It started with a squiggle

Sometimes, simple things have a profound impact. For Becker School of Design & Technology Professor Ilir Mborja, a pencil doodle made as a toddler sparked a lifelong fascination with art.

“When I was around 3 years old, I remember drawing my first squiggle and being so enamored with the shape of it,” recalls Mborja. “I think that’s when it all started.”

Throughout his childhood in Korçë, Albania, Mborja kept taking pencil to paper, drawing silly scenarios and depictions of fictitious battles. At 14 years old, he and his family left everything behind and fled to the United States amid the 1997 Albanian civil war, settling in Worcester.

He kept drawing.

“I was able to transfer between different mediums so well because I studied traditional art first. Art becomes muscle memory after enough practice.”

-Professor Ilir Mborja

Through each phase of life, Mborja was determined to master new mediums. When he started high school, he began to paint with acrylics. After graduation, he attended Quinsigamond Community College and began experimenting with oil painting, earning his associate’s degree. He then studied traditional art at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, where he observed a shift into the digital medium.

“I remember going to Mass Art for painting and seeing my peers experiment with digital art programs for the first time,” says Mborja. “The opportunity to make art digitally sparked my interest in technology.”

Mborja left Mass Art after a semester and looked for an institution closer to Worcester. Becker College seemed to be a good fit, especially because of its emerging game design program.

“I remember asking my advisor about studying interior design or game design, and which one had a better future,” says Mborja. “I can largely attribute my career to picking game design that day.”

At Becker, Mborja started his journey in digital painting with Photoshop and then transitioned to making 3D art in programs like Autodesk Maya.

“I was quite bad at first, like most people,” he says. “It was such a new technology that we were learning at the time.”

He graduated from Becker College with a degree in game and interactive media design in 2012. Six years later, Mborja received his MFA from UMass Dartmouth.

During college, Mborja created traditional pieces for friends and small businesses, some of which can still be seen around the area today. J’adore Salon on Chandler Street in Worcester features his custom murals depicting jungle and cloudy sky scenes, and Rocco’s Tailoring on Park Avenue boasts a custom acrylic mural of a waterfall. For an 8-by-12 mural of Disney’s “The Little Mermaid,” which is displayed privately, Mborja combined hand-painted and airbrushed techniques. At home, Mborja painted an intricate scene depicting Disney’s “Snow White” for his daughter.

“I was able to transfer between different mediums so well because I studied traditional art first,” says Mborja. “Art becomes muscle memory after enough practice.”

BSDT Professor Scott Niemi, who taught Mborja at Becker College, became a mentor.

“Part of the reason I ventured into teaching was from shadowing Scott while he was teaching,” says Mborja, who became a professor in 2018. “It really inspired me.”

Mborja was also influenced by BSDT Professor Michael Swartz.

“Ilir was always a joy to work with and a rockstar,” says Swartz, who encouraged Mborja to learn animation and rendering.

“As an artist, you either get intimidated or get inspired,” says Mborja. “In this field, you need to extend your branches and explore as much as you can. When I see other professors or students creating amazing work or using a new medium, it inspires me to give it a try.”

Jeremy Baranda ’27 says Mborja encourages students in digital drawing class to expand their perspectives.

“As I worked on projects, he would give me a different lens through which to view my work and provide new ideas to where I could bring the art,” says Baranda, an interactive media major. “The guidance he gave me was reciprocated to every one of my classmates and was helpful to students at every skill level.”

Mborja is dedicated to sharing lessons learned during his journey from pencils and graphite to 3D art with young creatives.

After all, Mborja knows the little things can be a catalyst, even if it’s just a simple squiggle.