The 2025 Des Moines Art Festival, held from June 27 to June 29, hosted numerous MCAD alumni and students. The festival’s featured artist of the year was Evan Abrahamson ’13, whose oil paintings play with time and meditative space.

Current student Ashley Guzmán’s print-making demonstration was on June 28, while alumni Jimmy Navarro hosted a painting demonstration on June 29. The Des Moines Arts Festival, as well as hosting many local artists, featured live music and a film festival.

We On Point, created by State of Black Design, was hosted at MCAD on June 19–20, 2025. The event highlights Black designers and creatives to uplift and celebrate Black voices in the design industry, in honor of Juneteenth.

The event featured many keynote speakers and panels, musical performances, student and local artists' showcase, and experiential workshops. State of Black Design’s next event will be Still Tippin’, hosted at Prairie View A&M University in Prairie View, Texas.

The Austin Artworks Center opened a new gallery featuring the spooky sculptures of Ashley Coortman, and Paramount Theatre wallpaper restorations by John Durfy ’70. Durfy spent over 800 hours during the late 90s uncovering and recreating the original 1929 designs underneath the newer layers of paint.

He would carefully uncover the, create samples on paper, certify colors, and repaint the lobby and theatre detailing. Durfy and his wife Lois will be doing an artists' talk on August 20 from 5:00—7:00 p.m.

Growing together, the newest graphic novel from Ursula Murray Husted ’07, is set to be published worldwide by Quill Tree Books in the summer of 2028. The graphic novel follows three kids who experience their first crushes, navigate friendships, and join their school’s gardening club.

Dr. Melissa Rands has been promoted to Vice President of Academic Affairs at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD), effective August 4, 2025. She will provide leadership for strategic initiatives, academic planning, and faculty development. A 1997 MCAD graduate and first-generation college student, Dr. Rands has been a leader in higher education for over twenty-five years, serving in senior-level administrative positions in student and academic affairs in Canada and the United States.

This June, Rosalux Gallery presents And Or When How: An Open Question, a new solo exhibition by Ute Bertog ’05 that explores abstraction, language, and form through vibrant paintings and ceramic elements.

Bertog, a German-born artist based in St. Paul, is known for her process-driven approach and conceptually layered work. In this exhibition, she examines the “connective tissue” that binds shifting ideas and mediums. The featured painting, Connective Tissue, exemplifies her dynamic interplay between visual rhythm and the abstract language of thought.