What's in Store for Dickinson's Fall Senior Studio Art Exhibition
Photo by Dan Loh.
Monthlong exhibition opens Nov. 19
Every autumn, Goodyear Studios buzzes with anticipation as senior-year studio art majors wind up for their midyear joint exhibition. This year is certainly no exception. “It’s definitely been busy,” says Sarah Coates '26, one of seven studio art majors in the class of 2026. “We’ve been frantically getting things together in time for the show.”
The 2025 midyear exhibition will open Nov. 19, with a reception from 5:30 to 7 p.m. in the Goodyear Gallery (Cedar Street entrance). It is the first of two joint exhibitions they'll present during their senior year.
Two Exhibitions, One Goal
The first exhibition, held in the Goodyear Gallery toward the end of the fall semester, is an opportunity to sharpen professional skills and test-run works in progress. The second one, coming to the Trout Gallery this spring, is their final exhibition as Dickinson students and the culminating event of their art major careers.
Both exhibitions are key requirements for Dickinson’s yearlong studio art senior seminar, bringing the students together to discuss readings, give and receive feedback on new and evolving works and plan and design the joint exhibitions. They also co-create a full-color exhibition catalogue.
Throughout, the students benefit from individualized critiques from every studio art professor and from every professional artist who visits campus during their senior year. They also take part in departmental excursions to galleries and museums in nearby major cities. This fall, thanks to funding provided through the Griffith Fund for Humanistic Teaching & Inquiry and the Center for Teaching, Learning & Scholarship, the students spent a weekend in NYC, visiting the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and more than 30 galleries and emerged with new ideas and inspiration for the big project under way.
Enjoying the Ride
Izzy Enrique ’26, a double major in studio art and environmental studies, explores her passion for American tattoo style and culture—and her experiences as a woman and an aspiring tattoo artist—in her work, using a thick-nubbed calligraphy pen, acrylic ink, colored pencils and traditional tattooing techniques, such as spit shading. She’s enjoying the ride. “Having the freedom to create how I want has been amazing,” Enrique says. “And the sense of community within the seminar group is really strong. Everyone is supportive and wants each other to succeed.”
“We’re all such different people, and we have very different ideas. That’s a good thing,” says Coates, who researches 17th- and 18th-century ceramics practices and creates historically informed glazes, which she applies to her own ceramic works.
Professor of Art Todd Arsenault ‘99 agrees. “They all have such distinctive interests and goals, and it’s been exciting to watch their work evolve and change over a short period of time as they each work hard to develop their own voices,” he says.
The midyear exhibition will run Nov. 19 through Dec. 13. The Goodyear Gallery's hours are Tuesday through Friday, 3-5 p.m., and Saturday, 2-5 p.m.
View more fall 2025 exhibitions and upcoming public arts events.
TAKE THE NEXT STEPS
Published November 17, 2025