New York City is home to many cultural institutions. But even in the crowded cultural landscape of the Big Apple, the American Folk Art Museum stands out, with its devotion to celebrating the creativity and individuality of self-taught artists.

Folk art, as its name suggests, is the art of the people. “There’s no really pat definition,” explained Anne-Imelda Radice ’69, who recently took over as the museum’s executive director. “It can be anything from a painting or a sculpture to an object of daily life that’s done by someone who’s not a trained artist, who didn’t go to school, who may be influenced by what he or she sees around them.”

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The award-winning photographer Dorothy Kerper Monnelly ’58 has been called the “Ansel Adams of the wetlands.” Like Adams before her, Monnelly works in black and white and uses a large-format camera to illuminate the majesty of the natural world. Beginning this June, Monnelly will exhibit her work alongside Adams’s in “Fragile Waters,” a traveling exhibition conceived in response to the 2010 BP oil spill.

For more than 35 years, Monnelly has been enthralled by the salt marsh landscape of Boston’s North Shore, and she conveys its ever-changing beauty through her photographs. It was Monnelly’s agent, Barbara Cox, who conceived of the idea of a photography exhibition as a response to the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

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Alexander Grover ’09 (center), a former member of the Gentlemen Callers, leads WitchPitch? in rehearsal for a concert.

A young girl sits pensively on a rocky beach in Salem, Mass., haunted by lost love. She sings a mournful “Winter Song,” captured richly in a black-and-white YouTube video worthy of MTV. Soon, a dozen other young people chime in, echoing perfect chords.

They are the teen voices of WitchPitch? in their first music video of a cover song on their debut CD, “Here,” which was released in 2012. Their leader is Alexander Grover ’09. He created the group in 2009, and in a short time he and his young singers have won more than just applause.

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Last fall, Boston-based online fashion company UsTrendy, which was founded by Sam Sisakhti ’05, made a fall appearance in a runway show during London Fashion Week. For the past four years, the company has provided independent fashion designers with an avenue to sell and promote their work. UsTrendy also held its first campus fashion design contest last fall, and launched a philanthropic effort by donating clothing to Big Brothers Big Sisters for the holiday season. So you missed fashion week in London? Paris, Milan and New York, too? No worries. We asked the stylish Sisakhti, who was awarded a 2012 Young Alumnae/i Award, to tell us what will be hot for spring. Hold onto your camisoles, ladies; see-through is one of the themes this season.

Top trends:

• Midriff showing (crop tops and peekaboo dresses)
• Pleated and skater-style dresses
• Lace, revealing skin underneath
• Bright and vibrant colors
• Lots of leg
• Classic black and white making a major comeback
• Stripes, dots, snakeskin and fringe