SANTA CRUZ >> For the past two months, students in UC Santa Cruz’s Art Department have been busy creating a variety of projects from paintings to sculptures to electronic artwork, ready to be showcased in its quarterly Open Studios session Friday.

As the department nears the end of its winter quarter, the public will have an opportunity to see exactly what students have been pouring all of their creativity into. For four hours, attendees will be able to view the inventive endeavors of the department’s graduate and undergraduate students. The walls of the Elena Baskin Visual Arts Center will be filled with paintings, drawings, print media, sculptures, photography, environmental art and even electronic art and new media, all created by students.

“Open Studios is an exciting opportunity to experience the creative talents and achievements of UCSC Art Department’s graduate and undergraduate students,” said Hannah Pederson, administrative manager of the Art Department, in a statement.

The intent, according to an Art Department news release, is to highlight the diversity and skills of current students who represent the next generation of artists. It is a department that has produced many notable alumni over the years. Annalivia Martin-Straw, who graduated from the program in 2023, recently collaborated with UC Santa Cruz computer game design student Tyler Knowlton on an arcade-style tabletop racing game called “Super Ultra Racing Xtreme,” which was included in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s “Artcade,” an extension of the museum’s “Get in the Game: Sports, Art, Culture” exhibit.

Additionally, 2009 graduate Laurus Myth received a grant worth more than $100,000 from the San Francisco Art Commission, which she will use to create “temporary public art that meets people in random public spaces,” per a news release. Her first solo exhibition, “Portals & Passages: An Evolution of Paintings, Sculptures, and Social Magic,” is currently on display at the Triton Museum of Art in Santa Clara through April 27.

Current UC Santa Cruz art students could have similar careers in art, and events like Open Studios are designed to give the public a chance to see the caliber of artists in the making.

Open Studios is noon to 4 p.m. Friday at UC Santa Cruz’s Elena Baskin Visual Arts Center, located at Baskin Service Road near the west entrance of campus. The nearest parking lot is Arts Lot 126, and parking is available by permit or the ParkMobile app. The event is free and open to the public. For information, go to art.ucsc.edu/event/2025/01/winter-2025-open-studios.