellen Chen’s Senior Project — “The Muse Pinwheel: An Homage to the Arts at Loomis” —  was on display. So, too, was the permanent installation of senior Christine Wu, “Through Whose Eyes?,” which she created for her Loomis Chaffee Global & Environmental Studies Certificate (GESC) capstone project and the College-Level Art Seminar. The installation, says Christine, in part explores what we see and why in conversations about race. 

The event also featured “From Suit to Slice,” a collaboration among Graphic Design and Sculpture I students.   

Students from Sculpture I designed sound suits inspired by Nick Cave, known for his wearable fabric sculptures that hide gender, race, and class and force the viewer to look at the work without judgment.  

“Our students have drawn from Cave’s vision creating collaborative pieces that explore identity and expression through movement, material, and imagination,’ said Visual Arts teacher Melanie Carr. “We hope these works spark conversation, reflection, and joy.” 

Graphic design students, taught by Visual Arts Department Head Ro Clark ’97, took the sketches and ideas of the sound suits and created cake designs that connected to the costumes in some way. They created three-dimensional cake toppers and designed the bodies of the cakes with their own graphic representations of what they understood from the sketches. Each team — a student in the sound suit and a student explaining the cake design — paraded around the patio area of the RAC. Another student brought out each cake. 

One graphic design student described his collaboration with another from the sculpture class this way: “Fuzzy, stringy and full of personality, [the sound suit] looks like something wild, right out of a creature feature. That sparked my idea for a cake, a pink monster with a big mouth, fluffy texture, and playful details that mirror the chaotic energy of [the] design. I chose vanilla cake because it is classic and clean, which balances the wild and whimsical exterior. Together our creation celebrates texture, color, and the thought of bringing monsters to life in totally different forms, one in fabric and one in frosting.” 

Another collaboration included a student in a hockey costume sound suit. Yet another emerged in a sound suit that looked like a lamp. Each of the 17 groups lit up the runway.