Student-curated exhibition ‘The Art of Nature’ puts Ferris State KCAD's newest certificate on the map
Three design students at Ferris State University’s Kendall College of Art and Design built a gallery exhibition from scratch to give the school's Natural Science Illustration certificate its first public stage — and ran out of wall space doing it.
Sydney Higgins, Ally Grant and Kaylee Dirkmaat curated "The Art of Nature," which ran earlier this year in the KCAD galleries. The show drew 25 submissions, accepted 23 artists and displayed more than 40 pieces — enough to spill into the hallway outside the gallery.
"We wanted to put on this show to highlight all of the amazing art that comes out of the natural science certificate," Higgins said. "I had never seen that happen here before."
The certificate created three years ago by professor and Illustration Program Chair Nancy Hart pulls from courses including Natural Science Illustration and Observational Field Sketching. The show was open to all KCAD illustration students, not just certificate participants.
Grant said Hart's influence is inseparable from the discipline itself.
"The only reason why we are all here is because of Nancy Hart," Grant said. "Science doesn't offer Nancy, neither does art. She's just been the perfect combination of both."
Higgins said natural science illustration bridges a gap that neither field bridges alone — pairing visual beauty with scientific context to deepen a viewer's connection to a subject.
"You look at a piece and think, wow, that's really beautiful," Higgins said. "Then you read the caption and it says this plant is endangered. That makes me feel more connected to it."
The exhibition also featured a taxidermy observational wall where visitors could sketch live in the gallery. A local high school class attended and participated in an observational field sketching workshop alongside Kendall students.
Curating the show was the first for all three students. Higgins, Grant and Dirkmaat spent four days installing the exhibition, working 10-hour shifts. Gallery staff member Gustavo Ayala Onate taught them how to professionally measure and hang artwork — skills Higgins said it paid off immediately when she hung her own pieces for KCAD's senior show the following week.
"I was putting nails in the wall in the first hour of the senior show," Higgins said.
Higgins, a senior Illustration major from Grant, and a member of the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators, said the lack of similar exhibitions in the Grand Rapids area was part of what motivated the project. Both she and Grant have participated in the artist residency at Pierce Cedar Creek Institute, which Higgins said shaped her work and reinforced why the discipline deserved a public platform.
Dirkmaat, who graduated last semester, co-curated the show remotely and has work featured in the current KCAD senior exhibition.
Higgins said she hopes other students pursue both the certificate and KCAD's student-led curation program.
"Other students should take advantage of being able to put on their own show," she said. "You can do whatever you want with it."