Abner Velazquez

“Funny enough, I started Russell Sage as a biology major,” said bio-turned-art-major Abner Velazquez.

He explained that in high school, he would relax by listening to science documentaries and drawing. “I started off wanting to do science because of that,” he said. 

He applied to Russell Sage College after touring upstate New York campuses with his Manhattan high school. 

“Sage was my favorite because it was smaller than other schools, and I like the more personal connections that you can make, knowing that you can go up to a professor and talk,” he said. “That sold it for me, just knowing that I had access to a bunch of help.”

Once enrolled, he enjoyed his biology classes but loved the ceramics class that he signed up for to satisfy a general education requirement. 

After conversations with his ceramics professor, William Fillmore, who followed a bachelor’s degree in business with an MFA in sculpture, Velazquez switched his major to Art + Extended Media.

“I was like, ‘Wow, so this isn’t a special case. I can do something I truly like doing and make an income and a living from it,’” he said. 

“That’s the class that made me turn into an art student,” Velazquez added. “It felt right.”

He listed several more classes that prepared him for professional opportunities in the visual arts.

In Drawing I and Drawing II, he honed traditional drawing-on-paper techniques and became proficient with digital tools like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. In a series of studio classes, he became more comfortable with critical feedback. Then, there is the class he credits with helping him land his internship and begin planning his post-BFA career (his goal is to illustrate children’s media.) 

“Professor Sean Hovendick taught a class called Professional Practices, which basically guided me step-by-step about making my resume and having my portfolio ready,” he said. 

In summer 2024, Velazquez interned with aGatherin’ — a small business that buys and sells collectible ephemera and offers appraising services.

Examples of ephemera include postcards, matchbooks, theatre programs, and other printed memorabilia. Such items often include combinations of text and images that intrigue Velazquez as an illustrator. 

He met the aGatherin’ owners when they visited one of his classes to present their comic book collection. When he learned they offered internships, he applied.

“I practiced a bunch of my illustration skills,” he said. “They needed posters, and they needed a few things like a special banner to promote their business at collector shows.”

He was also part of a collaboration between aGatherin’ and the arts organization Arts Letters and Numbers, to recreate Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre with items salvaged on the Arts Letters and Numbers grounds. Velazquez designed a 3D model of the planned structure and pitched in with the actual construction. 

When he looked back at the end of the summer, he said the internship influenced his own illustration style. 

“Previously, a lot of my interests were cartoons and television, really wacky stuff that you would see from the ’90s,” he said. “I started appreciating vintage, 1950s style, where you would see more realistic figures and faces. I feel like nowadays, I’m in a middle ground between that realism and that really abstract, cartoony style.”

Now, he’s looking ahead, toward senior year, returning to Russell Sage’s eSports team — his game is Overwatch — and being a resource for new art majors as RSC welcomes its largest incoming class in several years. 

“There’s a lot more people in the art department, in the art building. And you know it’s exciting,” he said. “I can go up to a person and be like, How are you? Is today good, are your classes going well? Going to Sage taught me that you should really say Hi!”