Student: Grace Scott
East Carolina University senior Grace Scott has been surrounded by art from her earliest memories, so choosing a creative career path came naturally.
Grace Scott sits in front of the Jenkins Fine Arts Center on campus.
Both of Scott’s parents graduated with fine arts degrees in ECU’s College of Art and Design. Her mother, Adrienne Dellinger, concentrated in ceramics, and her father, Greg Scott, in painting. Both are talented potters. Dellinger is executive director of Clayworks in Charlotte, a makerspace that has provided inspiration for Grace as she explored different mediums.
“I had been doing clay ever since I can remember. When I came to college I thought I could continue on that same path, but I wanted to learn something new,” she said. “I love using my hands and being involved in the entirety of the process.”
She did printmaking a couple of times in high school and took a module at ECU that solidified her decision to pursue printmaking as her concentration at ECU. “It has opened a whole new world to me that I’ve completely fallen in love with,” Scott said. “As I got more interested in it, I realized how many different ways we can use it.”
She also has been inspired by her mother’s outreach in impoverished communities and with disabled adults. “That’s something I’ve always looked up to,” she said. “My parents and the community I’ve grown up around have really influenced everything that I’ve worked towards. When I was little, they would take me to shows, and meeting artists, just going to galleries as a little baby, so I’ve just been steeped in it. I love it.”
Her parents’ experiences and the reputation of ECU’s art program led her to ECU.
“I know that ECU has an amazing art program. All the different concentrations that you can go into; it’s unmatched in North Carolina. That was a big factor,” Scott said. “I know so many artists who have made a name for themselves, mostly in the ceramic community because that’s where my parents are, who have gone here. The experiences, the people, it’s very nurturing.”
Last year ECU’s printmaking department was commissioned to collaborate with the School of Theatre and Dance, both in the College of Fine Arts and Communication, to develop artwork for Dean Linda Kean’s Donor + Scholarship Stewardship Initiative.
Scott served as project leader, working with fellow student printmakers Brooke Connelly and Marshall Adams to brainstorm concepts for the initiative. They conceptualized running horses based on the pioneering work of Eadweard J. Muybridge, a photographer who studied animal movement in the late 1800s.
“We wanted to take inspiration from that,” Scott said.
They worked with exchange students from Kenya who were studying in Greenville to choreograph a dance based on the concept.
“We documented that dance, then broke it into frames and created etching plates that had each of those movements, and put it all together,” Scott said.
Sixteen prints of 16 plates based on the counts per dance movement were created. A master copy of all the plates was packaged with a USB that documents the students’ behind-the-scenes work to be given to scholarship donors.
Last year, Scott served as president of the printmaking guild, which helps organize visiting artists, events and sales for student artists. She and Connelly also represented ECU at the N.C. Museum of Art’s first book arts festival for printmakers, screen printers and bookmakers. “We were able to connect with other schools and meet artists from all over the state. It was really cool and a great opportunity,” she said.
This year, Scott is focusing on her senior show, which will be at the Greenville Museum of Art in the spring. “It’s a huge honor to have it there,” she said.
She will have a minimum of 12 pieces on exhibit and may incorporate some ceramics in the show. Her theme will explore relationships with food and clothes, addressing some of the habits Scott has had to overcome through treatment for an eating disorder. She also will possibly include some other people’s stories that she learned during treatment while in high school.
“I want to highlight the struggles because eating disorders range so much from person to person. They’re so illogical, overwhelming and life consuming, and I want to display how every aspect of our life is impacted by our relationships with our food and our bodies,” Scott said.
She has been experimenting with different printmaking processes to further prove her point.
“Conceptually I’ve been incorporating a lot of clothing into my pieces, I’m using textures in my pieces and really trying to incorporate tactile things that everyone can relate to,” Scott said. “Whether we want to or not, we touch clothing every day, we eat food every day. To most people those are mundane things, but for people with eating disorders they feel like mountains we have to climb every single day, and it never ends.”
Following graduation, Scott is thinking about attending graduate school and doing a residency. “I want to be in creative spaces, whether it’s a creative nonprofit, residency or teaching,” she said. “I know I want to be around creative people.”
The Scott family legacy will continue even after Grace graduates. Her younger brother Quinn is a sophomore studying psychology at ECU.
Read More Pirate Profiles
Statistics
Name: Grace Scott
College: School of Art and Design
Major: Bachelor of Fine Arts with a concentration in printmaking
Age: 22
Classification/Year: Senior
Hometown: Charlotte
Hobbies/interests: Hiking, ceramics, entomology
Clubs and Organizations: ECU Printmaking Guild
Favorites
Favorite hangout: Grabbing coffee with friends and setting up a hammock
Favorite place on campus: The big magnolia tree outside Jenkins
Favorite place to eat: Lang Van in Charlotte
Favorite class: Etching senior studio
Professor who influenced you the most: Matt Eagan and Heather Muise
Favorite TV show: “Adventure Time”
Favorite band/musician: PUP
Favorite movie: “True Stories” directed by David Byrne
Favorite app: Pinterest
Motivations
Dream job: Artist in residence
Role model: My mother
Your words to live by: You can’t pour from an empty cup. Take care of your needs before catering to the needs of others.
What advice do you have for other students? Designate time in your day for food. It’s so easy to forget when things get busy, but your body will thank you when it’s not hungry.
What is something cool about ECU that you wish you knew during your first year? ECU’s library will rent out drawing tablets, cameras, scanners, chargers and a bunch of other technology.