Nia Carroll ’26 on opening night of the Patternscapes: Natural Design and Human Impressions exhibition at Mt. San Antonios Gardens.By Caitlin Antonios
When Nia Carroll ’26 saw Dody Weston Thompson’s 1982 photograph Reflections, Industrial Building, San Francisco, she knew she had to include it in her first curated exhibition.
“I immediately connected to the photograph, and I knew whatever I was going to make, that was going to be in it,” Carroll says. “I picked out pieces that I liked and really dove into the idea that the mind sort of has an innate affinity towards patterns.”
The art history major says it was initially daunting to have free reign over some of the magnificent works housed at the Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery. But through a generous curatorial internship created by Peggy Phelps, a longtime friend of Scripps and The Claremont Colleges, Carroll gained the confidence to create an exhibition from Scripps’ permanent collection to exhibit at Mt. San Antonio Gardens, a life care community near The Claremont Colleges.
Entitling the show Patternscapes: Natural Design and Human Impressions, Carroll celebrated the opening night at the Pomona retirement community just after the Thanksgiving holiday with family, friends, Scripps alums, and staff.
“I was just so overcome with emotion and joy,” Carroll says. “That night I felt so excited for the future and feeling so proud of my work.”
Carroll split her show into three sections—natural patterns, constructed patterns, and the interplay between human and natural patterns. It included photos like Ansel Adams’ Zabriskie Point, Death Valley National Park, California taken in 1942 and Marilyn Bridges’ Sand Dunes with Truck on Coastal Pan American Highway, near Chala, Peru taken in 1989. The Thompson photo was a gift of the Thompson Family Trust made possible in part by Michael and Jane Wilson.
“Spanning four continents and nearly seven decades, the pieces explore patterns throughout natural, constructed, and synergistic landscapes,” Carroll says. “I ended up doing a lot of research, wrote all of the wall text, all of the intro panel, and collaborated heavily with Administrative Assistant and Curator for Academic Programming at the Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery Margalit Monroe.”
Discovering her passion for art and curation
The junior first heard about the internship her freshman year and was immediately excited about the opportunity. While she hadn’t then picked her art history major and minors in media studies and Spanish, she knows the exact moment her love of art and architecture manifested in high school.
“My teacher took us on a field trip down to New Haven, Connecticut, to look at a building on the New Haven seaport,” Carroll recalls. “It had been abandoned for many, many years and he told my entire class we were just going to sit there and look at it in silence for 45 minutes. I was totally, totally entranced by the building.”
That experience set her on a research journey to learn more about the building where she discovered the building’s architect was Marcel Breuer, a product of the German art school the Bauhaus.
“Once I started getting into the Bauhaus, I feel like it moved into a lot of different historical periods,” Carroll says. “By the time I came to Scripps, I knew for sure that I would be studying art history.”
Her journey came full circle when she began researching that pivotal Thompson photograph and found that the photographer was also a graduate of the Bauhaus.
“This experience has solidified that I hope to pursue curatorial studies in the future,” Carroll says. “It’s really grown my confidence and shown me that I can make it a reality.”
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