Big Dreams Come True for MCC Alumna
February 10, 2026
From a college mural to inclusion in one of the world’s most prestigious exhibits, 2023 MCC graduate Zazie Weldgen is realizing her dreams in a big way! The Society of Illustrators accepted her mural in its 68th Illustrator’s Annual exhibition in the Product and Surface Design category. Weldgen was also awarded a silver medal. Her mural, along with all the other pieces in the exhibit, will be published in a book.
Photo 1: Mural featuring various animals in front of a food truck.
Founded in 1901, the Society of Illustrators is one of the oldest nonprofit organizations in the U.S., dedicated to celebrating and archiving illustration. Renowned illustrators, art directors, and designers vote on pieces for inclusion in the Illustrators Annual, which provides a platform for artists to express events and movements of our time.
Zazie reflected on this amazing accomplishment and her time at MCC.
Veronica: When did you graduate from MCC?
Zazie: I graduated from MCC in 2023. I started during the pandemic, so all of my art classes were over Zoom. To get the full MCC experience, I decided to stay for a third year and earn a second associate degree in Fine Art, complementing the one I earned in Commercial Illustration.
Veronica: What are you doing now?
Zazie: This upcoming May, I will be doing my first solo tabling event at RICE (Rochester Indie Comic’s Expo). I’m also getting ready for two trips. One to Tucson, Arizona, to take a printmaking class because I want more experience in that medium, and another to New York City.
Veronica: Where did the idea for the mural come from?
Zazie: When Jodi Oriel, Student Life and Leadership Development Director, commissioned me to paint a mural in the newly renovated student lounge, I was elated. Jodi was such a dream client. She gave me free rein to paint whatever I wanted as long as it somehow touched on the college’s mission of “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” When I began sketching concepts, given the mural’s proximity to the cafeteria, I knew the imagery should relate to food. Still, I struggled to find a way to honor the diversity I had experienced as a student at Monroe Community College without inevitably leaving some group out. My solution was to depict an international group of animals with mixed features from male and female species, clad in the most colorful clothing I could imagine, so anyone looking can hopefully relate to any creature that they set their eyes on. Additionally, unless you have a carbon crystal heart, who doesn’t smile a little when confronted by a cute animal in clothing? Excluding the cow, there are 50 animals depicted outside the truck, representing the 50 student clubs and organizations operating at MCC when I started the mural.
Veronica: What was your favorite thing about MCC?
From all the fun activities of student life, the incredible graphic novel and vinyl collection in the library, and running the comic book club, there’s so much to choose from. If I had to pick just one thing, it would be the amazing professors in the Visual and Performing Arts Department. I may be a little biased, as my dad, Franzie Weldgen, is a professor in that area, but it’s really fun to look back at how much my artistic ability improved during my three years at MCC. All of my professors were so kind, informative, and really crafted these wonderful environments of support among the art students. I felt so inspired during my time here and developed practically all of the stylistic and material choices I do in my art today. It really prepared me to enter the Brockport Bachelor of Fine Arts program with a strong body of work, which I felt confident in continuing to develop.
Veronica: Why would you recommend MCC to other students?
Zazie: Honestly, if you live in the Rochester area and your field of interest is offered as a major at MCC, then you are a fool to go anywhere else. Not only is it financially reasonable, but it’s also a top-tier education. Many of my MCC friends and I found that at the schools we transferred to, whether private or SUNY, the number of opportunities, social programs, campus events, diversity among the student body, and the general attentiveness of professors were no match for MCC. It really is a college all about the “community.”
Artist Zazie Weldgen crouched down in front of a purple flower bush.