DeKALB — NIU’s Master in Fine Arts program will be hosting it’s Fall 2020 Sleight of Hand Art Exhibition. This event is being done by appointments only, because of the current quarantine.  Lisa Deinst-Thomas is the person to email at [email protected]. 

“We have risen to this challenge of making magic, which is where we kinda came up with the title of our show,” student artist Deinst-Thomas said. The exhibit begins Tuesday and goes through Nov. 17 in Gallery 215, 215 N. 4th St., according to NIU’s event calendar website. 

The exhibit and its name is all about how to do this show during the pandemic, because putting the show together was almost like a magic trick, between limiting the number of people and not having a typical opening with food, featured artist Melissa Zilic said

The M.F.A has six different types of artists participating in this fall’s exhibition based on the work of first year graduate students, “with a multitude of different media from fiber to print to cad-work to painting and drawing,” Dienst-Thomas said. 

“I have two pieces of jewelry that I created on a computerated design program,” Deinst-Thomas said.

Deinst-Thomas also explained that she is part of the metal work and digital fabrication program. And with everything being online this semester she has been focusing on her digital fabrication components. 

Zilic will showcase a crocheted collar, an art book that’s hand bound, a couple of drawings and a couple of dyed pieces of silk, she said.

“We are allowing six people in the gallery at a time,” Zilic said. “Everyone needs to wear masks. It’s a Northern Illinois University building so we’re following the mask policy and the protocols.”