Alumni News

Ariel Herwitz ’06, Floryn Honnet ’13, Rainer Hunt ’13, and Georgia Lassner ’09 are the inaugural class of a new residency for young alumni artists that was established at Bennington this year. Funded by a grant from an anonymous donor made in honor of faculty members Barry Bartlett and Jon Isherwood, the program invites recent graduates in sculpture and ceramics to live and work on campus for two- to four-week stints. In “studios” in Usdan Gallery, these four artists have had a chance to dive into their practice mostly uninterrupted, and current students have had the opportunity to interact with them in a variety of ways. Says Jon Isherwood, one of the designers of the residency, “It’s a very exciting moment for us in the Visual Arts to be able to bring back alumni and have them develop new work in the gallery. The premise of the residency has been to encourage experimentation. Complimenting this, the VA faculty have invited our alumni guests to visit classes and meet with students one on one.”

The fruits of the artists’ labors will be on view at Usdan Gallery from November 29 through December 8. They spoke with Aruna D’Souza about their student experiences, their approach to art making, and their experience being back on campus.

Earlier this week, Mashable announced their long lists for several categories of the 2017 PEN Literary awards, which include a number of Bennington graduates.

Mike Rugnetta '06 was part of a live-streamed conversation called "Fed Up: On Social Media and Democracy."

The Huffington Post published an opinion piece by Jesse Larner '88 which explores the role that white supremacist support for Donald Trump has played during and after the recent election. 

This month, two alumni had poems featured on Poets.org's Poem-A-Day. The first was "From A Train" by Lynn Emanuel '72, whose book of poem The Nerve of It, was awarded the 2016 Lenore Marshall Prize. The second was an excerpt from "Mount Carmel and the Blood of Parnassus" by Anais Duplan '14, who released his debut collection, Take This Stallion, in June.