Pickard ’90 Emerging Artists Series a space for student artists

Before Amelia Rooney '25 joined the Guild of Visual Arts (GVA) in 2021, she struggled to find opportunities to create art on campus. She has helped change that.

Rooney, now the president of GVA, and the rest of the Cornell community have a new platform to showcase the arts thanks to a partnership with the Lauren Pickard '90 Emerging Artists Series. This year's event was held Nov. 14.

"I think part of art is sharing parts of yourself," said Rooney, an applied economics and management major in the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business. "It's great to have an opportunity to share what we've created, because we're trying to share that feeling with the community."

Held annually in Willard Straight Hall, the Lauren Pickard '90 Emerging Artists Series has traditionally showcased up-and-coming musical acts. This year, for the first time, the series expanded its scope to include an art gallery of student work.

"I think a lot of times art will reflect current feelings, worries, celebrations, joys," said Rooney, whose student organization supplied most of the artwork displayed at the event. "Whatever is going on in the general Cornell environment, in the world, in the country, I think we'll be able to see that reflected in the art."

Created in memory of Pickard, who died in 1998 after suffering a seizure while living and working in Paris, the series is made possible through an endowment established by Joan Johnson '65, Pickard's mother. At Cornell, Pickard had been an active student employee and volunteer at Willard Straight Hall. She loved the student union's weekly coffeehouse series, and was a poet and an activist.

"She really did enjoy music, and she was a curious person," said Johnson, who has attended most of the annual events in the series. "I think involvement in the arts rounds you out as a person; it adds another dimension to your life."

Planned by current members of the Willard Straight Student Union Board (SUB), the series featured four student musical groups. Adjacent to the concert, large paintings, drawings and photographs lined the walls and stood propped on easels, including Rooney's oil painting of a dimly lit, rainy city scene.

The Art Gallery, which received a few enhancements recently, includes a glass case, high shelves, and cables and hooks to hang frames. The event functioned as a grand reopening of the space, routinely used as a student meeting spot and study lounge. Moving forward, GVA will use the space to feature rotating artists and exhibits each semester.

"To see GVA's presence increasing and to have an opportunity to promote arts on campus formally, I think it's really exciting," Rooney said.

The night began with songs by Safe in Sound, a six-person pop rock band that formed during their first semester at Cornell and have been practicing weekly in the Just About Music program house ever since. Other musical acts included: members of the Cornell Music Production Club, who work on projects throughout the semester and create an album at the end of the year; Escape2Eclipse, a solo singer/guitarist; and Raon, a cover band.

"Music is a safe escape for me and for a lot of my bandmates. Being part of this band is something that I look forward to every week," said Abigail So '26, lead vocalist of Safe and Sound and a classics major in the College of Arts and Sciences. "I think it's a cool way to meet other parts of the music and arts community."

Laura Gallup is a Communications Lead for Student and Campus Life.

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