30 Under 30: Alicia Link ’08
The Spring 2021 Among Friends Magazine featured 30 alumni from the Classes of 2008 to 2017, who are a representative sample of the nearly 900 graduates of the school during those years. Their ages range from 30 and just over to as young as 22. As the featured profiles show, they have learned to be brave and thoughtful leaders, who speak their conscience, take initiative, create opportunities, and find ways to build up individuals while building a better community.
ALICIA LINK ’08
Philadelphia
Artist and Educator at Temple University and Westfield Friends School
Alicia Link currently teaches in the Foundation and Painting Department at Temple University’s School of Art and Architecture. She also works part-time at Westfield Friends School as an assistant art teacher and world languages program manager. In the past, Alicia has held many roles, including university educator, dog walker, studio assistant, freelance writer, and more. Her priority, though, has always been her art.
Alicia’s paintings have been exhibited in numerous solo, duo and group exhibitions, with shows at MASS Gallery in Austin (TX), the Musa Collective and Galatea Fine Art in Boston (MA), the Wayfarers Gallery and Space Heater Gallery in Brooklyn (NY), and at many more arts spaces.
Last year, she began a residency at Tiger Strikes Asteroid, a non-profit network of independently operated, artist-run exhibition spaces with locations in Philadelphia, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Greenville, SC. Alicia also published a review on an exhibition at Galleries at Moore in Philadelphia for the Broad Street Review. She enjoys sharing stories through her work and being a lifelong learner.
While at MFS, Alicia was involved in Gender Equality Forum. She fondly remembers spending lunches, watching movies, and going on field trips with former Math Teacher Ms. Kim Greeley and former History Teacher Dr. Eliza McFeely, the club’s advisors. “My world opened up during this brief time,” Alicia said. “As I was learning about this thing called the patriarchy, I was gaining agency. I’m so grateful to those women.”
After 12 years of Quaker education, Alicia furthered her studies at Boston University, where she earned her B.F.A. in painting. In 2017, she earned her M.F.A. in Studio Art at the University of Texas at Austin.
“Gender Equality Forum will always be an incredibly special time and space for me.”