The paid internship allows students to build their portfolios before applying to graduate programs or pursuing art professionally. This year's interns are Bogyi Banovich '11, Stacey Derosier '12, Stuart Lantry '12 and Malia Reeves '12, who will each display works in a rotunda show at the Hopkins Center.
Lantry described the program as "a year to explore art-making intensively."
"You get the same access to facilities and materials as undergraduate students, but the ability to concentrate your time without taking classes," he said.
While Lantry hopes to become a professional artist, he said his positive experience as a teaching assistant, which offers interns a chance to take new classes and get classroom experience, has made him interested in education as well.
Reeves, who has stayed involved with the creative atmosphere on campus, called the program an "amazing opportunity" for student artists not yet ready to continue to graduate school or jump into a career.
"My goal is to keep making art, however it's possible," Reeves said. "I'd love to find something else like this for next year."
This year, Banovich has experimented with pushing his work in different directions, free from the burden of a set deadline, and has enjoyed assisting in an introductory photography class, which he never tried as an undergraduate.
"Being a teaching assistant is like taking the class with the students," Banovich said. "You're helping with logistics and giving critiques, but you're also a part of that creative environment."
While the interns each focus on different mediums and techniques Lantry on painting and sculpture inspired by urban art, Reeves on painting, printmaking and photography in vibrant hues, Banovich on metal and plastic works inspired by nature and evolution and Derosier on paintings that emphasize organic geometric shapes they have found formal and informal critiques of each others' works to be very helpful.
Reeves described this year's group as "especially close."
"We're all working on very different types of works, but everyone can give feedback even if they don't know much about a particular technique," she said. "Sometimes we're here very late, working, sharing a beer and painting."
Next year's interns Lin Bo '13, William Bryant '13, Alexandra Campbell '13, Luca Molnar '13, Matt Sturm '13 and Sabrina Yegela '13 will remain in Hanover to pursure the internship. Yegela said she looks forward to exploring sculpture and photography, which she hopes to bring together through performance pieces and other ways.
She added that the intern program provides student artists a transition period between College and post-undergraduate life.
"I'm still developing as an artist and developing my portfolio," Yegela said. "I can have time to think about things before I have to stand behind my art in the real world."
Molnar said she is excited to have more time to go back to previous work and pursue long-term projects.
"Most painters work on pieces over the course of several years, but here, students have to complete their work in just a few weeks or even days," she said. "I think this is really going to be great to help my work develop and push it in new directions."
