A plush toy stitched with the words "believe me" sits along one wall. Across the room, a bright pink plaster torso of a female figure asks about consent through a wooden speech bubble. The pieces read as childlike at first. A longer look turns them toward sexuality, womanhood and identity.
Both are part of "I'm Being Serious ...," a student-run exhibition at Storage Space Gallery, a nonprofit gallery at 121 E. 34th St. that opens its garage doors to the public one Friday a month. Herron School of Art and Design juniors Jack Melton, Sophie Sturgeon, Ella Faupel and Cecili Walsman, who work together as the student art collective At the Tone, organized the show to connect Herron students with artists in Indianapolis.
"It's really cool to see what four students can do," Faupel said. "It's something that we've gotten to create together."
The four handled planning, marketing, graphic design, installation and curation. It is the group's second show. The first, in February, featured only student artists, while this one opened to artists of all kinds.
About 75 pieces came in from artists across the country, including New York and North Carolina, and from as far as the United Kingdom. The group selected 25 pieces by 22 artists. Work that used humor or unusual materials to handle serious subjects got preference.
"We were looking for pieces that conveyed a large amount of meaning in an unusual manner," Melton, Sturgeon, Faupel and Walsman said. "Often the artist has to be spoken with in order to understand the piece."
Anna Corso's soft sculpture takes the form of a plush toy with a heart on its front reading "believe me." The work draws on moments from Corso's childhood when she was not believed, and it takes up her family, her sexuality and her gender identity.
"I kind of transformed it into this feminine, soft thing instead of this rough thing that sucks," Corso said. "Just by looking at my pieces it appears to be a cute little guy."
Corso graduated from Herron with a painting degree in December 2025 and returned for a second degree in art education. Her work has also shown at the Garfield Park Arts Center and the Cultural Arts Gallery in the Campus Center.
The organizers left room for visitors to sit with individual pieces instead of taking in the show all at once. Artists' statements hang beside the work, and a food and gathering area gives guests somewhere to eat, talk and come back to the art later. The opening also includes a low-sensory quiet hour from 5 to 6 p.m.
"We do not want it to feel intimidating," the organizers said. "You can understand the art in a way that's not scary."
At a preview dinner on Sept. 2, the collective sat exhibiting artists and members of the Indianapolis arts community around a long table inside the gallery, with the work already hung. Guests ate, talked and moved between the table and the walls.
At the group's first exhibition, parents and grandparents brought children, and some family members with little exposure to art shows grew comfortable by talking with the artists.
"It was a really cool, multigenerational group of people that was all in the same space," Sturgeon said. "I feel like there's not a lot of things that can bring that many different types of people together like that."
At the Tone operates outside any class or degree requirement. Nick Witten, a visiting lecturer in foundation studies at Herron, volunteered to help plan the exhibition and handle logistics beyond the students' experience.
Faculty members and area galleries have since asked how they can support future shows, extending the group's reach past Herron into the wider Indianapolis art community. The organizers said they also want the work to push other students to make things.
"Just get a group of people and start creating," they said.
Zeid Alsalloum is a freshman at IU Indianapolis majoring in nursing and pursuing a certificate in journalism. He serves as the culture editor for The Campus Citizen, where he hopes to highlight voices and stories that often go unheard. Outside of journalism, Zeid loves to make food, try new things and be with the people he loves.
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