Class of 2025 Recognition Ceremony speakers announced

Graduating students Maddie Baker and Ceci Gutierrez will speak at the Sam Fox School’s Recognition Ceremony for the class of 2025, Sunday, May 11. They join a lineup featuring a keynote address from alum and MacArthur Fellow Ebony G. Patterson.

Baker, an award-winning illustrator and comics artist from Boise, Idaho, will complete her Master of Fine Arts in Illustration & Visual Culture this year. She earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration from Brigham Young University. Working across industries including children’s literature, comics, painting, pattern design, and more, Baker’s work explores women finding joy in the everyday. She recently won a Bronze Award and scholarship from the Society of Illustrators of Los Angeles for her illustration, “Woman in Repose.”

Gutierrez will graduate with her Bachelor of Science in Architecture this spring. An artist and aspiring architect from Mexico City, she explores the role of art and design as means for social change. Her projects seek to challenge spatial conventions and societal norms through play and innovative methods for co-creation. During her time at WashU, Gutierrez has served as a student assistant for the summer Alberti Program: Architecture for Young People, held a Goldman Fellowship through the Gephardt Institute for Civic and Community Engagement, and interned at Dream Builders 4 Equity.

Keynote speaker Ebony G. Patterson, MFA ’06, is known for her thriving career creating densely layered, highly textured works that pose questions about race, class, gender, power, care, life, and death. She is a 2024 MacArthur Fellow — colloquially called a “genius grant” — and a past recipient of the school’s Stone & DeGuire Contemporary Art Award, Award for Distinction, and WashU’s Distinguished Alumni Award. She has served on the school’s National Council since 2020.