Art and Fashion at Florida Tech.

Living on a college campus, especially one as brilliant and diverse as Florida Tech, there are always many new and exciting events going on. The Florida Tech Humanities and Communications department is one of the many different organizations on campus that puts on diverse and exciting events. Most recently, the Humanities department and the Florida Tech Performing Arts Series invited Joan Matey to show her unique style of mixed media art on campus.

Joan Matey is a freelance artist with a very peculiar choice in materials, mediums and methods of self expression. At a first and superficial glance, Joan’s artwork seems strange or with no point or purpose. But once you got closer and read the description of the work, how it came about, and paid close attention to the detail of the pieces, it was truly brilliant masterpiece. Every piece of artwork Joan has created has a very deep and significant meaning in her life and addresses her views of society.

So what is a Mechanical Engineer have anything to do with a fashion and art exhibit? Well, being a part of College Players opens up many different windows of opportunities to perform in different mediums and step outside of one’s comfort zones. With this being said, Joan needed four models to volunteers so they could show off her quirky costumes in her Fishy Fashion Show. I thought that the idea sounded interesting, so I decided to give it a shot.  My fellow College Players and I soon received an email with brief descriptions of the costumes and what each of them represented. Boy, were we in for quite the experience!

There were four different types of costumes: the Maritime Marshal which was the sheriff of the seas, the Sea Vamp, who was the sexy sea girl in her marine evening dress; the Pearl Girl, who was cute and flirty in her 1920 sea style fashion; and last but not least, my costume, the Red Tide She Devil. My costume represented red tide in the ocean which kills marine life and is harmful for the environment. I had a voodoo-esque skirt and cape on with many accessories as crab bracelets and a very funky mask. The fashion show in itself was really fun to do and it was great to work with someone as intriguing as Joan.

That’s one of the reasons why I love being a student at FIT. There are always new and intriguing events going on so what you can never be bored! Until next time panthers!