That’s the simple but resilient statement framed by dozens of running shoes forming the shape of a heart on the cover of Boston Magazine’s May cover. Design director Brian Struble and deputy design director Liz Noftle (CAMD Art + Design alumni, BFA in Studio Art) came up with the idea on April 15, the night after the Boston Marathon bombing shook the city — and nation — just a few blocks away from the magazine’s offices near Copley Square. Anderson Cooper from CNN interviewed John Wolfson, Editor of Boston Magazine, while Liz Noftle described the beginnings of “The Shoes We Wore” project  in the CNN Living article.

“The Shoes We Wore” at Boston Magazine continues to accept runner’s stories.

Liz Noftle, AMD’10,  Art + Design Alumni wtih BFA in Studio Art

Liz Noftle is an Associate Art Director at Boston Magazine. After contributing as an art associate for Boston in 2009, Liz Noftle joined the magazine as a designer in fall 2010. The New Hampshire native earned her BFA in studio art from the first undergraduate program sponsored by both Northeastern University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. When she’s not out exploring the city, Noftle enjoys drawing in her studio, cooking up new recipes in her kitchen, and enjoying the sunshine on her rooftop deck.

“This senior class is by far the best we’ve had yet,” said John Kane, a lec­turer in graphic design and one of this year’s exhi­bi­tion coor­di­na­tors. “These stu­dents have real talent and this show is a cel­e­bra­tion of the end of their five years in the program.”

Kane sat on a com­mittee with two other fac­ulty mem­bers, Dou­glass Scott, a lec­turer in graphic design, and Andrea Raynor, an aca­d­emic spe­cialist in pho­tog­raphy, all of whom were respon­sible for advising the stu­dents, pro­ducing the show, and acting as judges.

The exhibit was slated to open on April 22, but was pushed back because of the Boston Marathon bomb­ings on April 15. Despite the tragedy, the stu­dents were deter­mined to move for­ward with the show, which will run through May 28.

“This show has been a nice coun­ter­point to every­thing that has been hap­pening in Boston recently,” said Kane. “In a way, it’s cleansing to com­mu­ni­cate through art.”

The work on dis­play ranges from pho­tog­raphy and graphic design to fine art and animation.

Anne Latini, a senior graphic design major, has two pieces in the exhibit: a type­face, which all graphic design majors create, and her degree project book Feed. While Feed focuses on cooking, it’s not exactly a recipe book.

“Feed isn’t your usual cook­book,” Latini explained. “It’s rather a cooking instruc­tional guide, com­plete with methods, ratios, and other cooking basics to live by.”

Other pieces in the exhibit include A Picnic, a quilt made with recy­cled plastic bags and duct tape by senior art major Holly Jamison;Sin­ga­pore: An Infor­ma­tional Guide, an info­graphic with infor­ma­tion on the country’s pop­u­la­tion, his­tory, and prin­cipal exports by senior graphic design major Jus­tine Findra; and Falling Stone Wall, a large canvas cov­ered with pieces of painted fabric by senior studio art major Kathrine Briedis.

This article was originally published by News@Northeastern

Jacqueline resides in Long Island, New York. Jacqueline interns at three galleries in Brooklyn: A.I.R. Gallery, Trestle Gallery, and NURTUREart As the coordinator for exhibitions and web. She obtained a Bachelor of Arts (Jan. 2013) in Drawing, Painting, and Theatre Production at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. She is interested in the transformation from the real to the abstract using color and texture to create place and space on a canvas. Her work is inspired by landscape and its multitude of forms throughout exterior and interior space.

By Jason Kornwitz

Nathan Hulsey’s short film for the 12th annual Campus MovieFest is a whim­sical tale of young love between a vagabond and his unwit­ting muse. He drew inspi­ra­tion for the story from Paperman, he said, Disney’s Academy Award-​​winning short in which the mys­tical force of a lipstick-​​marked paper air­plane brings a young couple together.

“I didn’t know what I wanted to make a movie about,” said Hulsey, a first-​​year stu­dent majoring in graphic design and inter­ac­tive media, “but I did know that I wanted to write some­thing light­hearted, loving, and passionate.”

Hulsey is part of one of more than 100 North­eastern teams par­tic­i­pating in CMF, the world’s largest stu­dent film fes­tival and the pre­mier outlet for the next gen­er­a­tion of auteurs. The con­test, which launched last week, chal­lenges aspiring film­makers to make a five-​​minute movie in one week using free micro­phones, Pana­sonic cam­corders, and Apple lap­tops with high-​​quality editing software.

Stu­dents must submit their films by Tuesday. Northeastern’s top 16 films, as judged by a panel of stu­dents, fac­ulty, and staff, will then be show­cased in West Vil­lage F on March 28 at 7:30 p.m. Free give­aways for audi­ence mem­bers include an Apple TV and gift cards from iTunes and Starbucks.

The top three films, for best overall pic­ture, drama, and comedy, will then be screened in Hol­ly­wood by a secret panel of industry insiders. Prizes for the Hol­ly­wood win­ners include $30,000 in cash, a one-​​year sub­scrip­tion to Adobe Cre­ative Cloud, and industry expo­sure at the Cannes Inter­na­tional Film Fes­tival in May.

Film judge James Anderson, a lec­turer in the Depart­ment of Music, plans on picking his favorite shorts based on orig­i­nality and tech­nical prowess. But, he added, “I won’t be judging a film’s tech­nical aspects unless it con­tributes to the film’s story.”

Hulsey hopes his love story will res­onate with viewers. “I really want the film to elicit a strong reac­tion and con­nect with the audi­ence,” he explained, noting that he planned to shoot the short inside a train sta­tion and on the streets of Boston. “If the tone is right and the effort is there, then I think we can pro­duce some­thing worthwhile.”

His con­fi­dence stems from his film­making expe­ri­ence in high school, where he won second prize in a short film com­pe­ti­tion, but many other North­eastern con­tes­tants are less familiar with moviemaking.

Gabriella Joseph picked up her free equip­ment last Wednesday, but had not yet decided between making a comedy about the cre­ative process or a drama about her Lebanese cul­ture. Either way, she planned on filming in her apart­ment and asking her friends to act.

“I just want to jump in and get a start in film,” said Joseph, a third-​​year behav­ioral neu­ro­science major who counts Quentin Taran­tino and the Coen Brothers as her favorite direc­tors. “I’m not familiar with the equip­ment, but I’m looking for­ward to directing and bossing people around,” she joked.

Since it opened at Northeastern in 2011, “We the Designers” has traveled to Washington, D.C., St. Paul, and, now, New York City. You may view the exhibit online here.

By Matt Collette

For her senior thesis, studio art stu­dent Eliz­a­beth How­land wanted to create a stop-​​motion film that focused on her inter­pre­ta­tion of tran­si­tion and iden­tity. But she wasn’t sure she had the tools to make the film she envisioned.

“I wanted to be able to have motion in my shots, which is a tech­nical lim­i­ta­tion of stop motion for most rigs,” said How­land. “The existing tech­niques are very constraining.”

Instead of giving in to those con­straints, How­land designed and built a rig of her own: A five-​​axis motion-​​control camera gantry, which allowed her to incor­po­rate motion into a short film. Both the rig and the film were on dis­play last month in Northeastern’s Gallery 360 as part of a thesis exhi­bi­tion called “Aug­men­ta­tion and Atrophy,” which also included the work of class­mates Amanda Brack and Juliana Valle.

The exhi­bi­tion, enti­tled “Aug­men­ta­tion and Aptrophy,” show­cased a wide range of artistic dis­ci­plines. Photo by Brooks Canaday.

How­land and Valle grad­u­ated last winter with a bach­elor of fine arts degree through a joint pro­gram offered by Northeastern’s Col­lege of Arts, Media, and Design and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston; Brack grad­u­ated from the joint pro­gram at Tufts University.

“That kind of work is exactly what we like to see from the col­lab­o­ra­tion between these two pro­grams,” said Nathan Felde, chair of Northeastern’s Depart­ment of Art + Design. “When I think of the future for this rela­tion­ship, I see tremen­dous oppor­tu­ni­ties for our stu­dents to look at inter­dis­ci­pli­nary pos­si­bil­i­ties and emerging prac­tices, some of which will be invented by these stu­dents as they collaborate.”

The joint BFA pro­gram between North­eastern and the SMFA was estab­lished in 2007, pro­duced its first grad­u­ates last year, and cur­rently enrolls about 20 stu­dents. It con­sists of 84 credit hours of art courses at the SMFA, 20 credit hours of art and design his­tory through Northeastern’s core liberal-​​arts cur­riculum, and 16 credit hours of elec­tive courses. The joint nature of the pro­gram means that stu­dents can sup­ple­ment their tra­di­tional studio art classes with courses from a range of dis­ci­plines, from dig­ital ani­ma­tion to mechan­ical engineering.

The pro­gram enabled Valle to study art and business—a dis­ci­pline not often avail­able to fine-​​arts stu­dents. “North­eastern offered that, so it was per­fect,” said Valle, a native of São Paulo, Brazil.

Through the part­ner­ship, North­eastern and the SMFA have com­bined their efforts to expose stu­dents to the art world’s latest devel­op­ments through vis­iting fac­ulty, work­shops, and lec­tures by famous artists such as pho­tog­ra­pher William Wegman. The part­ner­ship also gives stu­dents the chance to approach their art edu­ca­tion from two dif­ferent angles.

“That rare com­bi­na­tion gives our stu­dents access to courses and dis­ci­plines that would be dif­fi­cult to attain at such a great con­ve­nience and at such a high quality any­where else,” Felde said. “Here, you just have to walk across the street.”

How­land agreed. “I think I’ve hugely ben­e­fited from get­ting both sides,” she said. “North­eastern pro­vides a strong aca­d­emic course load and access to the resources of a big uni­ver­sity, and the SMFA gives you the tra­di­tional art school curriculum.”

• The Art of Mastering Life by Brian Francois
• Observing to Make Sense by Kerry Rubenstein
• A Joyous Bundle of Summations by Daniel Horowitz
• Art Does Not Reproduce the Visible by Libby Leyden-Sussler

Read Dr. Milda Richardson and her Art History student’s review in Big Red and Shiny.

By Jason Kornwitz

Five pieces of cotto salami lie in a white dish against a black speckled back­ground. A hairy out­stretched hand sporting a ring on its index finger reaches for a slice of the sausage.