The Library is delighted to introduce this year’s Virtual Authors Display for the Moraine Valley Community College campus community. Showcasing publications and creative works by our faculty and staff from 2025, it’s a wonderful snapshot of the knowledge and creativity across our community. We invite you to browse the works and join us in recognizing these outstanding contributions.
Please scroll thru full presentation to view all submissions.
This debut solo exhibition presents the story of a family of four through the perspective of a rat. Across a series of four vessels and one hundred and sixty tiles, each family member is represented by their zodiac element and animal, with a rat as the point-of-view character. Domestic vessels - empty or filled, locked or open - imply containment and separation, making tangible the often stark contrast between inner thoughts and outer actions. Hundreds of tiles depict characters fighting, crying, and lying to themselves and each other as a fantastical retelling of fraught domestic dynamics. Moving chronologically through personal memory and mythos, Within, Without tells the story of four people finding themselves within a house without a home.
I utilize obsessive texture and organic imagery to examine our shared struggle to find meaning and our desire for a place to belong while we’re here. The tedious work of sculpting every hair on a rabbit’s head becomes a ritual, validating the smallest actions with the impact of the aggregate whole. I gather the resultant marks of multitudinous and inconsequential actions as validation that the constant, minute, and invisible labor required to build personhood will accumulate into something worthwhile. In addition to the ritual of texture, I work figuratively to examine my yearning to feel understood and loved as a multi-racial queer person in the U.S. Employing imagery of plants, people, and animals, I build objects that personify the dissonance, grief, and precarity of simultaneously descending from many countries and many people but having nowhere to belong. With my inquiry into my personal narrative, I help elucidate the complexity of intersectional identity and strive to build a community we can call home.
Nothing inspires heated discourse more than an adaptation of a beloved novel with a longstanding fanbase. Will it capture the essence of the author's vision? Is it even possible to do well? Ursula K. Le Guin’s 1968 popular fantasy novel, A Wizard of Earthsea, has been adapted many times before, often in ways disappointing to Le Guin. But seeing that her son, Theo Downes-Le Guin, worked closely with writer and illustrator Fred Fordham, I was intrigued to see this new interpretation.
UK illustrator Tim Bird’s Adrift on a Painted Sea is a short reflection of the life and passing of his mother, Sue Bird, and the art she left behind. Using a combination of his own Illustrations, his mother’s paintings, and other artifacts from her life, he showcases her work in a touching tribute. Bird sifts through recollections of his mother, inserting memories from his childhood in between more recent experiences of her aging, by using imagery with minimal dialogue that lets the reader soak in the emotional state of the author. He explores her artistic pursuits and her love of painting the ocean, but he also centers his own experience with her loss. The vignette style of this volume is engaging, but sometimes shifts suddenly, leaving the reader feeling adrift in the narrative. This could have been Bird’s intention all along, creating a story that ebbs and flows like the ocean itself.
Introverts, rejoice! Finally there is a graphic novel that sees us and our daily struggle to avoid being a person in the world! How to Meet No One: An Introvert’s Guide to Surviving a World Filled with People by Ainsley Drew shares tips through playful humor about how to live your best introverted life. Drew started posting her art on Instagram under the handle @lousydrawingsforgoodpeople in 2020, with her signature rounded people and animals, sporting small eyes and wide smiles, usually accompanied by a frank phrase or joke. This book is an extension of that work and readers familiar with her Instagram will find themselves at home here.
This photo was taken during a Shibori fabric dyeing course offered through the non-credit department and taught by Rebecca Crivellone. It features one of the first pieces Chris created in the hands-on workshop using the ‘Honeycomb’ technique, a variation of Arashi (storm) dyeing.
The concept for the 26th Annual Chicago Irish Film Festival poster explores vintage travel poster designs through the lens of modern vector graphics. The figure stands confidently behind the film camera and is a nod to the many talented Irish female filmmakers. The setting references the historical roots of Irish culture by showcasing the green-dyed Chicago river flowing through Chicago architecture. The goal was to ultimately guide the viewer to explore how intricately the Irish and Chicago culture and histories are intertwined.
Michael Morsches
Dean, Learning Enrichment & College Readiness - Learning Enrichment
Dr. Rita Ferriter
Reading Faculty - Developmental Education
Dr. John Halliwell
Intensive English Language Faculty - Developmental Education
Dr. Jennifer Lee-Good
Reading Faculty - Developmental Education
Lauren Zajac
Transition Coordinator - Adult Basic Education
Credits:
Created with images by alexkich - "music series in the form of heart" • Tanakrit - "A stethoscope rests on a blue book, symbolizing the connection between medical knowledge and practice." • Dzmitry - "On a white background lies a stethoscope and a heart plate with the inscription - Nurses call the shots" • Kenishirotie - "blue hand gloves making heart shape on blue background for care, love or support medical team" • SKT Studio - "Book stack on the table in the library room and blurred space of bookshelf background" • Karen Roach - "An e-reader on a wood desk with a pen and five gold stars with text Book Reviews" • matousekfoto - "Indoor storage details in a manufacturing enterprise, black shelves with white office boxes." • Graphithèque - "Tampon archives - à l'envers" • Petra - "Book with pen on desk with The end heading"