THELAKER | 19 a variety of roles, most recently serving as chief operating o cer for Seneca Waterways Council. Kelley Monson ’03 (Networking), ’08 (Information Security) was appointed to the Geneva City School Board. Monson is chief operating o cer and senior vice president at Finger Lakes Federal Credit Union, where she has worked since 2007. Meaghan aine ’04 (Nursing) joined the OB-GYN practice at UR Medicine ompson Health’s Canandaigua Medical Group in 2022. She obtained a bachelor of nursing from Roberts Wesleyan College in Rochester and a master’s degree in the family nurse practitioner program at SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse. Meaghan is certi ed by the American Association of Nurse Practitioners and for the past ve years has worked as a family nurse practitioner with Lifecare Medical Associates in Seneca Falls. Ryan Kovar’s FLCC toolbox As the pandemic shutdowns began in 2020, an opportunity for Ryan Kovar ’12 opened up. Ryan, a graphic design graduate of FLCC, got a message from a children’s book author who had seen his work on hireanillustrator.com. A year later, “Wildly Perfect” hit the market, featuring his playful, quirky images to accompany verse encouraging individuality and self-con dence. Ryan gave a talk about his work as an animator and illustrator at the Williams-Insalaco Gallery 34 in December. He honed his own individuality and self-con dence at FLCC before he transferred to Rochester Institute of Technology to study lm and animation. “It was a great transitional period,” he said of his associate degree work. “I learned so many di erent programs and design principles that it provided me a toolbox to be able to pull from when I was doing projects at RIT.” Elaine Verstraete helped him sharpen his illustration style, which embraces the unusual and absurd. “Elaine encouraged me to be myself artistically,” he said. “She gave me the opportunity to learn so much more about illustration and the illustration process. A lot of what she taught I still remember to this day. She was a big in uence.” John Fox showed him how to make an animation sequence. “It was really cool that he gave me and others a chance to get a taste for that before moving on to RIT, where I studied it full-time. It de nitely reinforced that I do enjoy this and I can do this, and I’ll get better in the future.” Ryan took sculpture with Barron Naegel, who organized his recent gallery show, and graphic design with Liz Brownell. “She helped me a lot with understanding the concept of design and transitioning from traditional to digital,” he said. Since graduating from RIT in 2016, he has created a range of art as a freelancer, from magazines and print advertising to short lms and a cartoon series. Ryan o en gives animals a comical aspect with unusual colors and human expressions, and he draws outlandish creatures with odd mixes of tentacles, eyes, ns and feathers. “I specialize in creating fun, whimsical illustrations of cartoon characters, animals and fantastical other-worldly creatures,” he said. “Making the unusual relatable is what drives me to create.” In addition to “Wildly Perfect,” with text by Brooke McMahan, Ryan also illustrated “Wake the Wolf ” by Maurizio Lippiello. See more of Ryan’s work at ryankovar.com and on Instagram: @kovarcreations. Ryan Kovar ’12 exhibited his work at the Williams-Insalaco Gallery 34 at the main campus in December. PHOTO BY RIKKI VAN CAMP
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