:: AIB Student Profiles

AIB's richly diverse student body is a testament to the artistic imagination.  People from all cultures and walks of life fill our halls and make AIB a vital and unique institution.

Erin Eriksen

Photography/Art History Student ‘07 | Houston, Texas

There were a few schools that I was looking at before deciding to come to AIB. I knew that I wanted to work hard to become the best artist I could be. Out of all the schools I looked at, AIB was the school where I felt I could accomplish the most. I was really excited to move to another place, but at the same time, it was really hard to be so far away from home. Living in a new city has really broadened my perspective. Being able to compare to different regions of the country has probably made one of the biggest impact on both me and my work.

The other thing that has made the biggest impact are my teachers. AIB has some of the best faculty of any art school. All of them have different styles and teaching methods, which allows for a very well-rounded education in art. The teachers will always make themselves available to help students one-on-one. They are not only teachers, but active participants in the art world, which is one of the biggest lessons you can learn in art school.

After I took my first Art History class (which was required) it became a goal of mine to take an art history class every semester, I didn’t even know about the minor until I was finished taking all of the classes I needed to take to apply. It is so important as artists to know everything that came before us, because it is such a great asset to our own work.

After I graduate, I would like to take some time off from school. I want to become a printer for another photographer, as well as work on my own work. I would then like to get my master’s in art history. I don’t know if I want to specialize in traditional or in contemporary art history.

Victor Yambao

Fine Arts Student '06 | Manahawkin, New York

I grew up in the Philippines next to a shoe factory. I'd make action figures from the odd trash that was lying around the building. We couldn't buy toys so I would make my own. That's where my fascination with 3-D art started.

When I was in high school, I made hand-held figures that were easily understood. They were eye-candy just to please other people. Now I'm finding out that to be a fine artist is to think only about pleasing yourself. That's when your best work happens.

I get lost in my work. I attach bits and pieces together and I'm not even thinking about it. When I work in that "zone" I sometimes look at it later and wonder where this beautiful thing came from. It never looks like my sketches.

The visiting artist John Bisbee told me that if your work turns out in the end the same way that you planned it, then you are doing something wrong. It has to change somewhere in the middle. That's what I like about found materials. I look at them and see something else than they were originally created for. It's like giving the objects a new life.

My work has been evolving. One of my teachers told me, 'Yeah, you do figures well. Try to do other things now.' It freed me to try new things, to not stay stuck in what I was good at. That's so AIB. You start off drawing figures, doing the basics and then they say, 'All right. We gave you the tools. What are you going to make with them?'

Last semester, I made a machine out of broken stereo equipment. I disassembled the stereo and waited for something to reveal itself with the raw components. I ended up making a kinetic sculpture that made noise without electricity. It was powered by a hand crank and had maracas on it and a drum. It made a lot of noise.

Esteban Aladro

Photography Student '07 | Miami, Florida

I am enthralled with people. I just like to be among them with my camera, my finger on the trigger. I try not to have preconceived visions about what I might capture.

We documentary photographers are a rare breed, I guess. We don't set up images, we use available lighting. For me, I like that unexpected quality. I'm telling a story. Of course, I have opinions and honest concerns about situations. But I believe that images can be so powerful if presented in the right way.

I started out shooting with a Pentax 1000 when I was in sixth grade (which is still the model I shoot with now). One of the first questions that the teacher in my photography class asked was, Does the camera lie? It was quite a provocative question for a 12 year old and I still think about it today.

I went through a rebellious stage in high school. I never thought I'd be able to make a living at photography so I was feeling limited about my future. And then, in twelfth grade I got really serious about documenting my life and my friends. I didn't want to go down the road I was headed. I saw that in my photos.

My brother was studying engineering at MIT and I came to live with him for a while in his fraternity (which I documented pretty extensively with my camera). I fell for Boston. It was such an enlightened place. The cityscape was so lively. I couldn't imagine trying to create art in a dull place.

The photography program at AIB is demanding. I'm just learning so much all the time. One of the most useful classes I've taken and-one of the hardest-was Commercial Photography. Even though that's not where my passion lies I know that I got so many practical skills, like for instance about lighting. I learned about strobes, diffused light, direct light, table-top set-ups. I can go out and work in commercial photography while working on my documentary projects. It feels good to know that.

Ferris Caldwell

Graphic Design Student '06 | Cranford, New Jersey

My artwork has always had a graphic feel to it. Since high school, I've been drawn to typography, getting close to it, examining it. I used to sit in class and redraw the letters in my textbooks. I was big on Times New Roman.

As a graphic designer, I hope to help make design better and help it evolve. Design is everywhere. It's a responsibility to make it good. It's such a challenge, creating work that is both aesthetically pleasing and has meaning behind it. Graphic design is about solving problems, really.

I especially like poster design. Posters are like canvases for designers, like our own "high art. "To represent Hitchcock's Psycho I had to dig deep into the film. I started out with Norman's taxidermy, drawing birds and owls by hand. Then I started splattering acrylic paint and stumbled upon the idea of the Rorschach image that looked like a bird.

Computers are so great because you can generate and perfect so many ideas. But I use my hand a lot in my design work. My foundation year at AIB helped me with all of those basic drawing and painting skills that you just can't skip over if you want to bring originality to your work.

I have been incorporating stitching into my artwork. I like the contrast of the hand-done with the technical. I hand-stitched typography on one of my pieces last year. You can tell it's my hand with the tiny imperfections that give character.

I'm interested in fashion. I'm teaching myself to sew by deconstructing things and figuring out how they are cut and assembled. I can do this because of all the emphasis freshman year on visualization and problem-solving.

I love the fact that teachers I had two years ago still remember my projects and ask me about them. One teacher commissioned one of my iPod cases for a friend. At AIB, you are not just a name or a number.

Samantha Hamilton

Illustration Student '07 | Coram, New York

In high school, I was always hanging out in the art room. Every free moment I was there, talking to my teachers, trying out some new idea. My school was huge-it had about 3,000 students. Its size gave me a lot of opportunities to try printmaking and sculpture and woodworking. But I knew that for art school, I wanted a more intimate place.

I had my heart set on a city school. I'm from Long Island so I thought I'd find what I was looking for in New York City. AIB was my last interview. I felt welcome and knew I wouldn't be overlooked. I knew I found my school.

When I came to AIB, I was deciding between fine arts and illustration. I learned that I really respond to the confines of illustration. I like having someone say, "This is our goal. What can you do for us-how can you make our intention visually interesting?"

I love mixing media-ink, collage, gouache, beautiful textured paper. I try to incorporate printmaking whenever I can, I've done a lot of that here. I'm inspired by so many things. Graffiti, tattoos, pop surrealism, artists like Mark Ryden, Takashi Murakami. I take in all these visuals and then I process them and try to reinvent them.

Eventually, I want to go into children's book illustration. I think that children's books often suffer from being too sugar-coated. When I was a child I loved to read books that had a darker side, like Roald Dahl's The Witches-that book stays with me to this day. I hope to create images that stick with people for a long time.

Sean Kearney

Animation Student '07 | Amherst, New Hampshire

I watched a lot of cartoons when I was growing up-Ren and Stimpy, the Iron Giant, the old Nickelodeon shows. They inspired me to create my own ideas, to really get into drawing. My first taste of actual animation was with Spider-Man cartoon software on our home computer. My sister and I made short animated shows all about Spider-Man, of course. Even though it was limiting, I got to see the potential of technology. I was hooked.

I was excited about coming to AIB for two big reasons. I was definitely psyched to live in Boston. I really liked visiting as a kid. The other thing about AIB was, I was excited about increasing my skills, fine-tuning my talents. I was pretty good at art when I came in but I knew I had a way to go to become the animator I hope to be.

I wanted teachers to challenge me. In high school, art is more loosey goosey-do whatever you want. But now, teachers push me and also give me parameters. They say, 'This is what you need to accomplish; use your creativity and your style to fulfill it.'

Animation is about telling stories clearly so anyone from a two-year-old to someone who's one hundred can make sense of it. I like working with symbols and shapes that are most recognizable to people to help with that clarification. I'm learning how to focus on objects and create compositions that help tell the story.

I like doing storyboards. They are the visual step after writing the story, sort of like the blueprints for animation. Right now, I am making hand drawings with pencils and other traditional tools. I like that human feeling in animation. It may take thousands of drawings for a few minutes of animation but I think it is worth it, especially for the stories I hope to tell.