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Senior Thesis Exhibition

May 12 - June 30, 2017

Featuring BFA Candidates


Samantha Adair Edward Taylor
Alex Anderson Shelby Thompson
Heather Moremen Jennifer Williams
Brittney Rice Lauren Young
Anthony Sweeney
Spalding Huff Gallery
Library
& Huff
Gallery

Third Street
PARKING

848
Gallery
849 Gallery
CONTENTS
Senior Thesis

3 Samantha Adair
5 Alex Anderson
7 Heather Moremen
9 Brittney Rice
11 Anthony Sweeney
13 Edward Taylor
15 Shelby Thompson
17 Jennifer Williams
19 Lauren Young

21 ArtsMatch

23 About KyCAD

2017
S A
A D
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Artist Bio
Sam Adair (b. 1993) works in the medium of oil painting and explores
the relationship between memory and reality by using personal items,
memories and colors to create an intimacy that is felt by the viewer.
Reflective and translucent items such as bottles, mirrors and windows
consistently show up in her paintings. By applying paint and then
sanding down parts throughout working, Sam lets the toned canvas stay
exposed in the final product, bringing attention to the fact that these
are paintings and not illusions. Her work has been included in exhibitions
across Louisville including the Kentucky Museum of Art and Crafts, The
Huff Gallery, and the 849 Gallery building at KyCAD.

Artist Statement
This series of paintings is an accumulation of items, memories and colors
that are in my world. The glimmering, bubbly, vibrant, transparencies
that come from looking into and through water have always captivated
me. My father worked at a koi fish store and built fish ponds years ago
and we had a little fishpond in our back yard along with countless fish
tanks and aquariums.

The bottles, fishbowl, yarn and cloth that are in my paintings are all things
that I have collectively hoarded throughout my five years of undergrad
and I have painted them all countless times. I am enthralled with these
delicate, transparent and luminous surfaces that draw me to the way
that light is refracted subtly yet vibrantly through the glass bottles on to
the different colored cloths.
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I am attached to solid compressible items in my paintings, such as the
bottles, mirrors and draped fabric that push, pull and break up the
space. I am interested in the colors, sizes, lengths and textures that
branches and vines can have while they move through a space almost
unpredictably and irrationally.

This physical sensation is expressed when combined with memories that


I have gathered throughout my time with these paintings. On a recent
trip to the woods I hiked through enormous trees that made me feel very
young and small in comparison. The fish bowl painting evolved in a local
park while sitting on a tree branch that juts out horizontally while other
branches hung down and encased me in the tree. My inspection and
recreation of these memories along with the forms around me create
an intimacy that is shared by the viewer. I am exploring the relationship
between reality and memory.

Pushing the boundaries of painting is a difficult challenge today. Having


all of the basics, oil and a canvas, Im trying to do something that has
been done for centuries while also trying to make something new and
exciting for me. I have been influenced by painters such as Matisse, who
used color for the foundation of decorative and expressive painting and
believed that color should be thought, dreamed, imagined, Gauguins
strange constructed landscapes with figures, Cecily Brown, who works
with breaking down forms in an abstract way, and the exposed canvas in
Manets work.

Process is important in excavating unrealized memories. I tone the


canvas with a bright orange and use that strategically so that parts of
the first thin layer of the canvas are still exposed in the final project. I am
drawn to painting over old paintings because it give me a foundation to
build upon. Throughout the process of making these works I will often
use sandpaper to sand out parts that I dont like, mistakes, or parts that I
want to sink into the canvas more. Sanding gives my painting a texture that
I use to create space and base color to paint over. Instead of building the
paint up, I am digging into the layers. This reductive process is liberating
and allows me to move on without getting too attached to a certain
spot. Some parts might seem unfinished and I want these parts to bring
attention to the fact that these are actually paintings about painting.
I want the viewer to be conscious that it is a painting rather than an
illusion and that this process and experience of painting is relevant to
its final outcome.

These paintings are an accumulation of items, memories and colors that
make up my world and make me a painter.
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A
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Artist Bio
Alex Anderson (b. 1994) is an emerging fine artist and graphic
designer based in Louisville, KY. She has worked with multiple
clients from a variety of industries from restaurants to non-
profit organizations doing graphic design work and utilizes an
assortment of media and software to create art unconfined
by specific form. Her art is influenced by artists such as
Yayoi Kusama, Rosa Menkman, and Robert Mapplethorpe,
and in her work, she examines the connection between
technology, humanity, marginalization, and identity.

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Artist Statement
Computers are a staple and almost a necessity in our quickly
growing world; most people own an array of devices, each
with access to the near-infinite database of information.
Yet, through these devices, theres also a disconnect. These
devices that we rely so much on and see as perfect and
accurate degrade and make mistakes, and eventually it
manifests itself in a glitch. These scattered moments are
seen with confusion, curiosity, anger, or in some cases
even violence. We grow contempt for these devices for
performing outside of the role we have given them.

This is not dissimilar from our societal views towards people.


We assign roles to each person and establish a binary of
what one can and cannot do or be. If a human falls out of
this binary, we share both fascination and disgust towards
what we deem a defect. We see them as less than human
and treat them as such. Much like glitches, these humans
exist as a perceived chaotic event in an ordered universe.

In my work, I use unconventional methods such as


sonification, datamoshing, and other computer glitches to
explore this narrative between humans and technology. In
my work, I explore the double standard of the transgender
woman as both the object of lust and an abomination,
the dehumanization of marginalized groups, and the
obsolescence and grieving for technology. My work brings
materiality to our conversation with technology, its effect
on our perception of reality, the metaphor of technology
and its connection to identity, and creates a new reality in
which the chaos established is from the individual within the
boundaries of society.

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H
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M
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Artist Bio
Heather Moremen is currently a BFA candidate in General Fine Arts
with a concentration in Pre-Art Therapy at the Kentucky College
of Art and Design at Spalding University. Prior to her education
in fine arts, Heather was driven by her passion for beauty to
earn her license in Esthetics from the Kentucky State Board of
Hairdressers and Cosmetologists. As the shallow superficiality of
the cosmetic industry began to weigh on her, Moremen sought an
objective way to explore the concept of commercial beauty and
its impact on the consumer. Moremens work has been included
in exhibited at the Huff Gallery in Louisville, KY, as well as the 849
Gallery in Louisville. Born and raised in Louisville, Moremen is a
mixed media artist with an eye for aesthetics and a passion for
unusual materials and processes.
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Artist Statement
Prior to pursuing my degree in Fine Arts, I received my
license in Esthetics, aspiring to enter a career field in which
I could help clients embrace their inner beauty by making
them feel beautiful on the outside. Instead I found myself
in a position where I was encouraged to prey on my clients
insecurity and broken sense of self in order to sell products.
I was not affirming anyones inner beauty; I was reinforcing
their flawed self-image and offering a chemical compound
as a solution.

In a recent study Dove surveyed 6,400 women ages 18-64
from five cities around the world (San Francisco, Shanghai,
Delhi, London, and So Paolo) on their ideas about beauty.
While 80 percent believed that there is something beautiful
about all women, only 4 percent would use the term
beautiful to describe themselves. This is no doubt the
result of media and advertising bombarding us with images
of flawless people living enviable lives, making our realities
seem bleak and our appearances flawed. As an artist, I
believe it isimperative to critique this dominant aesthetic
model and the consumer beauty culture that perpetuates
this idyllic standard.

My current work explores the damaging impact of the
commercial cosmetic industry and the products it endorses,
on our bodies and our sense of self. I use cotton canvas
drop cloth to represent the textured and imperfect surface
of skin. The frames limit the scope of the canvas, just as
consumer culture structures and constrains our ideas about
beauty. In lieu of paint, caustic chemicals and cosmetic
products draw our attention to the grotesque price the
beauty industry demands, offering to conceal what it often
physically and psychologically damages.

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BRITTNEY RICE

Artist Bio
Brittney Rice (b.1995) is a painter whose current work pushes the
boundaries of traditional landscape painting. By integrating natural
forms with abnormal abstractions, she examines various overlooked
aspects of nature through her own memory. Brittney has exhibited her
work locally at Sothebys Realty, as well as the 849 Gallery. She recently
completed an internship at the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft, and
is currently a 2017 BFA candidate at the Kentucky College of Art and
Design at Spalding University, in Louisville, KY - where she resides.

Artist Statement
As the world moves around us, many things are overlooked we do not
stop to gaze toward the sky, through the trees, or into the water to
appreciate many everyday occurrences. In this day and age, life seems
to be moving swifter than in years past.

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As I have grown older, my recollections of nature seem to be enhanced.
I can still remember watching the airshow as a child; the fluidity of
the planes spiraling motion would often place me into a state of
transcendence. The feeling of the wind blowing through my hair and
the warmth of the sun kissing my cheek only intensified this feeling.
Throughout my life, memories like these have embolden me, strengthen
my inner being and even brought life to new ideas.

Just as memories evolve over time, so do the landscapes within them


- some landscapes become unrecognizable, maybe the opposite of
what we remember in the past. My memories help me to acknowledge
this change over time, and enhance my awareness of the world around
me. I believe at some point in life dreams and memories from an early
age begin to intertwine, blending into one another, creating memory
illusions. I am inspired by my childhood memories of nature, which now
seem almost dream-like, entering my mind subconsciously. Therefore, I
wish to bring my memories and experiences to life by painting an ever-
changing world where reality and the surreal coexist through an altered
landscape, intensifying, exaggerating, and intimately abstracting forms
found in nature. This feeling of transcendence into unknown nature can
be quite sublime and my work embellishes this metaphysical state of
being where organic forms develop into abnormal fields of curiosity.

Through my work, I push the limits of traditional landscape painting and


environmental boundaries. My artwork exhibits my experiences in nature
and the artistic interpretations that enter my mind like a vision. With my
large display, I question how the world and our memories would appear
if natural forms were manipulated, enlarged, and their color intensified.
From a distance, many forms in nature appear ordinary, but up close
these forms become thought-provoking and mysterious. Through
intuition I use trees as a reference to this curiosity. A poet named Rainer
Rilke once said that trees are magnificent, but even more magnificent
is the sublime and moving space between them, as though with their
growth it too increased.

While I have used a variety of art materials, I lean toward painting


because of the organic mark a brush leaves behind. My process involves
starting a painting with a vibrant acrylic layer, to later be covered in
multiple layers of oil paint. Just as nature evolves, so do my paintings.
The simple touch of a brush to a canvas can change the whole picture
and transform the way we think about life. My work not only encourages
viewers to question their own environmental reality but to create their
own transcendent journey.

10
ANTHONY SWEENEY

Artist Bio

Anthony Sweeney (b.1993) is an abstract artist who values the


subject and form of reusable objects and raw contemporary
forms of color combined in his work. He has exhibited his artwork
in a series of restaurants and galleries in Louisville, Kentucky. He
has worked with many charity events involving children and fairs
such as the Simpsonville Festival, Forecastle Music Festival, and
with Louisville Visual Art. Recently he has done work involving
photography and paint as well as making prints on wood.

Anthony is currently finishing his years at KyCAD and is going to


pursue a teaching degree. He also plans to continue his pursuit
of construction through learning new and interesting ways to
develop his artwork.

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Artist Statement
Has there ever been a risk that made you want to go the extra mile
and correctly dispose of your garbage? I feel that the risk in my
work is using photography, but then modifying the photograph
with paint and pastel, using these various media. My idea is to
introduce a layered interest into a mixed media piece by showing
a contemporary art style and the prehistoric era before our
digital age. We are the generation that is used to throwing things
away. I want my work to represent the ending of this disposable
era through the use of photography, paint, and pastel. My work
deeply emphasizes the color gradient scale and the use of
depth that inhabits certain spaces. The passion I put toward my
work is expressed through my tenacity in not only finding new
and creative ways to explore the areas that work well with each
other, but in the sense of touch, smell, and other senses. Using
the images I collect, I try to find which work opposes throwaway
culture; this is done by reclaiming and finding beauty in the
unique qualities and colors that both appear as well as disguise
themselves within the work. The amount of over accumulation of
art I throw into these pieces is the endless supply of continued
disposal our culture creates, while trying to display a new view
into the mixed media of paint and pastel. I see this piece almost
like a landscape from above; when the light shines on some of the
focal points of the work it creates a shift between the layers. Not
all the layers are the same; some are ripped during installation to
invoke a different sense of space, or context into the process.
These pieces are all research and studies that I have worked
on for hours. Vilde Rolfsen is one of the artists whose work has
inspired me to use such transparent objects and view these
images as a reflection. These mixed media can be visualized and
pushed into a physical world to explore the detailed cohesions of
my interest between space and color. When you we use plastic
bags every week we end up using about 100 billion annually in the
United States for the process of this piece I was able to salvage
56 plastic bags for the use of these pieces.

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E
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Artist Bio
-BFA Candidacy in Interdisciplinary Sculpture at the Kentucky
College of Art + Design at Spalding University

Edward Taylor (b.1994) is a Queer Filipino/American Artist born


in Japan. Taylors main artistic media are sculpture, installation,
performance and fashion design. Taylors visual art practices
focuses on the mainstreaming of non-binary gender expression
through collaborating popular consumer culture with the fantasies
of Drag culture. Also experienced in fashion design, Taylor has
been shown on runways at the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft
in 2013, 2014, 2016 and 2017. He has also been featured in the
Louisville Bespoke Fashion Show in the fall of 2016, and will be
featured in the spring of 2017. He currently resides in Louisville,
Kentucky.

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Artist Statement
Ive recently developed a series of sculptures, installation
and performances that provide interactive experiences
for my audience. My artistic vision is one that defines a
contemporary approach to understanding gender expression
of this millennium. I point out the blatant stereotypical
masculine personas, celebrities branding their own essence,
and how sex sells products within advertising. My current
body of work is based on a capitalistic approach of
mainstreaming non-binary gender expression. I critique the
consumer culture in its continuous desire to want artificial
products, such as fragrances. I do this by using the history of
public relations selling products through the insecurities of
the consumers, reversing this outcome by providing a space
of normality for a new demographic.

I want to redefine gender as being the way we express


masculinity, femininity and the in-betweennot simply by
the sex that we are born into. As a gay person, I find the
way that society defines all people, either with feminine
attributes as female, and masculine attributes as male,
to be objectionable. I firmly believe in the freedom to
express ones gender without having to be associated with
one sex or the other, but simply viewed as an individual. I
want my audience to simultaneously be entertained and
educated about non-binary gender expression through the
art form known as Drag. Evangalique is my drag persona who
has become a spokesperson that champions the freedom
of gender expression for all. They define the essentials of
consumerism as a way of living, using the constant drive for
materialistic items of popular culture to educate on a non-
binary approach to gender expression so that consumers,
who identify as such, can gain a sense of normality.

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S
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Artist Bio
Shelby Thompson (b. 1993) is a visual artist researching time-based
experience, the utility of time, and how it is powered. She has exhibited
her work in the Huff Gallery, the 849 Gallery, and a permanent piece in
the library at Spalding University.

Shelby has taught basic painting lessons to a first grade class for Lincoln
Elementary.

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Artist Statement
Time and money are both artificial measurements that mark out the
spaces of our lives. In March 2017, I traveled to New York City, where I
started the Freed Money Project. I felt that our dollar had been taken
for granted, so I decided to give my own two cents on the bill. I invested
my time by tagging FREE MONEY on every dollar I spent. The Freed
Money Project has become more than just a tagline on a dollar bill but a
way of engaging people in a conversation about monetary value.

Starting with ten 100 dollar bills and 1000 FREE MONEY stickers, I
tagged all the bills I received in change while in New York City for nine
days. I wanted the receivers of my bills to look twice at what was being
used to pay, creating a more valued experience with visual appeal
added to the currency, which helps involve the community by a series
of transactions. For example, a person who deals with money daily will
realize immediately the defacing of the currency while someone else
who enjoys the artistic addition might personally value the bill more. As
of now, there are a thousand freed bills in circulation. Why not step over
to my stamp station to free your own money?

My Trading Post asks related questions: Would you trade a dollar for a
dollar with my art on it? Knowing that you can receive my artistic time
for free, will you pay me for it? Would you give me your two cents? These
concerns drove the production of my Star-Buck series for an open
portfolio print exchange. For this series I printed 100 one dollar bills with
the Starbucks logo. Only eight people were able to trade a print for my
print, but two asked if they could trade a dollar. Some of the remaining
bills appear in my Star-Bucks diptych, which serves as a form of
documentation but also as a slick marketing image for my concept. For
the senior thesis exhibition, I have created a limited edition of 12 Star-
Bucks, available at My Trading Post for a limited time.

Questioning the value of money led me to time-the-time it takes to


create and experience, and how we value that time. We hoard away
money like we try to hoard away our time. Money takes time to make,
and experiences take money to createat least thats the popular
misconception. We become time keepers, guarding over our time and
where we spend it, represented in my piece SAFE & SOUND by the sound
of multiple clocks ticking away inside an unlocked safe. We tend to keep
our money similar to how we keep our time.

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JENNIFER WILLIAMS

Artist Bio

Jennifer Williams is a digital artist and graphic designer.


She is currently pursuing her B.F.A. in Graphic Design at the
Kentucky College of Art and Design at Spalding University.
She creates digital illustrations; the works are centered on
common humanistic themes such as illness and mortality.
Her limited color palettes and narrative style have become
characteristic traits of her work. She has shown previous
work at the Tim Faulkner Gallery. She currently resides in
Louisville, Kentucky.

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Artist Statement
I havent really progressed beyond the point in childhood
where the world, in its harsh reality, was abruptly revealed to
me. It is at this time as children we are all shown many hard
realities, such as illness, despair, and mortality. Ever since
that time, I have not stopped asking questions. I especially
persist in asking the questions people fear being asked. What
does death mean to you? What does life mean to you? Why
are you scared? Why arent you scared? What are we going
to do now? How can I convince you that this isnt an end, but
a beginning? How can I convince myself?

In my years of pondering these inquiries, I have taken


inspiration from both classical and contemporary artists. I
look to Caravaggio, who explored similar themes of mortality
with his visual representation of jarring emotion. I study
artists such as El Greco, Emily Carroll, and Stephen Gammel
for inspiration of haunting figures and dramatic color, both
traits of which have become strong elements in my work.
And I look to modern storytellers such as Neil Gaiman, Scott
McCloud, and Stephen King, who have all reached many
people with their unifying themes of the frailty of life.

I take inspiration from these artists, writers, and designers


to create illustrations that possess a strong, but ambiguous,
un-specific narrative that is open to interpretation. I give
viewers a chance to decide my arts meaning for themselves.
In doing this, I hope to subtly ask them the questions I have
asked for years, and open up a much-needed conversation
on various uncomfortable subjects many people, myself
included, sometimes try to avoid.

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LAUREN YOUNG

Artist Bio
Lauren Young (b. 1994) is an abstract impressionist painter who focuses
on capturing memories through photographs and creates color study,
line paintings on rough and undone wooden panels. Over the past few
years, she has shown in multiple galleries in Louisville such as the Tim
Faulkner Gallery, Sothebys Realty, 849 Gallery at KyCAD, and Gallery K.
Lauren completed an internship with Anthropologie in 2015; there she
worked with the floor design team creating hand-made displays for the
store.

Lauren is currently residing in Louisville, Kentucky, and plans to graduate


in the spring of 2017.

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Artist Statement
I have created a timeline of paintings referencing the documentation
of memory and color. Each painting is linked to its own individual
photograph. I am mixing color found in each individual photograph,
and combining compositional, abstract line drawings that mimic the
imperfect wood. Visually, color and composition are so clearly the most
important aspect of this collection. I want the overall verticality of line
and wood to be overwhelming to each viewer experiencing the paintings.

I am using scrap pieces of untreated wood because it relates back to


my childhood memories. I grew up around my father always building
things by hand in his motorcycle shop. Though the series itself doesnt
directly reflect memories from my childhood, it is important to use
these materials.

With that being said, I decided to keep all of the wood untreated and
unprimed to maintain the obvious history and fingerprint visible to the
viewer. Working with wood has invoked desire to explore and experiment
the world of installation. The wall is painted to show that this is meant to
be seen as one piece entirely rather than 14. Installation work creates an
environment in which one can experience more intimately and up-close.

I am applying skills and methods that I have developed in light color and
design; we were encouraged to keep a color journal that consisted of
photographs with written entries about what inspired us in that moment
and what exactly we were experiencing. The paintings are inspired by all
of the photos that I had been collecting over the many weeks. Because
each paintings is treated very individually, I have written a small title
that leads each mind into its own passage of a story. I would rather not
hand out all of the information, but instead, give clues to what my life
is about.

This work is an intimate and face-to-face experience. Each individual


will interact with it differently.

I am reflecting back on memories and using them for motivation to


create intricate and complex paintings. The work reflects who I am as
an individual.

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ArtsMatch
Like what youre seeing in the gallery? Help us bring in more
amazing artists and their art. KyCADs proposal to raise
$5,000 for the Visiting Artist Program has been accepted
for the pilot program ArtsMatch via Fund for the Arts. This
platform will allow KyCAD to crowdfund support for the
gallery expenses for the Visiting Artist Program, and if our
goal is met will be matched dollar for dollar for a total of
$10,000!

The Visiting Artist Program at KyCAD was established in


November 2009 to educate and foster greater understanding
and appreciation of contemporary visual art through
academic discourse, public lectures, performances,
exhibitions, and other arts related programming for the
benefit of Spalding University students and especially
students enrolled in the KyCAD program, the greater
Louisville community, and the state of Kentucky. The Visiting
Artist Program will bring artists from multiple disciplines
photography, drawing, graphic design, and digital mediafor
fresh and disruptive voices to the 2017-2018 academic year.

For more information and to find how you can get involved,
visit kycad.spalding.edu/artsmatch.

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About KyCAD
Our Mission
The Kentucky College of Art + Design at Spalding University
opens the door for aspiring creative spirits to provide
tomorrows creative solutions.

Our Vision
KyCAD will become a nationally respected institution that
produces dynamic individuals who change the world through
creative ideas.

Our Values
Excellence: We set the highest standards to develop critical
and creative thinkers.

Diversity: KyCAD believes that a diverse set of experiences,


perspectives and backgrounds is crucial to unlocking
innovation and creativity.

Exploration: We are not complacent. We search for new


perspectives and ways of improving how things have
always been done. We celebrate the qualities of curiosity,
adventure and a can do attitude.

Ambition: We harness the power of art and design to break


down barriers and advance the individual, the community
and the worldboth socially and economically.

Exceptional Value: Respecting our students resources, we


deliver an experience that is second to noneensuring that
each student is prepared for a career anchored in creativity.

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849 Gallery Huff Gallery
849 South third Street Spalding Library
Louisville, KY 40203 853 Library Lane
Open: Thursdays + Fridays Louisville, KY 40203
11:30 a.m. - 2:30 p.m. Open: Spalding Library Hours

845 SOUTH THIRD STREET


LOUISVILLE, KY 40203 KyCAD.Spalding.edu
Booklet designed by Liz Eader

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