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How do you hang what looks a bit like a hand-knitted Snuggie on a gallery wall? Where do put pedestals for the best traffic patterns at an opening reception?

Students involved with the 70^th Cleveland Institute of Art’s Student Independent Exhibition are figuring it all out this week as Friday’s reception in the Reinberger Gallery draws near. That’s when the public will get its first look at the exhibition, proudly organized start-to-finish by the student body led by a four-person committee.

The reception runs 6-9pm Friday, February 12. Awards will be announced at 7pm. The show is on view through March 19. This marks the first time SIE is appearing in the new Reinberger Gallery. (Check out Cleveland SCENE magazine's story.)

Jurors Leta Sobierajski, Brooke Inman (CIA ’06) and Jesse McLean visited CIA last week and selected 87 works from a field of 267 entries said drawing major Noelle Richard (Drawing ’17). The chosen artworks represent a broad field of disciplines, from photography and video to painting, glass, metals and fiber. The jurors noticed a high level of craftsmanship and beauty in the entries, Richard said, and ultimately selected work they believed also were conceptually well thought out.

What the show will say about the CIA student body will be up to each viewer, but committee member James Waite (Drawing ’17) believes that “everybody is becoming a lot more interdisciplinary.”

He noticed plenty of examples of artists stepping out of their major areas of study to explore other materials and techniques. Some works were done as class project. Others were created as the artists’ own time. “A lot of people just like to make things, whether for a [class] project or not.”

Richard agrees, and said she thinks this year’s SIE is one of the “weirdest” she has seen – in a good way. “There’s a lot of really funky artwork, which is awesome,” she said.

Samantha Konet (Drawing/Printmaking ’16) said she’s proud of the unity that SIE brings to CIA, both in terms of students from all disciplines working together and the view of the institute that people will get when they visit the exhibition.

“It’s really the only place where you can look to your left to see a painting and look to your right and see a car,” she said.