In 2004 photographer and performer Liz Cohen (BFA '96) walked into Elwood Body Works, an auto body shop in Scottsdale, Arizona, and asked if she could use a corner of the garage to build a car as an art project. The guys working there laughed. Not only did Cohen have limited mechanical skills, but the car she wanted to build was a crazy lowrider cross between an East German Trabant and a Chevy El Camino. And besides, an art project? But Cohen persisted, the laughs died down, and an agreement—rent-free—was struck. "They thought I would last two months," Cohen says. More >  

At first glance, Brian Burkhardt's sculptures of plants and animals look as if they belong in a botanical garden instead of a contemporary art gallery. The hyacinth, the starfish, and the tiny snails appear to be perfectly preserved specimens. But then you notice a Macintosh computer plug emerging from the roots of a foxglove, and that the pattern on the wings of a butterfly is an exact replica of Louis Vuitton luggage. "I want people to stand an inch away and say, ' Wait a minute, is that real or not?'," Burkhardt says. "I like that blurred line." More >  

In 1980 Emily G. Kahn (Diploma '98, Fifth Year Certificate '99) made a startling discovery, but she didn't know it at the time. She had gone to Baltimore to clean out her childhood home after the death of her father, and there in the cellar, buried in an old trunk, was a small stack of photograph negatives. Kahn packed up the negatives without looking at them and took them home to Boston. More >  

Last year, in the name of cultural criticism, Laura Milkins (Post-Baccalaureate Certificate '96, Diploma '00) physically transformed herself into Paris Hilton. She dyed her hair, lost 20 pounds, and acquired a fake tan. She then attempted to rescue Paris's dumb-blond reputation by demonstrating her own traditional domestic skills in a series of performances at the Dinnerware Gallery in Tucson, Arizona. Paris cleans! Paris sews! Paris cooks! More >  

In the mid-1990s, Catherine Davis Hayes (Master of Fine Arts in Teaching in Art Education '92) started her public-school career teaching art at Oakland Beach—the largest, poorest elementary school in Warwick, Rhode Island. "There I was in a room with 26 kids labeled as ' difficult'," Hayes recalls. "I'll be honest. The sixth-graders scared me." More >  

In the mid-1980s, Jerry Beck (MFA '91) and some friends staged an art show in twelve derelict railroad cars on the South Boston waterfront. The Revolving Museum was born. "It was magical," Beck says. "Some of us slept in the cars. One night we had storytelling, and every kind of person you can imagine was shoulder to shoulder: artists, children, people in their eighties, homeless people. It cemented my idea of what I wanted the Revolving Museum to feel like." More >   

Rebecca Goldberg Oliver lives in Richmond, Virginia, and is a painter, a mother of two, and a cheerleader. The paintings she does in oils. The cheers she does—of course!—in a short skirt. But on Oliver’s "team" jocks are scarce. She cheers for the art world, and her squad's foot-stomping chants ring with satirical wit and sharp political views on the role of artists in contemporary society. Call it performance art with pompoms. More >  

Lisa Bufano (Bachelor of Fine Arts '03) has no fingers, no legs below the knee, and no interest in discussing how she got that way. Instead, she'd rather talk about her art, which ranges from sculpture and stop-motion animation to, more recently, modern dance. " My eye has always been drawn to abnormal forms," Bufano says, referring to dolls she has made and animated that have no face, extra ears, or hair curlers for legs. "It's just that now my tool is my body. I'm still animating a form, but it's my own form." More >  

Last year, on the lawn outside the Ujazdowski Castle Center for Contemporary Art in Warsaw, Poland, Kasia Ozga (BFA '04) installed one of her sculptures, a bust of a controversial Polish media figure. Then a flock of birds started eating it.  More >  

What do you get when you cross an eclectic group of young artists with old-school television game shows like "The Price is Right" and "Let’s Make a Deal?" The answer: "Art Show Down," a Western-themed, art-focused game show that’s part cultural criticism, part art installation, and, according to director Jeff Warmouth (Master of Fine Arts ’97), part "cheesy, ridiculous fun." More >  

Evelyn Rydz (Master of Fine Arts '05) didn’t know how to respond when she showed her pen-and-ink drawings to an acquaintance a year ago: he took one look at the strange, otherworldly images and marveled, "I never knew you were such a lunatic."  More >