Students came together for the sake of art at New Fest
Thesis student and Catalyst Editor in Chief Anna Lynn Winfrey and Jenna Courtade enjoyed their time at New Fest, playing with bubbles on May 8, 2021.

Students came together for the sake of art at New Fest

Campus events saw a bit of a decline this year as New College enforced social distancing safety guidelines, but on-campus groups such as the Student Events Team (SET), the New College Student Alliance (NCSA) and Student Activities and Campus Engagement (SAUCE) worked to make the New College experience a bit more bearable. A wonderful example of this perseverance was New Fest, which took place this past Saturday, May 8 from 3 p.m to 6 p.m. Students gathered in the nook to enjoy karaoke as well as peruse vendors’ tables.

Third year Kyla Hunter was at New Fest, representing her and her mother, Personnia Hunter’s small business 3T Factory, short for “Treasures, Things and Thingamabobs.” In this shop, Hunter and her mother sell resin charms, keychains and earrings, among other things and thingamabobs.

“[3T Factory] is owned by my mom and I, so a lot of the crafts we sell we get to work on together,” Hunter said. “Basically it started as her making things for our family and I was like, ‘You’re too good to not market yourself,’ so I kind of stepped in there and we started creating together. The rest is history.”

Third year Hannah Gatof was also a vendor, selling some of her art. 

“A lot of these [works] are things I’ve made along the way during my time at New College,” Gatof said. “Some of the work is preliminary stuff that I’m doing for my thesis, but a lot of it is from assignments or passion projects, and this is the first time selling some of my digital work.”

Hannah Gatof, right, displayed artwork from throughout her time as an art student at New College at New Fest on May 8, 2021.

Before exploring digital art in college, Gatof worked a lot with physical mediums, preferring sculptures and paintings, but with knowledge of the basics, has since taken a liking to the more malleable digital art world.

“I’d say more than anything else, I painted before I did digital stuff, so I definitely had an understanding of 2D mediums and all that,” Gatof said.

Gatof had a wide breadth of work, which included prints of paintings as well as a photo that featured Gatof’s friend third year Gaby Ott.

Gatof photographed her friend third year Gaby Ott for this piece. 

Gatof’s untitled piece features word art that says “Santo Somingo,” the city in the Dominican Republic where her family is from.

“A lot of this is artwork that I’ve made in Photoshop and Illustrator, as well as Procreate,” Gatof said. “I use different platforms for my work. Even my screen printing, which is my physical art, uses a lot of digital mediums in order to prepare for my screen printing process.”

Gatof has a website as well as an Instagram page dedicated to her art and achievements.

New Fest overall did well with maintaining social distancing and everyone in attendance abided by the on-campus mask mandate, ensuring a safe but fun time.

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