The Adelphia Centre was packed with a semester’s worth of student work last Sunday as ETSU’s Engi-neering Design Graphics Extremists Club (EDGE) hosted a juried art show displaying creations ranging from sculpture and oil portraits to web page designs and advanced animation.The show is offered in the spring and fall of each year.

“It’s entirely student-run,” said Chris Vaughn, public relations officer for the EDGE Club. “It’s always open to anyone on campus who wants to compete. This year we had 17 categories, and we picked winners from each category.”

Vaught said this year’s event was a success. “We had a great turnout, nearly 300 people,” he said. “There was so much traditional art that it took up the entire back section of the ballroom. Actually, we had all three rooms of the ballroom open.”

Vaughn said the show also included 45 minutes of digital video and 3-D animations that had been submitted, not counting flash animations and interactive CD portfolios.

This year’s “Best in Show” award went to Carolyn Spence, the only student in the history of the EDGE Club to win this award twice. Spence entitled her 3-D animation “Alive, Alone.”

“It was incredible,” Vaughn said. “It was one of the finest pieces that has ever come out of the department.”

Track certificates were also awarded at the event, making this year’s show slightly different from those in the past.

“We have four new concentrations in our program that will start this fall. The tracks are hypermedia, multimedia, product design and visualization. The EDGE Club jumped the gun and gave out certificates for these tracks. The [awards] went to seniors who have excelled in the department.” Vaughn explained that the tracks were important since each offered an introductory, intermediate and advanced course.

Vaughn said that EDGE is a service-oriented club. “We just finished up a wall mural at the Coalition for Kids,” he said. “We have worked with [Coalition for Kids] for several years and have a good relationship with them.”

EDGE’s current president is Chris Bobko. Vice President Jason Turan will take over the presidency in the upcoming fall semester. “He’s been looking at national organizations that we might be able to affiliate with, in order to put us in national standing,” Vaughn said.

Vaughn explained that one way in which EDGE puts students in touch with potential employers is through their annual trip to Siggraph, a technology convention to be held this year in San Antonio, Texas.

“We went to SGA and got 606 funding in order to help pay for the entrance fees into the exhibition,” Vaughn said. “Huge companies are represented [at the convention], including PIXAR and ILM, or Industrial Light and Magic.”

Students are also offered the chance to hang samples of their work at the convention. “Each student’s piece of work has a number attached to it. Employers can write down the EDGE is associated with ETSU’s Scott M. Niswonger Digital Media Center (formerly the Advanced Visualization Laboratory).

For more information on the EDGE Club, contact Vaughn at 232-7993 or by e-mail at christvaughn@earthlink.net.

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