ORONO – Carnegie Hall was abuzz Tuesday morning as senior art majors readied the gallery for tonight’s opening of “sense is,” their multimedia exhibit and capstone project.

A noisy hum filled the room as University of Maine students pounded nails to hang pictures, talked animatedly about the task at hand and put finishing touches on their works. Some ignored all distractions and stood before their pieces, quietly pondering the best way to place them. The pungent smell of fresh oil paint permeated the air.

The show – truly a feast for the senses – was coordinated entirely by the 22 students in James Linehan’s ART 499 class. Students worked all semester on the sculptures, paintings, drawings and multimedia works showcased in the exhibit. Creating the art, however, was only part of the class.

“The art show is like their final exam,” Linehan said Monday. “They select the work, curate the show, light the show, hang the work, do publicity for the show and coordinate the opening … It’s part of the professional experience.”

For Stephanie Raddish, 25, of Camden, the showing of her piece “Terrorist Threat” has allowed her to merge the professional with the personal and to resolve a painful, bizarre episode in her life.

“Terrorist Threat” features three hand-decorated envelopes. They are adorned with stickers, graffiti, messages to the postal workers and stamps. One envelope has printed on it: “do not crush, do not flatten, do not explode, do not mutilate, defecate on or lose this parcel, please.”

Raddish says she meant no harm when she left the three letters unattended on the counter of the former UMaine post office in October 2001, at the height of the anthrax scare. The U.S. Postal Service and UM Public Safety thought otherwise.

“They said that my handwriting matched a sample of female terrorist handwriting,” she said. “And [that] it was extremely suspicious.”

Raddish says she was under investigation for about a month and avoided the postal system like the plague.

“I was devastated,” she said. “I had no social awareness at that time of what was going on [with the anthrax scare.] It totally blindsided me. I learned about world events really quickly.”

The budding artist, who hopes to start her own gallery, said she is glad to finally tell her version of the story through her artwork.

“At the time, I never had a chance to express my point of view,” she said. “Now, people can see more of where I’m coming from.”

Chris Peary, 24, of Washburn, has a more internal but no less dynamic focus for his huge oil painting of sticks and grasses, tentatively called “Inward.”

“I went out in the williwags, and took a 4-by-4 inch square of ground,” Peary said. He kept expanding that small piece of nature through sketches and paintings until it filled 35 square feet of canvas with glistening earth tones.

“It’s like a little environment – a little microcosm. I wanted to blow it up so it’s larger than us,” he said. “You could basically walk into it.”

Peary had finished his painting at 2:30 a.m. the previous day and still looked a bit punch-drunk for his efforts. Still, his enthusiasm for art shone through as he discussed entering the painting in a juried exhibition for new Maine artists. His plans include pursuing a master’s degree in fine arts if all goes well – but not for a few more years.

“Right now I want to paint,” he said. “I might explore this theme a little more.”

“sense is” opens Friday, Dec. 10, with a reception from 5-7 p.m. at the Carnegie Hall Gallery at the University of Maine. The show runs through Feb. 3. Gallery hours are: 9 a.m.-4 p.m., Monday-Friday.