Students in the Spotlight: ��ɫTV, Greater Cincinnati Region

Gina Erardi  

Graduating Year: 2020

Education: BFA Painting

“I chose ��ɫTV's Visual Arts program first and foremost because of its professors. I researched their personal artwork and found a diverse array of styles unified by their respective excellence. I believed that these artists and teachers could expand my perspective and lead me towards a path that would elevate my own unique skill set, which is exactly what happened. I am eternally grateful for Kevin Muente, JeeEun Lee, Marc Leone, and Steven Finke.”

Gina recently brought her mural design for the Newport Flood Wall on Dave Cowens Drive to completion for the city's 225th Anniversary! This mural, entitled "Education Empowers", tells the story of the Southgate Street School; the original building stands today and is now the home of the Newport History Museum. It was the first and only school for Black children in Newport immediately following the Civil War. The 19-panel wall will eventually become a chronological timeline of Newport's rich history.

Oen Michael Hammonds 

Graduating Year: 1999

Education: BFA Graphic Design

Hammonds travels the globe as a design advocate and onboarding leader within IBM’s enormous design and engineering teams. In 2015, as part of Cincinnati Design Week, he conducted an in-class design workshop and spoke at ��ɫTV about his work in radical collaboration, user-centered empathy, and the legacy of IBM’s innovation-based culture that he has been integral in evolving. 

Oen was recently selected to be one of the jurors in . 

Career: Design Principal, Employee Experience Design at IBM

David Mack

Graduating Year: 1995

Education: BFA Graphic Design

David W. Mack is an American comic book artist and writer, known for his creator-owned series Kabuki and for co-creating with Joe Quesada the Marvel Comics superhero Echo. Early life Mack graduated from Ludlow High School in 1990, where he had written and acted in many of the school theatre productions. Mack earned scholarships to ��ɫTV for five years, a four-year scholarship based on his portfolio of art works, and in his fifth year the Dean's Scholarship for academics. He graduated in 1995 with a BFA in graphic design.

Jessica Holtman  

Graduating Year: 2019

Education: Spatial Arts

"Studying sculpture and installation at ��ɫTV, I fell in love with learning about as many tools, techniques, and materials as possible. As such, my artist experiences ranges in medium, scale, and aesthetic.
I work on murals, commissioned paintings, illustrations, personal figurative sculptures, and have found a recent interest in silicone based prosthetic, make-up, and masks. I want to learn as much as I can about anything that might come in handy with creating new works of art and so I've become a lot more adventurous in my material choices, working with urethane, resins, rubbers, and a variety of other cast-able materials. I want to combine these experiences and knowledge to continue to do things I've never done before. An upcoming adventure for me will be learning sewing and costuming. 
Above all else I enjoy working with the public, leading others on artist adventures, and becoming a tool for the public to experience creativity in their day to day lives. Over the past few years I've received grants and scholarships that have helped me achieve this, including the creation of a large permanently installed sculpture at the Newport Scholar House, funded in part through a grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women. If I can continue to have a positive effect on the lives of people through art and creation, I will continue to be happy. "

Career: Landscape artist at