Brice Hunt (Illustration) usually has a sketchbook of in-progress illustrations with them at all times.
 

“I’ve always been a drawer,” they said. “Kids just like cartoons so I was into cartoons. I thought, ‘I like them so I’m going to make them'.”

Much of their illustration work focuses on sci-fi fantasy and robots, “Any of my friends will tell you I’m obsessed with robots and I like anything with robots in it.”

Seeing cartoon robots on TV sparked their interest in illustration but it was later fostered at the Delaware Art Museum, where they now works as the summer art camp assistant.

“I took art classes there when I started homeschooling. My main teacher there is a cartoonist,” Hunt said. “I spend a lot of time there and they have a really nice collection of traditional illustration.”

Their interest in traditional illustration and desire for a school that felt like home is what attracted them to PAFA.

“My dad’s family is from Philly so I’d been here a lot and I wanted some place close, but far enough away so I could be independent,” said the Delaware native. “I like the size of the school. I wanted a small school because I’d been home schooled and I’m used to having a small student body and I liked the tradition of the school.”

While PAFA’s close-knit community and museum are a comfort to Hunt, they're constantly being challenged in her work.

“Different things work together, you don’t have to just do a single thing and that’s the only thing you get to do,” they said. “I liked that PAFA was about experimentation. All of that was a storm of things that really appealed to me.”

An interest in painting was swapped for a printmaking minor when Hunt took their first printmaking class. They say their favorite class this semester is Intermediate Intaglio where they have the opportunity to make their own books.

Those bookmaking skills could come in handy later in Hunt’s career. They have a long list of goals, and hopes to see their illustrations published in a variety of forms.

“I’d like to publish my own books and I’d like to illustrate children’s books. I’d like to illustrate various covers, editorials, book covers, and book jackets,” they said. “I don’t really have a specific trajectory, I just like the art of narrative and telling a story, that includes a lot of comics.”

—LeAnne Matlach (LMatlach@pafa.org)