Lessons Learned: Selections from the American Classroom Series explores the American classroom through the perspective of Houston-based artist and educator, Darla Barolini. Drawing from her experiences as an art teacher, both at the high school and college levels, Barolini offers a unique and personal lens into the American education system that navigates moments of tension, vulnerability, and connection presented within the classroom environment.

The scenes depicted in the American Classroom series are not direct recreations of a specific classroom but rather reimagined settings based on the artist’s memories, observations, and collected visual references. By using a monumental and painterly style, Barolini captures the atmosphere of “the classroom” to immerse the viewer into the emotional complexities and dynamics found in spaces of learning. Extending beyond the painting narratives, the exhibition includes an interactive classroom installation, where visitors are encouraged to leave their mark on school-style desks. 

Lessons Learned invites students, educators, and community members to reflect on connection, acceptance, and understanding through our shared experiences. While the works center on adolescence and the educational environment, they ultimately speak to the human condition.

Curatorial: Darla Barolini, Norma Bickmore, Peter Bonfitto

Exhibition Brochure: Norma Bickmore

Artwork Registration: Dagon McNiff, Bess Siritanapivat

Exhibition Installation: Ellen Crofts, Bailey Forman, Dagon McNiff, Soleil Parks, Bess Siritanapivat

Classroom Installation: Darla Barolini, Ellen Crofts, Bailey Forman, Veeny Revilla, Bess Siritanapivat, Olivia Spiers, Kaela Williams 

Online Content: Norma Bickmore, Soleil Parks, Olivia Spiers

Promotion Design: Olivia Spiers

Eatery 73 Student Art Display featured artist: Debra Fehrenkamp

Debra Fehrenkamp is a painter and weaver based in Utley, Texas. Originally from Houston, she moved to Austin in 2001 and began attending Austin Community College in 2024. Fehrenkamp’s process begins with photographing still lifes and landscapes. She then cuts up and rearranges the photographs to make collages, which become the subject matter of her paintings. Speaking about her relationship with paint, Fehrenkamp says, “One of the things I enjoy most about painting is the physical act of putting large amounts of paint on the canvas in a single stroke. Oil paint holds its shape so beautifully and I find each brush stroke full of paint and color soothing in this complicated, topsy-turvy world.”