After visiting museums in Athens, where everything was pristine and behind glass, students would go down to a dig in Corinth, where there was no glass and no guards, and artifacts are partly broken, partly mended, and not always beautiful. Here, students could physically interact with the objects. 

"That’s nothing compared to somebody opening up a box and pulling out a pot and handing it to you, and you hold it, and you feel how heavy it is," Frey said. "You feel how smooth or rough it is, and then you can imagine like putting something in it; you can imagine using it."

"That's not an experience everybody’s gonna have in Greece, and so that’s generally why we pick that place, because I can’t give students that experience anywhere else," Frey added. 

"The students also work at a studio in ancient Corinth, where they play with clay and figure out how they want to use it," Casement said. 

"What’s really important about that time is that I do one-on-ones with them, and we talk about what is it that you’ve been most inspired about seeing in Greece, or your experience here, and how can we make that into a singular piece of work," she said.

They then return to Michigan to work with Casement in a studio for three weeks, processing their experience and turning it into art. 

Frey said that he never gets to be part of that experience, which is "unfortunate." But he knows how students are processing this step by reading their artist statements and looking at the work in the show. 

Casement watched students process their travels as they worked with the clay, having made it clear to students that they shouldn't come back from Greece making the same type of artwork. 

The idea for the "Lasting Impressions" exhibition began in 2023, although Frey has been taking students to Greece since 2008. 

When Casement decided to do a ceramics project, she thought it would be a good idea to have students who had this experience in Greece share it with the broader community. 

In 2020, when Frey became the director of the excavation in Isthmia, Greece, he said it seemed like there was an opportunity there to go beyond "just showing students around to Greece."

Frey said he typically gets students interested in Greek art and Greek archaeology who want to participate in the study abroad, but he wanted to reach students outside of archaeology, like students in design, arts and science. 

"The excavation is a great place to train students to do that," he said. "What I thought was missing was that the excavation has so much more potential to be a place for learning and for creativity that go beyond archaeology."

The exhibition is "great," Frey said, as it shows the dig is "doing more than just teaching archaeologists."

"It gets students over to Greece. It advertises what we’re doing over there through the exhibition. It encourages more students to come hang out with us," he said, adding that it becomes something of an international exhibition.

"This program has been really interesting to me too in that I had to reach outside of what I was familiar with."

In addition to visiting digs, museums and sites, students visit galleries with contemporary artists, art fairs and contemporary art museums.

Artists in Greece are asked questions like, "What does the past mean to you? Do you feel that it gets in the way? Do you feel that it supports? Is it a point of inspiration?"

Frey said these questions helped students think about how much the past, or Greek history, affects the work of contemporary Greek artists, whose country is rich in history. He said some artists responded that the past didn't affect them and that they didn't think about it in their work, while others said the past was a source of inspiration, and some found it frustrating because of the pressure to feed into the narrative of recreating an ancient pot. 

"I think it was really important to Rebecca, and to me, to not fall into the trap of encouraging our students to think that all of the great things that happened in Greece happened 2,000 years ago," he said. "Greece supports a contemporary population of artists and people and a society that has its own interests that aren’t tied to the past, that aren’t tied to the ancient world."

The Department of Art, Art History and Design website connects the impressions the trip left on the students and the impressions the students make on clay.

"There’s a lot of scholarly literature out there that shows that learning a new language, living in a foreign country, going somewhere outside of your comfort zone like intellectually and physically changes you," Frey said.

What fascinated Frey is that "sometimes you don’t see the impression that somebody leaves on an artifact until you study it carefully hundreds or thousands of years later, and I think there’s an interesting metaphor there in that, inevitably, this experience left an impression on the students."

Artists, along with friends and family, gathered at the reception for the "Lasting Impressions" exhibit in the MSU Union Art Gallery on Sept. 19, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Studio art senior Kaity Silengo made three pieces titled "Life," "Death" and "Rebirth."

Silengo studied fragmented pottery put together at the dig site and helped organize the storeroom that held fragmented artifacts.

"That was a big influence in my project for the class," she said. "Then there were also these very beautiful pink flowers all over Greece, and I love flowers, and that was the first thing that I saw when I left the airport, and I wanted to use that as a piece of imagery in my pieces."

She also did a workshop with a family that makes tiles, observed how they painted their tiles, used their techniques and broke the tiles she used in her second piece, "Death," into fragments.

Her third piece, "Rebirth," reflects what she saw in other museums: a piece of pottery put back together.

She was accompanied by her mom, Sue Silengo, and dad, Dan Silengo.

Dan said "Rebirth" was his favorite piece because it's "a hope-calling that no matter where you’re at in life, you can always start over again and become a better person."

Art education junior Ari Mullett said their piece, "Life after Death," was inspired by the treatment of human remains in archaeology.

Mullett recalled that when they were at the dig site, they saw human remains that were in plastic bags and crates.

"They’re just seen as objects," they said. "My whole piece was to like remind people that the human beings were beings that had souls, and they deserve to — even though it was a very long time ago — they still deserve to be respected and seen as humans."

Mullett’s vase was inspired by ancient Greek cremation vases, and the flowers by those used in ancient Greek funerals.

The exhibition isn’t just a "silly thing" to go across the country and work at dig sites, Mullett said. The trip affected their lives and those of fellow students.

Viewings for "Lasting Impressions" are open Monday through Saturday from noon to 5 p.m.