MOUNT VERNON — Packed with all the possessions he moved to Cornell College four years ago, senior Scott Ruttencutter brought the quilt his grandmother made for his mother to take to college.
“It was made out of all of the dresses that my mom had as a child,” he says. “Quilts just contain a lot of meaning for me.”
For the past year, Ruttencutter, of DeForest, Wis., has been sewing together quilts to display at his senior thesis art exhibit May 13-23. Sixteen Cornell seniors will show their work in April and May at galleries in Armstrong Hall, Cole Library and The Commons. Ruttencutter’s exhibit will consist of six or seven 9-by-8-foot quilts. He made one quilt piece entirely of blue jeans donated by people on campus. Another piece is made of other clothing he talked friends into giving him.
“My objective with all of my pieces is to create a representation of my experiences, observations or feelings toward the world around me,” he says. A few political pieces “show the community of our nation and how all of our individual differences come together and mesh.”
Ruttencutter, a computer science and art major, made his first quilt last year during a surface design class. “It gave me the opportunity to reconnect with my family and the people around me,” he says. Often his friends and family, especially his mother, have helped put his huge pieces together.
“I have had a fascination with quilts since I was a kid,” Ruttencutter says. “My grandmothers used to make them out of scraps and old clothing and then pass them on to the rest of the family.”
Tony Plaut, associate professor of art, calls the senior show the “capstone activity” for studio art majors and art history minors.
“We put a lot of pressure on the students to have a very significant show,” Plaut says. The college provides students with the time, space and encouragement to mount a successful show. It may be the only time for years to come that they have a large-scale exhibition.
“It will be something they will never forget, something they will be striving to match,” Plaut says.
The students’ mediums and messages run the gamut. While Ruttencutter worked in textiles, other students are using photographs, drawings, paintings, videos and installations. Brian Dailey of Golf, Ill., created a shrine to “The Kings of Memphis,” featuring large-scale photos of Elvis Presley and Martin Luther King Jr. The piece will “relate the religious fervor we give to memorializing these two men to the treatment of Egyptian pharaohs,” he says. The Kings will be in Armstrong Gallery from April 15-25 during the first round of exhibits; the opening reception is from 2-4 p.m. April 15. The second round runs April 29 through May 9 with an opening reception from 2-4 p.m. April 29. The final round opens May 13 with a reception from 2-4 p.m. The final exhibits close May 23. Admission is free to all exhibits.
2001 senior thesis exhibit schedule
Cornell student’s senior art exhibit is family affair