AMES, Iowa — Just three months into Avery TeSelle’s freshman year at Iowa State University, her close friend and fellow student, Drew DiDonato, died following a traumatic brain injury sustained in a skateboarding accident.

For TeSelle, who had been a pre-architecture major and a member of the first-year honors program, DiDonato’s death and the grief she felt had a profound impact. Her GPA dipped below the threshold needed to remain an honors student, and “after Drew passed, I reevaluated my priorities and what I wanted to do with my life,” she said.

TeSelle, from Benbrook, Texas, had attended a fine arts public charter school prior to enrolling at Iowa State, and she realized that art was her true calling. “I decided to pursue what I loved doing and switched my major to integrated studio arts.”

Four years later, TeSelle is the recipient of the 2025 Janice Petersen Anderson Medallion Award, established in memory of 1960 home economics education graduate Janice Peterson Anderson and presented annually to an outstanding graduating senior in graphic design, interior design or integrated studio arts who “shows the greatest potential for distinguished work in design.”

Finalists this year were TeSelle; Lamaur Benjamin, senior in graphic design from Chicago; and Kierra Jack, senior in interior design from Davenport, all of whom will receive bachelor of fine arts degrees Saturday, May 17, at the university’s Spring 2025 Undergraduate Commencement Ceremony.

The three were selected by their departments as the top students in their majors based on scholarship, creative ability, motivation and productivity throughout their studies at Iowa State. A faculty committee then reviewed the students’ work in the “JPA Medallion Exhibition” to determine the medallion winner.

About the honoree

TeSelle’s current work focuses on compositions that reflect personal health struggles and digital social interactions.

“Never Put Me in a Situation” (2025) by Avery TeSelle

“I find that the meaning within my work comes from the act of painting itself… and through translating chaotic scenes into paintings, I’m able to see beauty and deeper meaning within the chaos and grant myself the forgiveness I need to heal and construct better habits moving forward,” she said.

While at Iowa State, TeSelle received the Richard Hegen Memorial Scholarship and Therese Warburton Applied Art Scholarship from the Department of Art and Visual Culture and a Focus Grant, funded through Student Government, which supported her “Streaks” series — five paintings of Snapchat screenshots dealing with the concept of impermanence.

“The Eyes of Iowa” (2025) by Avery TeSelle

She won a Merit Award for her painting “Chaos” in the 2024 “Studies in Creativity” exhibit at the Memorial Union Art Gallery. Her work has also been a part of the 2023-2024 “Focus Grant Exhibit” there, and in the 2025 “JPA Medallion Exhibition” and “Merge: BFA Senior Exhibition” in the College of Design’s Gallery 181.

TeSelle has been a Gaffer’s Guild artistic glassblowing club member for three years, serving as president in 2023-2024, and participated in the Alliance for Disability Awareness student organization. She studied abroad with the “Watercolor Walks” course last summer in Rome.

After graduation, TeSelle plans to work on commissions while curating a portfolio for submission to master of fine arts programs.

Contacts

Avery TeSelle, Graduating Senior, Integrated Studio Arts, ateselle@iastate.edu
Heather Sauer, Director of Strategic Communications, College of Design, hsauer@iastate.edu

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