Alumni Symposium 2015 Presentations

Alumni Symposium 2015 Presentations Friday September 25 Noble Lounge Ambivalently Yours 8:45-­‐9:45 am Natalie Finkelstein VA 2012 Ambivalently Yours is a web-­‐based anonymous persona created during my final year at VCFA to facilitate an exploration of feminist questions through an ambivalent lens. After graduation, I continued working as Ambivalently Yours, exploring ambivalence through different media, the most successful of which has been through drawing. In the last few years, many of my drawings have been shared virally on social media, inspiring my newfound online community to contribute their own ambivalence and feminist questions. In response, I have been illustrating the ambivalent feelings of others and posting these drawings on my Tumblr blog. From April to the end of June 2015, I was the artist-­‐in-­‐residence at the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow, Scotland. My goal for this residency was to fully commit to my online practice and advocate for women's rights while attempting to respond to all the questions, comments and drawing requests that I received. Straddling a thin line between devotion and obsession, the entire process was documented and shared via various social media outlets. Removed from the comforts and routines of everyday life, my displacement and isolation helped me explore the boundaries and possibilities of a media that promotes social connection by concurrently encouraging isolation. My investment in this work during the residency, which I called a 91-­‐day drawing marathon, allowed for the work to gain media attention while mutating and expanding in a multitude of interesting ways, all of which I would like to present in my talk. Centering Advocacy in Uncertainty 10:00-­‐11:00 am Gail Hanlon W 2014 Is it possible to center advocacy in uncertainty? Should we avoid solving problems in poems that we can’t solve in life, as C.K. Wright advises? Can uncertainty provide a viable stance, even if one is passionately concerned about political issues? Art operates outside the ordinary, opens up the field, and raises radical questions. It does not often provide answers, but it makes listening possible in a way that political action often does not. Uncertainty allows us to perceive nuances and to question authority. And wonder can be subversive. It can allow us to advocate from a “state of disobedience,” as poet Alice Notley calls it. It lingers in the realm of aporia, from the Greek apore, a passage, a way between, where there is no correct answer or a proposition that has no single resolution. But it is not indifferent. This paper will consider various forms of alternative advocacy, from Ann Hamilton’s “Privation and Excess” (a felt hat full of honey) to Claudia Rankine’s dispatches on micro-­‐aggression, and Martin Espada’s challenge to official history to Harrell Fletcher’s providing live feed from a mayor’s leafy city hall window to every employee in the windowless offices below, and other examples of advocacy reframed as uncertainty. Alumni Symposium 2015 Presentations Advocacy in Curriculum 11:30am-­‐12:30 pm Carolyn Megan W 1992 and Mary Pinard W 1992 Art as advocacy can be a powerful pedagogical tool for developing a liberal arts course curriculum as well as a mode for exploring and supporting larger course themes. Understood in its most literal sense, advocacy means to (ad) call, or to voice (vocare), and thus the inclusion of art as advocacy in a curriculum necessitates engagement with the artist’s process as well as ideas and concerns as expressed through form. This engagement leads to a multi-­‐vocal approach to teaching and to learning that models inquisitiveness, imagination, analysis, and activism, as well as ideas that magnify, transfer, and transform. Drawing on two courses currently taught at Babson College—
“Practicum in Peer Consulting and Writing,” an advanced writing and training course for Writing Center consultants, and “Arts & Humanities and History and Society Foundation,” an introductory humanities course on the theme of Nature and Environment—we will discuss and provide examples. Beginning with narrative images, including the photography of Dorothea Lange and Lynsey Addario, and moving to more abstract and modern images of Joel Sternfeld, we will also feature paintings by a well-­‐
known painter of the natural world—James Prosek—as well as contemporary sculptors Loren Schwerd and Do-­‐ho Suh. Exploring artistic processes and studying the art that results in a classroom setting deepen how students approach and analyze topics, while promoting the dialogue and discourse all along the way. Mediations on Digital Labor 2:00-­‐3:00 pm Xtine Burrough VA 2001 Mediations on Digital Labor began with a hijacking of Amazon.com’s virtual job board, Mechanical Turk (Murk.com) for a critical, poetic, and alternative practice: I hired the Turkers to pause from physical labor, to share their thoughts on resting, and to chant “Om” for 10 seconds. Like the tension between play and labor Trebor Scholz alludes to as “playbor” in his Digital Labor anthology, this collection of chants, compiled from a virtual job board, showcases the playful voices of disembodied workers. In the project room of the Grand Central Art Center, I transcribed the Turkers’ words using white chalk on the tiled floor. As viewers entered the space they walked on the workers’ words (unencrypted data) to reach the viewing platform or the wall. Videos of Turkers’ Om chants played on the platform. Each was stored on a wooden USB drive that hung in a rhythmic pattern on the wall. Some viewers became participants who worked in the gallery, rewriting Turkers’ thoughts on resting in chalk. Gallery workers were awarded with one of the USB drives. In the Orange County Weekly, Dave Barton explained the project as “a deceptively simple take on low-­‐wage jobs.” Collectively, my digital activity on Mturk, exhibition in Santa Ana, and physical prompt for participants brings awareness to the type of digital labor that goes uncharted (deceptively and simply) on sites such as Mturk. At Hi-­‐Res I would present an artist talk or paper about this project as a case study for digital labor advocacy. Alumni Symposium 2015 Presentations The Personal Is Political 4:00 -­‐ 5:00 pm Robert Hyers W 2011, Jean-­‐Marie Saporito W 2011, Susan Levi Wallach W 2011, Carolyn Megan W, 1992. “The personal is political” has been a rallying cry for decades by various advocacy groups who have used the phrase to call attention to the idea that even our most personal actions have political implications. For authors who do not consider themselves to be advocacy artists, it is often difficult for them to see their works as political. In literature, is there such a thing as art for art’s sake? What is the responsibility of authors in considering the political implications of their work? Do we need to preface our work with disclaimers in hopes of not triggering readership discomfort? Or is that the purpose of literature – to make one uncomfortable? How can we use our art as a way to uncover, as Claudia Rankine
says, “the small moments that carve gaps of misunderstanding between Americans that lead to big, national moments of misunderstanding, like events in Ferguson and New York”? Using panel discussions, Q & A, and exercises, we will explore these questions and outline strategies for authors to identify the places within their texts which have implicit effects on the political in the areas of gender, gender identity, sexuality, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. Reading Janet Fitch MFA Writing & Publishing Faculty, author of White Oleander 8:00-­‐8:45 pm Her short stories and essays have appeared in anthologies and journals such as Black Clock, Room of One's Own, Los Angeles Noir, the Los Angeles Times, Salon.com, Black Warrior Review, Vogue and Los Angeles Review of Books, where she is a contributing editor. She has taught and lectured on aspects of fiction writing in programs including the Master of Professional Writing program at USC, UCLA Writers Program, Antioch University Los Angeles, University of California Riverside, Palm Desert, the Otis Art Institute and the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. She was a 2002 Moseley Fellow at Pomona College in 2002, a 2003 Research Fellow at the Huntington Library, and a Likhachev Fellow in St. Petersburg, Russia in 2009. She is currently finishing an novel set during the Russian Revolution. She maintains a blog where she posts writing tips, rants, meditations and short-­‐shorts atjanetfitchwrites.wordpress.com. Alumni Symposium 2015 Presentations Saturday, September 26 Cards Against Brutality Noble Lounge 9:15 – 10:15 am Kristin Serafini VA 2014 With Nandini Ramaswamy-­‐King, another graphic artist from St. Louis, and David Miller, a web developer from London, I have been working on a project called Cards Against Brutality. We met during the first 24–hour design challenge sponsored by Creative Reaction Lab, a social impact incubator that aims to challenge the status quo through collaborative design. At this event, designers came together to generate creative responses to the police killing of unarmed teenager, Michael Brown, and the subsequent clashes between police & protestors in Ferguson, MO. Practicing non-­‐
violence in the face of unjust and painful circumstances is a tough task; in the heat of the moment, it's much easier to lay blame than to pave the way for change. Cards Against Brutality is a tool for professors, teachers, parents, faith leaders, and civic organizers who are working to strengthen empathy and awareness in their communities. Included with the starter deck is an introduction sheet which provides a handful of sample activities intended to help facilitators and participants understand context, generate discussion, provoke critical investigation, and spark new creative responses. We have an interactive website in development, where it will be possible to purchase Cards Against Brutality, access more activities, and contribute your own card and curriculum ideas. In August 2015, Cards Against Brutality will show at IMPTXDESIGN.14/15., a group exhibition at the Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis. Writers for Recovery: A New Approach to Treating Addiction 11:00 am-­‐12:00 pm Gary Miller W 1995. VT Book Award Nominee. Over the past decade, political, law enforcement, and community leaders have come to realize that the “crime and punishment” model of addiction treatment has largely failed. In the wake of this failure, many have adopted a disease-­‐based model of treatment. Instead of punishing addicts, they are offering addicts the medical treatment and community support they need to recover. For the past two years, in sites across Vermont, Writers for Recovery has offered free writing workshops for people in recovery or affected by substance abuse. The workshops employ a prompt-­‐based/short write approach that ensures success for all writers. Work produced by Writers for Recovery participants has been featured in public readings and the Writers for Recovery blog, and is forthcoming in the first Writers for Recovery print anthology. While the work created in Writers for Recovery is compelling, the real value of the program is its impact on participants’ lives. In as little as ten weeks, the program builds self-­‐esteem, creates community around a commitment to sober living, and helps to destroy stereotypical views of addicts that make it harder for them to recover. In this presentation, Writers for Recovery Creative Director and VCFA alum Gary Lee Miller will talk about the origins and practices of Writers for Recovery, share work from participants, and talk about how Writers for Recovery is helping people of all ages and backgrounds to break free from addiction and live satisfying, productive lives. Alumni Symposium 2015 Presentations Listening – An Adventure 1:00 – 2:00 pm Beth Bradfish MC 2015 "Everything in the world has a spirit that can be released through its sound." –Oskar Fischinger (quoted by John Cage) As a composer and sound artist I invite an audience to listen. My work combines composed sound created live by ensembles and solo musicians with field and studio sounds that I find or create and then record. In performance I combine these sounds and sometimes also alter them using electronics. Inside this sound experience the audience can open to an expanded awareness of the world around, and also within themselves. I also look for ways to create direct interaction between the onstage performance and the audience. A recent performance allowed a live trio to improvise with an ensemble of musicians playing recorded sounds processed on their laptops, while the audience on cue participated playing field sounds they had prerecorded on their Smartphones. In this talk I look forward to sharing some sources of my inspiration, music and a story of the adventure that began long ago but found its voice during my time at VCFA. Dementia, Denial, and Healing through Story 2:10 – 3:10 pm Dana Walrath WCYA 2010, VT Book Award Nominee Genocide. Mental illness. Hatred. Shame. They make us turn away. Yet genocide and dementia are the subjects of my first two books. What draws me to these topics? What persists from my training as an anthropologist in these creative works? Why am I smiling instead of going down into the abyss? Blending examples from my verse novel, Like Water on Stone and my graphic memoir, Aliceheimer’s with my anthropological tool kit, I will explore how stories—especially stories about phenomena surrounded by stigma, shame, or denial—heal both the giver and the receiver. Sunday, September 27 Noble Lounge Capitol Cleanse 9:00-­‐10:00 am Tereza Swanda VA 2010 In Capital Cleanse, I cast 50 bars of soap 2" in diameter; a box of George Washington's, a box of quarters, (spare change, exchange, change.) I provide soap for public restrooms throughout the US. Twelve dollars and fifty cents represents “bride price” or money exchanged for one girl sold in Nigeria, April 2014 to Boko Haram militants. I plan to multiply the project 219 times representing all the girls sold into sex slavery. The project has evolved to an online conversation on economics; an exploration on superficiality in skin tone and its link to privilege; and to portraits of Native Americans, the founding mothers and fathers of America, which will be cast in bronze, made permanent, while over ten thousand George Washington’s, or capital, are made with Alumni Symposium 2015 Presentations the intent to be used, to change and disappear. Through Capital Cleanse I have been able to help fund projects like “$PEAK OUT!” by Diane Jacobs, “On Color” by Catherine Hayley Epstein and “Tinydance” by dancer/choreographer Kelly Silliman. The conversation continues in August with inmates from Oregon State Penitentiary. I would love to bring this project ‘home’ to VCFA this September and see what questions arise among fellow artists, professors, writers and musicians. Are we conscious of where our spare change goes? Whom can we directly support? How can we shift power? For further information please visit: http://www.mamatereza.net/capital-­‐cleanse/ Breast Cancer Awareness 10:15-­‐11:15 am Tricia Thibodeaux Baar W 2006, Karen Edmunds VA 2005 [Tricia] I am fortunate to live in a town where the arts-­‐-­‐visual, film, performance arts all included-­‐-­‐are widely practiced and widely valued. Artists in Hot Springs create and perform not only for individual expression, but to advocate for various issues practical and political. This fall, my town will host Gazongas, a weeklong breast-­‐cancer awareness event. The goal of this project is to promote mindfulness of the underserved non-­‐
physical aspects of breast cancer and the realities and ramifications of mastectomy/ reconstruction. My proposal for the Hi-­‐Res weekend program is a multi-­‐modal presentation documenting the process of Gazongas organization and the ways in which the local arts community comes together to support the event and cause. Preliminary reactions to the project have been overwhelmingly positive; the presentation will pay particular attention to the artists’ philosophical approaches to their Gazonga works, and will incorporate images of the works as well as audio/video from the artists themselves.
[Karen] ART Responds to a Diagnosis is a power point presentation explaining the conception and production of the installation I created about my journey with breast cancer and subsequent mastectomy in 2012. While interviewing several surgeons I hit a snag with my insurance when I was unable to get an appointment with the surgeon I preferred. It was at this point that I decided to make an art project about the process. Due to my continuing interest in the relationship between mental and physical illness and art making, especially as it relates to practicing artists, my diagnosis seemed to be the perfect opportunity to put into practice what I had been dealing with in theory. I had made a death mask of my father and decided that I would like to memorialize my breasts before the surgery and disfigurement. I asked a colleague to cast my torso before and after surgery and a photographer to photograph the same. Concentrating on these projects kept me interested in something other than the sadness of the illness. In addition to the photographs and the torsos, I published a journal of my treatment, entitled Art Responds to a Diagnosis: A Body of Work in Process. This installation was exhibited In October 2014 as part of the New Orleans Prospect.3 Satellite Sites. Alumni Symposium 2015 Schedule Thursday, September 24
5-­‐7pm Dorm Check In Noble Lounge 7-­‐9pm Café Anna Welcome Reception with Tom Greene Friday, September 25 7:30-­‐8:30 Breakfast Noble Reading Room 8:45-­‐9:45 Ambivalently Yours Natalie Finkelstein VA 2012 Noble Lounge 10:00-­‐11:00 Centering Advocacy in Uncertainty Gail Hanlon W 2014 Noble Lounge 11:00-­‐11:30 Breakout/Brainstorm Noble Reading Room 11:30-­‐12:30 Advocacy in Curriculum Carolyn Megan W 1992 and Mary Pinard W 1992 Noble Lounge 12:30-­‐1:30 Lunch – Pinky’s Noble Reading Room 2:00-­‐3:00pm Mediations on Digital Labor Xtine Burrough VA 2001 Noble Lounge 3:00-­‐3:30 Breakout/Brainstorm Noble Reading Room 4-­‐5:00pm The Personal is Political Robert Hyers W 2011, Jean-­‐Marie Saporito W 2011, Susan Levi Wallach W 2011, Melissa Chronin W 2013 Noble Lounge 6:00-­‐7:30 Woodbelly Pizza Party, BYOB Green/Gallery 8:00-­‐8:45 Reading: MFA Writing & Publishing faculty
Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander Nobel Lounge 9:00-­‐10:00 Mystery Project Noble Reading Room 1 Alumni Symposium 2015 Schedule Saturday, September 26 8:00-­‐9:00 Breakfast Main Gallery 9:15-­‐10:15 Cards Against Brutality Kristin Serafini VA 2014 Noble Lounge 10:15-­‐10:45 Breakout/Brainstorm Noble Reading Room 11:00-­‐12:00 Writers for Recovery: A New Approach to Treating Addiction” Gary Miller W 1995 VT Book Award Nominee Noble Lounge 12-­‐1:00pm Lunch with prospective students Chapel 1:00-­‐2:00pm Listening – An Adventure Beth Bradfish MC 2015 Noble Lounge 2:10-­‐3:10 Dementia, Denial, and Healing through Story Noble Reading Dana Walrath WCYA 2010, VT Book Award Room Nominee 3:15-­‐4:00pm Alumni Panel: “Balancing Act” College Hall Alumni from different programs talk about how Chapel they balanced their MFA studies with their work, families, and creative practice. 5:30-­‐9:30 VT Book Awards Gala Alumni Hall Sunday, September 27 8:00-­‐9:00 Closing Breakfast Noble Reading Room 9:00-­‐10:00 Capitol Cleanse – Skin Tone and Privilege Tereza Swanda VA 2010 Noble Lounge 10:15-­‐11:15 Breast Cancer Awareness Tricia Thibodeaux Baar W 2006, Karen Edmunds VA 2005 Noble Lounge 11:30-­‐12pm Residency Wrap Up Noble Lounge 12:00pm Dorm Checkout 2 Alumni Symposium 2015 Presenter Bios Beth Bradfish, Music Composition 2015 Beth (composer and sound artist) explores contemporary acoustic and electronic sounds. Her focus is on creating environments where the audience is free to move through the sound and experience it with more than their ears. At VCFA she studied with composer John Mallia and in August, 2015 earns an MFA in Music Composition. She has been awarded an artist’s residency fellowship at Ragdale and fulfilled requests to develop pieces for CUBE Contemporary Ensemble, pianist Lawrence Axelrod and violist Michael Hall. Her work has been commissioned by Access Contemporary Music as part of the Open House Chicago celebration of the Chicago Architectural Foundation. Her work has also been performed at Spectrum NYC and featured at the Experimental Sound Studio in Chicago. She participates on the board of Access Contemporary Music and is a member of Chicago Composers’ Consortium. Websites: www.bethbradfishcomposer.com c3composers.org Xtine Burrough, Visual Art 2001 Xtine is a new media artist and educator. She has authored or edited several books including Foundations of Digital Art and Design (2013), Net Works: Case Studies in Web Art and Design (2011), and The Routledge Companion to Remix Studies (2015). She was recently named the new Editor-­‐In-­‐Chief of the Visual Communication Quarterly (beginning in January 2016). Informed by the history of conceptual art, she uses social networking, databases, search engines, blogs, and applications in combination with popular sites like Facebook, YouTube, or Mechanical Turk, to create web communities promoting interpretation and autonomy. xtine is passionate about creating works using digital tools to translate common experiences into personal arenas for discovery. She is the recipient of a Cal Humanities Grant, a Webby Honoree, has received a Terminal commission and an award from the UK Big Lottery fund. An associate professor in the School of Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communication at the University of Texas at Dallas, she bridges the gap between histories, theories, and production in new media education. Karen Oser Edmunds, Visual Art 2005, A New Orleans native, Karen earned a BA in psychology from H. Sophie Newcomb College in 1967. She spent a year (1965-­‐1966) at the University of Paris studying art and psychology where she was introduced to Art Therapy and the relationship between art and healing. As a consequence, while in graduate school she studied the work of Louise Bourgeois who successfully mined her psychological trauma through her art practice. Edmunds twice participated in Bourgeois' famed Sunday Salons. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer in February 2012 Edmunds saw the diagnosis as an opportunity to put into practice the theory of using art to take control of physical and psychological trauma. Alumni Symposium 2015 Presenter Bios Natalie Finkelstein, Visual Art 2012: Under the pseudonym Ambivalently Yours the artist explores ambivalence -­‐ simultaneously loving and hating -­‐ through the online sharing of pink illustrations (posted at www.ambivalentlyyours.tumblr.com), short animations, questionable advice, sound sketches, blog posts and anonymous notes left in public spaces. Fuelled by a decade of employment in the fashion industry, juxtaposed with an investment in feminist art, her work as Ambivalently Yours aims to highlight the potential for political resistance that exists within conflicting emotions. Her work has been exhibited in Canada, the US and the UK and featured prominently in online media publications, teenage blogs and zines worldwide. For more information, please visit: ambivalentlyyours.com Gail Hanlon, Writing 2014 Gail’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Ploughshares, Iowa Review, Kenyon Review, New Letters, Thrush, Bloom, Cutbank online, Cincinnati Review, Verse Daily, and Best American Poetry, among other journals and anthologies. She published a review in Tarpaulin Sky, published a chapbook, Sift (Finishing Line), was a finalist for the Iowa Review Award (2013) and a semi-­‐finalist for the Tomaz Salamun Prize from VERSE magazine (2015). A 2014 VCFA graduate (Poetry), she lives in Portsmouth, NH. Robert Hyers, Writing 2011 Since Robert earned his work has appeared in Saints and Sinners: Fiction From the Festival, 3:AM Magazine, Q Reviewand The Summerset Review, and is forthcoming in Jonathon. He is a regular Visiting Fiction Writer at River Pretty Writers Retreat. Carolyn Megan, Writing 1992 Carolyn teaches writing and literature courses at Babson College where she also serves as Director of the Writing Center. Her stories, essays and interviews have appeared in journals and anthologies. Alumni Symposium 2015 Presenter Bios Gary Lee Miller, Writing 1995 His work has appeared in a number of literary magazines, including Florida Review, Green Mountains Review, Hunger Mountain, and Chicago Quarterly Review. Gary’s music writing can be found in Seven Days, Vermont’s weekly source for the arts, culture, and politics. His short story collection Museum of the Americas is the fiction finalist for the 2015 Vermont Book Award. Gary sings and plays guitar in the TrailerBlazers, a strictly hillbilly outfit, and serves as creative director of Writers for Recovery, a program using writing to help people overcome addiction. You can find out more about him at garyleemiller.com. Mary Pinard, Writing 1992 Mary teaches literature and poetry courses in the Arts and Humanities Division at Babson College. She has served in a range of administrative positions there as well, including as Director of the Undergraduate Rhetoric Program, Coordinator of the Creativity Stream in the MBA Program, Writing Center Director, and Division Chair. Her essays and poems have appeared in critical anthologies and journals, and her collection of poems, Portal, was published in 2014 by Salmon Press. Jean-­‐Marie Saporito, Writing 2011 Her work has appeared in Bellevue Literary Review, Ilanot Review, Helix Literary Magazine, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of the AWP WC&C Scholarship and the UNM Taos Resident Award. She lives in Taos, New Mexico with two dogs, a teenager, and a cowboy. Kristin Serafini, Visual Art 2014 Based in St. Louis, Missouri, Kristin is a conceptual artist who builds and breaks networks of visual and/or literary text. She draws on her experience with children’s book illustration, creative writing, graphic design, and experimental textile techniques to create installations and artist books that probe the physical and metaphysical implications of the limits of communication. Her work explores how we social beings adapt to, buckle under, resist, or re-­‐purpose these limits. Kristin earned her MFA in Visual Arts from Vermont College of Fine Arts in August Alumni Symposium 2015 Presenter Bios 2014. Tereza Swanda, Visual Art 2010 Tereza was born Mazurova (implying paternal possession) in what was communist Czechoslovakia and resides both in CZ as well as the US. In her nomadic life, she questions familial and societal roles that classify bodies according to gender, race, etc. Her work centers on a meeting with the so called ‘other. Swanda has an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and BFA in Painting and Sculpture from Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Swanda has recently received the A.R.T. Fund award to pursue her project, Capital Cleanse, which she installed in a rogue installation at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as well as throughout public restrooms in galleries, art centers, universities, and McDonald’s along interstate 90. She has exhibited her work at the Whitney Center for the Arts (Pittsfield, MA), University of Oregon (Eugene, OR), Berliner Kunstprojekt (Berlin), 450 Broadway Gallery (NY), Bakalar and Paine Galleries (Boston, MA), Chemeketa Community College Art Gallery (Salem, OR), and online in Storyscape Journal. Her series, To/From Mothering, shown at the Center on Contemporary Art (Seattle, WA), won first prize. She has been awarded residencies at VSC (Johnson, VT), at the Millay Colony (Austerlitz, NY), and has been attending workshops with Rose Shakinovsky and Claire Gavronsky in Italy and South Africa since 2000. Swanda’s distinctions include the Wilhelmina Denning Jackson Art Award as well as scholarship for graduate work. Capital Cleanse is anticipated in a 2016 publication, Art for Everyone, through Chemeketa Press. As an Open Educational Resource textbook, Art for Everyone gives students of Art Appreciation the choice to forego a printed copy and get their textbooks online for free. Tricia Thibodeaux Baar, Writing 2006 Tricia is a poet and artist from Hot Springs, Arkansas. She teaches composition and literature at College of the Ouachitas, where she also directs the Honors College. Her current work in both writing and visual art is focused on the female body and the effects of changes in the body on personal identity and interpersonal relationships. Tricia is an alumna of the Tupelo Press 30/30 Project, March 2014, and PoMoSco, April 2015. Susan Levi Wallach, Writing 2011 Susan is a freelance copyeditor and generally nice person. Recently, her short stories and poetry have appeared in Bayou, Southern California Review, RiverLit, Literary Matters, the Frank Marshall Review, and the Columbia Broadside Project. She was co-­‐winner of the 2014 Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize. Alumni Symposium 2015 Presenter Bios Dana Walrath, WCYA 2010 A writer, artist and anthropologist, Dana Walrath, likes to cross borders and disciplines with her work. After years of using stories to teach medical students at University of Vermont’s College of Medicine, she spent 2012-­‐2013 as a Fulbright Scholar in Armenia where she completed Like Water on Stone a verse novel about the Armenian genocide of 1915. Blending historical fiction with magical realism, Like Water on Stone’s is a Notable Book for a Global Society Award Winner, a Bank Street Best Book of 2015, a Vermont Book Award Finalist and more. Her graphic memoir, Aliceheimer’s (Harvest 2013) blends the story of life with her mother, Alice, before and during dementia, with stories from Armenia. She has spoken extensively about the role of comics in healing throughout North America and Eurasia including talks at TEDx Battenkill and TEDx Yerevan. Co-­‐author of one of the leading college textbook series in anthropology she has also shown her artwork in a variety of venues throughout North America and Eurasia. Her recent essays have appeared in Slate and Foreign Policy. She earned a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania but her favorite degree is her MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Melissa Cronin, Writing 2013 Melissa’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Chicken Soup for The Soul, Saranac Review, Under the Gum Tree, Brevity, and various online publications. Her essay, “Right Foot, Left Foot” received special mention in the 2013 creative nonfiction contest held by Hunger Mountain Journal. Melissa lives with her husband, John, and their stuffed lamb, Hawk, in South Burlington, Vermont, where she is a correspondent for her local newspaper. Melissa is currently revising her memoir, The Peach, a story of healing, forgiveness, and the search for a new identity after an older driver confused the gas pedal for the brake and plowed through the Santa Monica Farmers’ Market in 2003. The driver struck seventy-­‐three pedestrians, including Melissa. A former nurse, she holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Please visit Melissa at melissacronin.com.