Clark University - Clark News summer 2005
The examined life (summer 2005)
The Clark experience revealed through arts active-learning projects
By Anne Gibson
Photo by Tammy Woodard, M.A. '98.
While many Clark students go off campus to study abroad, pursue internships, or engage in research, others, like Jason Simpkins '05 and Sarah Reardon '05, have discovered that they need look no further than their own Clark backyard for creative and intellectual inspiration.
Over the past year, Reardon, a visual artist, and Simpkins, a screen-studies major, each undertook a major creative project focusing on some aspect of the Clark experience. These projects provided the creators and their audiences with an opportunity to reflect upon Clark and themselves.
With the support of a Visual and Performing Arts Bickman Summer Internship Award, Simpkins produced a feature-length movie, "Four Years," filmed at Clark and scripted from several short stories he wrote early in his college career. The film, whose cast and production crew were recruited from the Clark community, formed part of Simpkins' senior honors thesis examining film narrative and character development. Each of the film's four sections is characterized by a different narrative technique.
Many of the characters in Simpkins' film are wrestling with important life transitions, whether from high-school student to college freshman, college senior to the "real world," or from one significant personal relationship to another. For Simpkins, some of these transitions have an autobiographical basis.
"I see my four-year, full-time college experience at Clark as one I entered into timidly, then it redefined who I am. Now it's time to move on—and I'm not sure I want to. I think the difference between leaving home and leaving Clark is that I've been responsible, as an adult and as master of my fate, for every moment of my time at Clark. So, it's like leaving a home I've built," says Simpkins, who was advised by screen-studies professor Timothy Shary.
The process of making a movie on campus has enlarged Simpkins' view of Clark. "I think making the film has made me aware of the heart of Clark and its willingness to help," he says. "Many people, from my cast and crew to those in campus departments, have gone out of their way to help me with this project, and I thank them."
Diversity captured on canvas
Reardon received an Anton Fellowship to pursue a project that used paint and canvas to capture another aspect of the Clark community—its diversity. "I thought it would be really interesting to paint individual students that represent the diversity here on campus," she explains. "The people I chose to paint are from all over the world, including the United States, Pakistan, India, Brazil, Thailand and England. I picked as wide a variety of nationalities as I could find. When you ask a Clark student where he or she is from, you never know what to expect by way of an answer."
Portrait subject Nainoa Mau '05 considers why Reardon chose to paint him. "I am one of her friends, and we are all a pretty diverse group. I happen to be part Native Hawaiian, Chinese, Irish and Italian, so I guess I add to the diversity."
Reardon, who is also interested in photography, began by taking photographs of students from different countries. From these she selected her 12 final subjects and chose the photo she felt best captured each student's personality. These photos served as the basis for a series of 12 three-foot by five-foot canvases. Each canvas features a single student portrayed in shades of black and white, set against a background rendered in shades of another color—a different one for each painting.
Reardon, who was advised by studio-art professor Elli Crocker, explains that "the paintings show that everyone is both different and the same. For the most part, I chose a background color that reminded me of the person." From a viewer's standpoint, each unique background color seems to be a reminder of difference, but by depicting each person in shades of black and white, the paintings remind us of our similarity.
United in our differences
Anita Hayashi '05, Piya Vas '05 and Brian Libby '05 all served as subjects for Reardon's paintings. Hayashi, a student from Brazil and an artist herself, comments that she had "noticed how international Clark was when I came here, but Sarah's paintings confirmed my thought even more."
Vas, a management major from India, notes that she's "always appreciated the opportunity Clark offers to mingle with so many cultures and traditions. I know most of the people who were painted, but being a part of this exhibit made me realize how lucky I am for having met these amazing people and having learned so much from them."
Libby, who is double majoring in history and sociology, reflects on the way Reardon's paintings capture individuality in a community context.
"Seeing all the paintings in one place highlighted the individual meanings in each portrait, while at the same time bringing them all together and creating a meaning that was collective. Sarah chose people who are diverse, yet are unified as friends and as Clark students. The paintings are representative of each person's personality, yet common elements bind them together," says Libby. "There is always the need to maintain diversity and find new ways of bringing together those who come from all over, and I believe Clark is a place where that occurs on a daily basis."
Simpkins' film is also concerned with individuality. As he explains it: "One theme I try to promote in the first half of the film is that Clarkies have a strong sense of individuality and are actively seeking self-understanding. This means you meet people who are like you and many who are not. But what we all have in common is that we're not afraid of being ourselves and we do not judge others."
Countless Clark experiences
Participants and audiences bring multiple perspectives to a creative work.
"Jason's film is all about the Clark experience," says Greg Dufresne '06, a production assistant on Simpkins' film. "The title ‘Four Years' is self-explanatory: the film is a slice-of-life tale of Clarkies trying to find themselves. In a way I guess the whole crew feels that in some way the narrative of the film parallels our own growth as artists and assistants in the movie making field."
But actor Ian Byrd '05 sees things slightly differently. Byrd plays Andrew Wood, a character Byrd describes as a lot like himself: "a senior theater major who worries about his future and saying goodbye to his past." But while Byrd admits to similarities with his character, he goes on to add that "Jason's conception of the Clark experience is completely foreign to anything I have encountered here. It kind of shows that there isn't really a Clark experience but countless personal Clark experiences."
Reardon's work was exhibited at the Traina Center for the Arts during the fall 2004 semester. Simpkins screened his film at Academic Spree Day and several evenings during the month of May. He has started work on a documentary profiling psychology Professor Emeritus Bernard Kaplan.
Read more about these students online on at www.clarku.edu/activelearning/departments/vpa/shary/simpkinsInt.cfm and www.clarku.edu/activelearning/departments/antonfellows/reardon/reardon.cfm.
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