Music filled the UMass Dartmouth campus center as students walked around with armfuls of artwork, such as crochet jellyfish, prints and chainmail necklaces, during the school's annual Grata Regatta art show.

The Grata Retro, which was held on Sept. 18, is not just a typical art fair, although the crowd is filled with people with their arms spilling over with art. This student art show gives UMass Dartmouth art students and alumni a chance to sell their art and other students to enjoy their classmates' creativity. 

The grata has been deeply important to her, giving her a chance to socialize as well as vend. 

The Grata almost didn’t happen last year, and so Kaylee Tillson of New Bedford joined the Grata Retro committee to help plan it so she could vend her last year. However, she was so preoccupied with planning the event, she didn’t have time to prepare her own booth. 

“As someone who wanted to vend here, as my last year, and couldn’t because I got so caught up in planning it, allowing everyone else to vend means a lot to me, because I know how that feels,” said Tillson. 

The grata has been deeply important to her, giving her a chance to socialize as well as vend.  Tillson makes fun and comedic art, such as her face on a rat body. She describes it as ugly but hilarious. She said her favorite part of the grata is the students and the community.

“I wouldn’t have gotten this event together without my friends, my people,” she said. “People I just know helped me.”

This was the first year the grata was held in the student center, allowing for more students to admire and shop for artwork. This was also the first year it was opened to all students regardless of their major, and some student organizations showed up to advertise their clubs. 

There were activities for guests, such as face painting and drawing on Grata Retro boards. Students were invited to grab one of four strings connected to a marker to try and draw on picture as a group.

There were student bands performing and almost 50 vendors selling everything from prints, crochet, stickers, gacha machine prizes and more. 

“Grata, for me, is really just a bringing of all the communities together,” said Fennel Herrick of Edgartown, who was selling prints of their art.