 Good evening, everyone. My name is L.J. Shen Filerman. I'll be your host for tonight's event. I was honored to be selected for the Besta Festival Award for the 2020 Arlington International Film Festival Student Division, and I'm so excited to be here tonight. Welcome to the 12th Annual Arlington International Film Festival's poster contest award reception. So before we begin the program, I'd like to recognize Carl Romero, who's been playing some wonderful music for us tonight. He's a nationally acclaimed guitarist who's had a prolific career playing with some of the greatest Latin singers and big bands. Please join me in giving Carl a warm round of applause. So tonight, we have gathered to celebrate creativity and illustration and design. And more importantly, to celebrate the work of the artist from Mass College of Art. We'd like to extend a special welcome to our judges. I'd also like to welcome George Summers Jr., our special guest. Robert Maloney, professor of illustration at Mass College of Art and Design, and his students who participated in this year's poster competition in whom we will meet later in today's program. And lastly, we'd like to thank the Watertown Savings Bank, who's our sponsor, and the ACA for hosting us this evening. Thank you all. So we were very pleased to have this year's guest speaker, George Summers Jr. George is a fiber artist and founding member of Frick Bottom Artist Residence and Studios in Somerville, where he lives and works. He graduated with a BFA in illustration and design from UMass Dartmouth in 1981, completed an independent study in Batik, and has continued his arts education at the museum school Boston. Over the past 30 years, Summers has had 10 one-person shows and has exhibited his work extensively in numerous groups shown around the country, most recently at the Queer Biennial Gallery held at Naval and LA in 2018. His Batik work is in many private collections, including the Thomas Finland Foundation, which recently received one of its Batik quilts as a gift. For 20 years, Summers managed the retail gallery for the Society of Arts and Crafts, which is the oldest non-profit craft organization in the country. He currently maintains a studio practiced at Frick Bottom, teaches Batik at the Brookline Arts Center, where he received the 2020 Berliner Award for 30-plus years of service, and he volunteers at Spoke, formerly Medicine Wheel Productions, which is an arts organization that utilizes art to heal and transform youth. Please join me in welcoming George Summers and the Festival Director, April Rank. George and I worked together at Society of Arts and Crafts. He had been there way before me. I came the last six years that they were brick and mortar, and George was managing the retail gallery, and so I would be looking to pay bills to artists, but I wanted to know, well, wait, what are we paying for? What did that artist do? So I'd come out and I'd ask George, show me so-and-so's work. I really want to learn about this. Well, that was just the beginning. I learned about the artists that we carried. I learned about their history. I learned about how they related to other artists. I had a whole arts history lesson. And on top of that, George would periodically go off to New York for special exhibitions and museum shows, and he'd come back and people at work would say, how was your weekend, George? And good, good. And I'd get my coffee on Monday morning, and I'd wait until he settled in and I'd go, okay. What was your weekend like in New York City this weekend? And that's really when I learned that the oxygen that George breathes is art. And I fell in love with our conversations. So when we asked George to speak tonight, it's like we're going to just have another conversation. Just like the old days. Just like the old days. But you guys will be able to hear. And just a side note about this is that I called April this week and I said, I'm not a public speaker. I really have very rarely spoken in public in this fashion. The only time I've ever spoken in public is at a memorial service or a funeral. And I told her I did not want this to sound like a eulogy. So therefore, you know, I thought that this would be, you know, a nice way to, you know, to do this. Yes, yes. Just like our old conversations. Just like the old times. But a little different. I never asked you about going to school at Dartmouth. I mean, when you started school, did you know you wanted to study art? Yes. Yeah, no, I knew that. I've always known that. Ever since I was a kid. I knew that I was going to be, well, I knew that I was going to be in the arts some way, somehow. I wasn't sure exactly where I was going to fall, but I knew that I was going to have a life in the arts. Come hell of a high water. I didn't know anything else, you know. Did you have good teachers in high school? I had an amazing teacher in high school. She just recently passed away a couple of years ago, but she was the one who taught me how to batik. And one of the things that was really instrumental about her was, she had a family home up in Deer Isle, Maine. And so every summer she would go up to Haystack. And for those of you who are not familiar, Haystack is a school, a craft school up in Deer Isle. And she would go up every summer and she would take a course, or she'd take a couple of courses. And this particular summer she went up and she learned, there was a group of artists from Africa who were teaching resistive techniques. And so she came back and she taught us how to batik. And initially, you know, I was 13 years old, and she taught us how to batik and I hated it. And I was a typical 13-year-old. I hated everything. And usually 13-year-olds do hate everything. And so she was very interesting. She took the batik that I did and she folded it up and she put it away. And then the following year, when I went back to high school as a freshman, she pulled it out and she had me look at it again. And just in that year with an attitude adjustment or maybe I was looking at things differently. But I saw it and I was like, oh, this is interesting. Maybe I want to do some more of this. And then I was hooked and that was it. So you studied illustration though at college. Why illustration? Because if I was going to do the batik, well, I studied illustration because I thought it was a way to make money. Okay, that's fair. And unfortunately in college at SMU, UMass Dartmouth, I had a teacher who was who formerly worked for Hallmark. And so if your illustrations did not look like a Hallmark illustration with bunnies and flowers and that sort of thing, you didn't get an A. You got a B. But in order to get an A, you had to have bunnies and flowers and all kinds of sweet things happening in your illustrations. And of course, being gay, I was putting all kinds of things in my illustrations and he was not the least bit impressed with that. So I didn't really enjoy illustration until I went to the museum school. And I went to the museum school and I had Joe Landry for illustration. And the thing about the museum school was that with UMass Dartmouth, and I don't know if they're the same way, but 35, 40 years ago, there was a student teacher dynamic going on, do as I say, not as I say, that sort of thing. And then you get to the museum school and all of a sudden they're like, no, you're an artist. You're an artist. You're starting out your journey. My journey is already halfway down here. But you're an artist and they started treating you like an artist. And so that was the best thing. Really encouraging you to kind of explore where you were going to go. And so your first job out of school in the arts field, what was that? Because you had to make money, right? Well, so here's the thing. One of the things about artists, I did a few jobs for the Boston Globe and for the Harvard Review and everything. And I'm old school, so back in the day, you'd work with art directors or editors or whatever. And you'd take your artwork in on a Friday and they would say, oh, this is great. This is really what I wanted. But can you change the color? And they would say it on a Friday afternoon and you'd think, oh, there goes my weekend. Because we weren't digital. Well, right, if you had told me 40 years ago that someday you'll be able to send the artwork through your phone or your iPad and with a click of a button, you can change the color. I would have said, what are you smoking? And do you have more? Because I was entering the illustration field pre-digital. So I did that, but the fiber still called out to me. And so I was doing that and I did some production work with the boutique. At one point in the 90s, I was actually working for a mail order tie company, so I would do yardage for them. And that was really a lovely job because they didn't give me any kind of restrictions. Making men's ties. Yeah, they just said, do anything. And so I did. I would just do yardage, lots of different yardage and I'd send it to them and then they'd make ties and they'd sell it on their mail order site so it was a nice job and everything. They were in business for, I think, two or three years and then the couple broke up and well, that was the end of that. But it was a nice little gig to have. So my jobs were always things to pay the rent. So it was everything from working retail to cleaning office toilets three nights a week to teaching college for a little while. Just supplement your real interest. Right, just so that I could work. And most artists are like that. If you're an artist and you're doing your work and you're doing it because you have to do it, there's no other way around it. It's like combing your hair or brushing your teeth or whatever. Then you find all different ways to do it. And that means taking on odd jobs and that means sometimes doing things you don't necessarily want to do but you have to because it's paying for the studio rent or it's paying for your house rent or whatever. So when you were managing the retail gallery at Society of Arts and Crafts, you'd go into New York, do the buying shows and choose the artist that you wanted. Did you feel cheated because you weren't making full-time or you were helping to support these people that were? No. No? Because when I started working at the Society, I was 40 years old. And my boss, who I have known for many years, said to me, this freelance art business is you're getting old and you need medical insurance and you need paid vacations and you need time off and you need all this stuff and you need a steady income. And so that was kind of the impetus to get into. But it was still related. I mean, I still felt like I was doing something artistic. When I say that I lived an artistic life, I mean that I was either looking at it, making it, selling it. It's all encompassing. So I didn't feel cheated. I was still doing work, but the difference was that instead of doing 12 batifs a year, I was doing three. So my output wasn't the same. But I didn't feel cheated. I think this is something, especially if you're a young student here, don't ever compare yourself to another artist and where they are on their journey, because that is a creative killer right there. If you compare yourself to any other artist, living or dead, you're always going to be frustrated. You're always going to be on the losing. You're just never going to be happy with that. So it's really important that you understand where you are on your personal journey and go with that. And the journey. We talked about that. You said that you've looked at your life over the long haul and seen a life interrupted. What do you have to say about that? Well, because it's a lovely idea. You go to college. You've got your degree. You're ready to get out and make a living. But our lives are interrupted. I think we've all learned that, especially in the last couple of years. Collectively as a society, our whole lives were interrupted a few years ago, and we had no choice over it. You will find at different times that you will be interrupted. Whatever area of the arts that you're in, and that can be job related, that can be family related, that can be health related. There's all kinds of interruptions along the way. There's no avoiding that. But at the same time, the other thing that should be noted is the fact that when an artist, be it a writer or a musician or a fine artist or whatever, when they are interrupted, it's hard if you're going with a flow or something and then you're interrupted for a year, six months or a year or whatever. When you go back to that work, it's never the same. Because your initial flow with it is what's carrying you to do your work, to complete your work. And if that's interrupted, when you go back to it, however long it takes, when you go back to it, it's never quite the same. Because you're not the same. That's what I was about to say. You come back as a different person as well. Very much so. And I bet that's just increased when it's a longer period of interruption. It must be shocking. Have you ever had that happen? I mean, you've not been working and then suddenly maybe several years pass? Or have you never let several years pass? Well, it depends on... I can tell you one specific period between the late 80s, early 90s, there was a three or four-year period there where I literally did no artwork. And that was in relation to the AIDS epidemic. I was losing all of my friends. I was going to memorial services every week, every other week. And so I was going through a period of, what's the point? And then feeling guilty about it. Like, well, you're still here. So why aren't you working? I don't know. And two things sort of got me back into working. One was I took a writing workshop with Erica Zhang, who wrote, for those of you who don't know, she's a feminist writer, poet, very popular in the 70s. She wrote Fear of Flying and How to Save My Own Life. Was that during Boston? No, that was in Connecticut. Her daughter, who is, for those of you who don't know, for those of you who read The Daily Beast or listen to podcasts or whatever, she's the mother of Molly John Fast. And Molly is a very astute writer. She's usually on CNN. Anyway, Molly was one of my students at a creative arts camp that I was teaching at. And so Erica came and taught a workshop on writing. And so afterwards I went to her and I said, you know, I've always wanted to keep a journal, but, you know, I don't write. And she said, do it visually. And so I thought, okay, I could do that. And, you know, I started doing, you know, keeping sketchbooks with collages or whatever, but I wasn't really, I didn't really dive totally into it until about a few years later. And I was still not really producing in the studio. And I met another person, Robert Siegelman, who taught at the museum school. And he's a well-known photographer, printmaker, you know. And so Bob, I was, you know, we were having dinner one night and I was bitching and complaining about, you know, I can't get into the studio. I'm not doing any work. You know, and everything. And the next thing I know, Bob sent me a blank book and a blank sketchbook. And on the inside of the blank book, he said, carry this with you always. And even when you're not in the studio, the studio is with you. And so that really started me working again. And so if you're a student, I encourage you to always carry a sketchbook. You'd be amazed at, you know, what you unearth and find. And that was something that Erika John had mentioned when she was, you know, when she was giving the workshop, she had said that, you know, she kept these books, you know, that were very tactile. I mean, they were, you know, covered with business cards and cocktail napkins and everything. But there were some pages where it was just one word written out on it. And so she said that what she does is she carries the book all the time with her to lunches and dinners and whatnot. And someone will say something really, you know, kind of interesting and so she'll go, oh, that's an interesting and she'll write it down. And so she said that when she started developing characters for her books, she would go back into her journals and she would look at her journals and she would read her journals and she would try to imagine conversations with her characters. So you never know what you're going to find in an old sketchbook. And, you know, at the time that you're doing it, it may not seem like much of anything, but, you know, 10 years down the road, when you go back and you look at it again, you may go, oh, this is what I was looking for. Do you still keep your sketchbooks? I do. I have about altogether, I think, 35 of them, you know, and I do keep it. Although, you know, unfortunately, social media has really, social media has become, in a way, it's become another way of documenting things. So, you know, but I still do keep a journal. I still keep a sketchbook, you know. But you, I know that you are very involved in social media. You're posting all the time. Things that you've seen in New York, you know, the murals and... Yeah, no, I'm not interested in showing you my dinner. Ah, you're right, you know. Right. I post and I try to post things that, you know, are going to be engaging, that are going to be thoughtful. You know, I was in New York a week ago, and I came back and I just posted all the stuff that I saw. And, you know, I'm going to be in New York next week, and it'll be the same thing. Daily, I will be posting, you know, shows that I've seen, you know. So that's what you've come across. In a way, that's like keeping a journal, too. Sure. It's just not a physical journal. Right. But... So the journal experience triggered you to start working again. Yep. And was, what piece did you create after you came out of that hiatus that you really felt was complete and a really good piece of work? Did it take a while? It did, and it came kind of by accident. In 1999, I went to Italy for the first time, and I was very lucky. We had an apartment in Venice. We were in Rome, and we were in Florence, and they were quite lovely. But the thing for me was that we had an apartment in Venice. And in Venice, there are St. Sebastian's everywhere. You know, you walk down the street, there's a St. Sebastian. You go to a restaurant, there's a St. Sebastian. You go to the bathroom in a restaurant, and there's St. Sebastian. There's St. Sebastian's everywhere. So when I came home, I had done some approaches of St. Sebastian. And so I came home, and I actually did a boutique. I did a large boutique. And when I was looking for a title, I wasn't really familiar with St. Sebastian. I just knew that he was half naked, and he had arrows sticking out of him. I didn't really research him. And when I was researching the life of St. Sebastian and what he was responsible about, I discovered that he was the patron saint against plagues. How appropriate, huh? And so I really felt like, in regards to the AIDS epidemic, I felt like this was the piece that brought me out of that. And it was the piece that I was working up to at that point that would sort of encompass that period of loss and not working. Right. And where does that St. Sebastian live now? In my kitchen, over the microwave. Okay. I didn't know that. I've had the opportunity to sell it many times, and there are certain pieces that I will not sell. Well, that was like a transformative period that you went through. I have two or three boutiques in my home, four boutiques in my place that they're mine, that I can't get rid of because they speak of a particular period or a particular person or, you know, and I just, you know, I wouldn't ever let that go because... Right. That would be... Yeah, that would be giving up too much of my history. Piece of yourself. Yep. So are you still volunteering at Medicine Wheel? Well, what I do at Medicine Wheel, I don't really, you know, volunteer in the traditional sense. I have done workshops there in boutique, and I participate in their Day Without Art, December 1st, which usually commemorates World AIDS Day. So that's my participation there. I also go every year, we haven't gone the last three years because of COVID, but every couple of years they offer a trip to Italy. In the spring, and it's for anybody, anybody can go, and it's an artist in residence program. So basically, they put you up in a monastery, and for two weeks, you know, they take care of your meals, and then for two weeks you are expected to go out and just do your artwork, which is a real luxury of not being interrupted, getting back to that word. And the other thing that they do is, from their student program, they bring one or two students for free, and they get the opportunity, and these are inner-city kids, some of whom have never been out of the country, never been out of the state. So for them to go, you know, to Italy, you know, is really a sort of eye-opening, you know, experience. And it's wonderful to watch them. It's wonderful to look at them, to sort of see them, take it all in, and then put it all out in their work, in their artwork. It's just, it's a wonderful thing to watch. I bet so. I bet watching. Coming back and seeing them and how it's affected them, and then continuing relationships with them, I know that you've had a couple of students that you've kept up with. You know, I have a friend, Joshua, who I'm supposed to do dinner with him next week, at some point before I leave for New York. But, you know, he was a primary example. He, you know, he was a student, you know, at Medicine Wheel. And Medicine Wheel's motto is basically, you know, healing through art. So originally the mission in the 80s and the 90s was towards the HIV AIDS community. And then when the drugs came in and leveled, you know, and sort of leveled the playing field in regards to AIDS, they realized that they needed to expand their outreach. And so then, at the time, they, there was a big, and this still is to a certain degree, opiate crisis in Southeast. And so they started expanding their focus on inner city kids who are sort of latchkey kids, you know, like when they get out of school and, you know, their parents get home from work at 7, 8, 9, they're sort of, you know, free and available. And so what Medicine Wheel tries to do is it tries to engage them through classes and workshops and art and that sort of thing so they don't end up, you know, on the streets and doing things that, you know, hopefully they shouldn't be doing. So you've taught art in college, you've also, you teach at Brookline, Adult Ed Center, and then also you mentor, you've experienced mentoring these kids at Medicine Wheel. It's like, how do you think that those experiences have changed your life? It's like, you, well, I'll be quiet. I want to hear. I want to hear what you have to say. How does it change, you know, I don't think of it in those, you know, I just do it, you know, because there were people there for me, you know, coming up, you know, there was, you know, Marjorie Weed, my high school art teacher. I mean, college I had Caroline Mills, who gave me independent study for five years because I wasn't a textile student. And in those days, they, you know, the departments were segregated. You know, if you were a painting student, you didn't go into the ceramics studio or you didn't go to the photos studio. If you were a fiber student, you didn't take illustration, okay? So I'm doing illustration and design, you know, because I'm being practical. I need to make money. But I still wanted to do textiles. And so I had to get somebody to sign me up for independent study. So along the way, there's always been somebody who has sort of helped me to the next level. And it's still happening today. You know, I'm 64 years old and yet there are still people who are, you know, you know, taking my hand and saying, you know, come on, we gotta, you know, we have to go this way now. You know, so I'm just paying it back. I'm just doing, I'm doing what I'm, I'm giving back what I'm getting, so to speak. And I'm curious, did you ever volunteer with teaching art or kind of mentoring art when you weren't doing art yourself? Yes. Okay. I bet that was a different experience. Well, because, because, because, you know, teaching, you know, even though I wasn't doing it, I was still overseeing classes, you know, so I felt like I was still somewhat attached to it, I was still part of it. But, you know, yeah, there was a part of me that was like, you know, you know, I really should be doing something. And then there was another part of me that was like, you know, you're not ready, but you're not ready, you know. That's a huge thing. I mean, when we were talking about having this conversation and planning, when you said these words keep sticking with me, a life interrupted, and I thought, I'm not an artist, but yet I've experienced these kind of interruptions as well. And it's very easy to lose confidence that you'll be able to jump back in there and get back into, into whatever you want to pursue. And it's like, you know, what would you say to these students that are just getting ready to finish up school very soon? Okay, so for the students who are getting ready to finish school, the first thing that I would say is don't ever lose your curiosity. Don't ever lose your inquisitive nature. Don't ever lose your, don't ever lose your sense of, you know, learning, exploring, you know. You know, that's, you know, when you get to the point where you think you know everything, that's when you have to sort of pull back and, you know, and sort of recalibrate the whole experience of, you know, making and why you're in it and why you're doing it. So I would say that's the first thing is never, never ever lose your curiosity. And I think that that's one of the things that even when I wasn't working, I was still curious. So I never lost that, you know. I never lost that, you know, and even now I haven't, you know. There's still things to see. There's still things to learn. There's, you know, you know. And the other thing is ego, you know. You know, I have a little antidote about, I do open studios with Brick Bottom. And, you know, and one of the things that I, you know, I don't really have an ego about this. You know, I just, you know, I do it, you know. And you like it, great. And if you don't, that's okay too, you know. And so, you know, when you do open studios, people come into your studio and they'll tell you, you know, people are very like, you know, they'll tell you anything. They'll tell you everything, you know. And they'll come in and they'll say, oh, nice. I like how you painted your walls or, you know, or your, I like your artwork or, you know, nice colors or, you know, and then you get the ones who come in and say, oh, you make a living at this, you know. So, you know, you learn to like just sort of roll with it, you know, and not take it too seriously. And one time I had a couple come into my studio and it was a husband and wife. And the husband walked in and he said, oh, he said, fiber art, you know, you know, like this. And the wife walked in and she looked around and she turned to him and she said, no. And they walked out. Now, if I had ego attached to that, that would have ruined my whole day. That would have ruined my whole day, my whole weekend, you know. I probably would have closed the door and just sat there crying, okay. My response to that, I got on social media and I said, oh my God, I've arrived. Somebody just came in my studio, literally, you know, like, you know, just stood there and, you know, and thought, you know, kind of offended me, but I'm laughing about it. I mean, it was like hilarious. I really felt like, you know. You could survive that. You know, like, that was okay. It was a funny incident to me because the ego wasn't involved, you know. So that's the other thing that I would suggest is don't, you know. Curve the ego. Build the curiosity. Don't get so serious, you know, because the journey is so much more pleasant, you know. Well, George, do you have anything else you want to share that we've not talked about? The only, you know, we've talked a lot. But you know, this is what we did. You know, we would sit there, you know, from 7 or 8 in the evening and then it would be 1130 and we'd have to get Ubers home. You know, one of the things, getting back to, you know, don't ever compare yourself to somebody. I always remember a story. There was a story about David Voshonovitz and I always butcher his name, so forgive me. For those of you who don't know who David is, they gave him a retrospective at the Whitney a few years ago and he was a very prominent artist in the 80s, very political. He was sort of all over the map. He was a musician, a writer, a filmmaker, a fine artist. I mean, he kind of did everything. And he was having a studio visit with the artist Zoe Leonard and at the time she was doing very small, tiny paintings, you know, flowers and clouds and, you know, and she said to him, you know, she said, you're doing such important work, such great work, important work, and, you know, and I'm just painting flowers and clouds and she felt very irrelevant, you know, in his company and David said, no, he said, continue doing your flowers and your clouds and, you know, we need that. We need that beauty in the world and, you know, that's what we're fighting for and so I thought, you know, that's the most wonderful gift that an artist can give another artist, you know, to tell them, you know, there's room at the table for you. There's a great, I'm going to end with this, I promise. It's a quote by Kiki Smith. And Kiki Smith is? Kiki Smith is, she is another one of this artist who does everything, I mean, she, you know, I saw a show of hers in Florence a couple of years ago. She's, you know, she's done clay installations, glass installations, she's known for her printmaking, she's really, really a very versatile, you know, artist and if you don't know who she is, Google, because, you know, Google's your best friend. And she's from the U.S.? She's, yes, her father was Tony Smith, who very well-known sculptor out of Yale. Okay, our historian too. So she comes from a background, she comes from that background but it's a great quote. I saw it not too long ago and this is where I'm going to end it. Just do your work and if the world needs your work, it will come for you and it will get you. If it doesn't, do your work anyway. You can have fantasies about having control over the whole world but I know I can barely control my kitchen sink. That is the grace I'm given because once, because when you can control things, one is limited to one's own vision. So, thank you. Thank you. Alright, thank you so much for that. That was wonderful. So, AIFF has had the privilege, sorry, we're good? Alright, AIFF has had the privilege of partnering for the sixth year with Robert Maloney, professor of illustration of mass college of art and design. For those of you joining us for the first time, Bob incorporates the poster assignment as part of the curriculum in his experimental illustrations techniques course. A Boston area native, professor Maloney is a graduate of mass art with a concentration in illustration and a graduate of mass arts low residency graduate program. As a working artist, he creates multimedia pieces that are influenced by the many layers of the urban landscape. His recent work often focuses on the connections between the temporary materials of our man-made structures and how these forms relate to the fragility of our memories. Bob's mixed media artwork and installations have been featured in numerous galleries and arts publications and his works are in private collections nationally and internationally. Welcome, Bob, for the sixth year. So, we hope you've all had the opportunity to take a look at the poster design submitted this year. I absolutely love them, and if you haven't gotten the chance to look at them, please make sure you do before leaving today. So, now let's meet the artists. Please hold your applause until they're all on stage. And artists, as I call your names, please come up and forgive me if I mispronounce them. Alex Lewis, Ariana Stoten, Faye Sylvia, Jamie Reinhold, Larry Busquet, Lexi Gumaz, Lynn Jeffery, Luke Donahue, Marissa Mazzoni, Madeline Gutierrez, Savathura Spaco, Sandra Collagian, Taylor Adams Bass, Vanessa Craps, Vicky Chen, Vivian Wartorski. So, you all have created seriously wonderful pieces of art. And so, let's all join in a round of applause for the artists and the posters. The poster contest entries were evaluated by an esteemed panel of judges with expertise in composition, design, public relations, and marketing. The selected poster design will become the face of this year's festival and will appear on prints, TV, and web promotions locally, nationally, and internationally. The poster contest judges were Elisa Adams, a stone sculptor and president of New England Sculptors Association. David Ardito, a visual artist and interim K-12 director of visual arts for the Arlington Public Schools. Jennifer Cheng Desotels, illustrator, logo, designer, and plein air artist. Mark Gertin, the owner of 13 Forest Gallery, a contemporary art and craft gallery located in East Arlington. Erica Lycia Kane, a working artist and retired college studio art instructor. Elena Mathis, a senior at Mass College of Art and 2021 winner of the AIFF poster contest. Agatha Piaz, the 2019 winner of the L.J. International Independent Film Festival in Spain, which is our new festival partner. And Vicky Rodriguez, artist and arts administrator for the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Judges, thank you all for sharing your expertise with us. And if you are here tonight, please stand for a round of applause. And now, the one we've all been waiting for, the unveiling of the winning poster. For this, please welcome Arlington International Film Festival organizers, April Rank and Alberto Guzman. To have a new illustration of us through this year, and I will say that the judges had a very difficult time with this. There were several pieces that were contenders, so please know that we really appreciated and the judges appreciated all the work that was done this year. And the winning poster for this year is Arlington. First of all, what year are you in at Mass College for our design? I'm a senior. And you'll be graduating in then? Yes. So, when you created this poster, did you know your design from the beginning or did it kind of, I love the illustration so like, this is one of the first I've ever made. So, there were no other contending designs that you really thought about this? Not really. I did a couple of them and I was excited about it. Okay. And how long did it take you from beginning to end? I don't know. I did it over the course of like so like, I don't know. So, question. Do you have any idea like what are you going to do after you graduate? Do you stay with the arts? I hope so. I'm hoping to go in for like children's college and be married to a person there? Very good. You'll have to talk to Jen one of my judges because she's a children's vocalist. And so I just want to congratulate you. This is going to be the face of 2022 and we really look forward to sharing this with the world. Thank you so much. Alright. Thank you all so much for joining us today and celebrating the art of illustration with everyone. This officially launches the 2022 Arlington International Film Festival. And we hope to see you at the Capitol Theatre, November 3rd to 6th for amazing independent films. We end this evening's program with Carl Romero on guitar again. I think you'll have a wonderful night.