The Felt Art of Janice Arnold ’78 on Exhibit during Return to Evergreen

Posted on October 15, 2013 by R.J. Burt

Palace Yurt on display in the Evergreen Gallery, main floor, Library Building during Return to Evergreen.

Update: Tacoma News Tribune ran a nice story on Janice Arnold’s exhibit now showing in the Evergreen Gallery.

Return to Evergreen Highlight: By happy coincidence, the work of Janice Arnold ’78 will be on display this Saturday in The Evergreen Gallery, Library building, main floor. The exhibit, “Palace Yurt: Deconstructed,” continues through December 11, 2013.

The dreamily diaphanous installation has the twin effects of soothing the mind while igniting the imagination. It also offers a rare glimpse behind the scenes of textile art – how such works come to be, from inspiration to raw materials, technical drawings and logistics, culminating in the final artistic manifestation. palace-yurt-deconstructed-postcard-image

Janice Arnold ’78 has pushed the artistic boundaries of handmade felt for more than 10 years. Her massive installation, “Palace Yurt,” a contemporary translation of traditional Mongolian structures, was the centerpiece of the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum’s 2009 “Fashioning Felt” exhibition in New York.

Once you see this exhibit, you will want to hear from the artist herself. Happily, Janice will speak on campus Wednesday, November 20 at 11:30 as part of this year’s “Artist Lecture Series.” The Artist Lecture Series is free and open to the public.

The Academic Statement: Recommitting to an Essential Evergreen Experience

Posted on October 12, 2013 by R.J. Burt

Faculty member Rita Pougiales ’73 and first-year students during academic statement session, Orientation Week ’13. Photo: Shauna Bittle

Reflection upon one’s learning, as all Greeners know, is a hallmark of an Evergreen education. It will be even more valuable in the future.

As part of a multi-year review of teaching and learning at Evergreen, the commitment to self-evaluation has become more rigorous – and probably a lot more meaningful to students in the long run.

Read the full post in “Inside Evergreen,” the excellent blog from Evergreen Photo Services.

Dedication of the Costantino Recreation Center

Posted on October 10, 2013 by R.J. Burt

CRC Honoring former Vice President of Student Affairs Art Costantino for his years of service, Evergreen will dedicate the Recreation Center (CRC) as the Costantino Recreation Center. The ceremony falls on Return to Evergreen Saturday – October 19 – between the two Annual Alumni Basketball Games. The women’s game leads off at 1:30 pm to approximately 3:30 pm. The men start immediately after the dedication and should wrap up around 5:30 pm in time to catch the live music and Greener Beer Garden that cap off the day. All activities in the CRC on October 19 are free and open to the public.

Evergreen’s climbing wall.

Art was an avid supporter of the Recreation and Athletics Program at Evergreen. Under his leadership, intercollegiate basketball came to Evergreen, opening up a new college pathway for student athletes seeking a strong liberal arts education.

The swimming pool is a central part of Evergreen’s fitness and wellness program.

The CRC is home to an astounding array of activities from ballet to martial arts. Academic programs are frequent users of the several dance studios. There are racquetball / handball courts, a wide array of cardiovascular fitness machines and a large, well- equipped weight room.

Student Watch: Troy Mead ’15 Chemist-Cartoonist

Posted on October 8, 2013 by R.J. Burt

Living the Liberal Arts: Troy Mead ’15, CPJ Comics Editor, Scientist, Performance Artist, Future Zookeeper or Biologist, or ….

Troy Mead is an alumnus of the first graduating class of the Health and Science High School, a magnet school in Beaverton, Oregon. Where does he think he’s headed? Somewhere in art or science; Troy doesn’t seem concerned, nor should he be. With his talents, interests, early accomplishments and energy, Troy is likely to achieve whatever his Evergreen Mind aspires to.

realcat Troy was comics editor for the Cooper Point Journal (CPJ) last year. Among his many published works is a riff on “Schrodinger’s Cat,” a fundamental principle of quantum mechanics that states a physical system such as an electron – or a cat – exists partly in all its particular theoretically possible states simultaneously until it is observed, at which time it exists only in the state corresponding to the exact instant of observation. Don’t see the humor? Look what Troy does with the concept.

Troy says he’s always drawn comics,
just as he has always been devoted to academic disciplines surrounding zoology, biological research or conservation work, the fields to which he aspires. His first published comic Troy describes as “horrible but incredibly clever.” – irreverently playing with William Blake’s “The Lamb.” The biggest challenge for Troy is creating humor that appeals to the non-scientific mind. Finding himself creatively frustrated at 3 am, unable to come up with joke ideas that are not abstrusely science based, Troy says he either processes his creativity through a computer word generator or bounces ideas around with a “web buddy.” Other sources of inspiration? At the moment, the cartoonist Randall Monroe, author of “XKCD” is his muse.

We’ll keep in touch with Troy and share more creations from his Evergreen mind.

Evergreen’s 2013-14 Artist Lecture Series Kicks off

Posted on October 5, 2013 by R.J. Burt

David Brody’s “Road Paint Room #1”

The Art Lecture Series takes place in Lecture Hall 1 at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA, on 4-5 Wednesdays per quarter, from 11:30-1:00 pm. Free to the public, Evergreen’s visual arts programs offer an opportunity to hear local, national and international interdisciplinary artists, writers and art workers speak about their work. For more information, contact Faculty Member Shaw Osha.

Kicking off this term’s Artist Lecture Series is David Brody who speaks Wednesday, October 9.

David Brody was born in New York City, did undergraduate work at Columbia University and Bennington College, and received an MFA in painting from Yale University (1983). In addition to solo exhibitions at Gallery NAGA in Boston, Esther Claypool Gallery in Seattle, Gescheidle in Chicago, and Galeria Gilde in Portugal his work has been featured in over seventy group shows including ones at the Chicago Center for the Print; the Center on Contemporary Art (COCA) and the Frye Art Museum in Seattle; The Museum of Fine Arts at the University of Florida, Tallahassee; and at The Painting Center, Alternative Museum, and Bridgewater Gallery in New York City. His work has also been shown at the Feria Internacional de Arte Contemporàneo (ARCO Art Fair) in Madrid, the RipArte Art Fair in Rome, the Trevi Flash Art Museum, in Trevi, Italy, the FAC Art Fair in Lisbon and at Art Chicago in the US. He is represented in Seattle by Prographica, Fine Works on Paper. Continue reading →

It’s Almost Time to Return to Evergreen

Posted on September 30, 2013 by R.J. Burt

It will be an amazing day. Take a look at all the workshops, tours, seminars, and evening entertainment. It will be the best $25 you’ve spent in a long time ($15 for students). Come one, come all.

A Poetic Look at the Online Catalogue

Posted on September 29, 2013 by R.J. Burt

Andrew Reece, Evergreen Faculty Member, Author of The Online Catalogue

Editor’s Note: This poem was read by faculty member and academic dean Andrew Reece at the 2013 President’s Brunch, one of the events kicking off the academic year. It is composed from questions lifted directly from program descriptions. Hope it brings back happy memories.

2013-14 Undergraduate Index A-Z at Evergreen, or: The Online Catalogue, by Andrew Reece, Member of the Faculty

Yes or no?
Is a good life one full of pleasure and devoid of suffering?
A moral life? A long and healthy life?
Is there such a thing as a Caribbean culture,
or are identities complex amalgams
that defy easy categorizations
such as Caribbean,
Dominican American,
creole Martinican,
Afro-Cuban,
East-Indian Trinidadian?
Would you like
to really understand
“buzz terms”
the media uses
such as sustainability,
green materials,
climate change,
the water crisis,
the energy debate,
genetic engineering,
DNA fingerprinting and cloning?
Must quotidian always be associated with humdrum?
China: A Success Story?

What?
What kind of knowledge do we encounter
in fiction and poetry? What
are the psychological mechanisms involved
in the larger action of the human imagination,
urging us to explore new avenues, to see
what others have not seen, to create what
no one has yet created? What do you know
when you know a language?
Sustainability – what does it mean?
What can the study of play teach us
about the nature of power? What
are the limitations on the use of culture
when one has limited political
and economic self-determination?
Who’s Got What? What’s
been handed to you, and
what will you hand on?

Where?
Where did that Walmart come from?

How?
How does a group of indigenous people
from different countries create an activity
to reclaim ancient knowledge? How does imagination
respond to the emotional self, the physiology
of the body, and the psychology of the mind? How
does one’s understanding
of the physical environment shape
ways of writing and understanding the world?
How can we develop and nurture
the “civic intelligence” that will help ensure our actions
produce the best outcomes? How
can music and dance be used to transform lives?

Why?
Why do humans keep pets and
at the same time raise animals for food?
Why is it that humans can handle ambiguity,
but computers have such a difficult time?

Faculty Member Receives Journal of Public Affairs Education Best Article Award

Posted on September 27, 2013 by R.J. Burt

Member of the Faculty Cheryl Simrell King

Abstract:
This autobiographical essay addresses the question: How do the needs of students of working-class origins differ from those of their counterparts from more privileged backgrounds? As one of the invisible differences in the United States, class pervades everything we do, and we are mostly unaware of it. Readers are encouraged to examine their own presumptions about social class, including their suppositions about access to resources and how these can differ based on one’s family of origin. In addition to suggestions on how to address social class in the classroom, readers are encouraged to raise their own consciousness about class in order to reach out to students from working-class backgrounds.

The Situation
In preparing to write this essay, I sat with a student of working-class origins with whom I have a mentoring relationship and asked, “What do you want people to know about interacting with working-class students in our field?” Her answer came without hesitation: “presumptions of access.” She said folks who are not of working-class backgrounds presume everyone has access to whatever they need. Middle- and upper-class people do not think about these access presumptions, so deeply engrained are they in the consciousness of all Americans, even the working class. These access issues are like what Peggy McIntosh (1988) described regarding race in her work about White privilege. McIntosh said White folks, because of the privilege our culture affords us, carry an “invisible knapsack,” full of things always at the ready to smooth our path. We do not see, nor are we aware of, our knapsacks. Non-Whites do not have these invisible knapsacks, and they know it. Read the full article.

Convocation Speaker Founded “StoryCorps,” Wrote this Year’s Common Read

Posted on September 25, 2013 by R.J. Burt

This year’s “common read” for new students and the Evergreen campus community.

Radio producer Dave Isay, founder of the “StoryCorps” oral history project and author of “Listening Is an Act of Love,” spoke to a standing-room-only crowd of new students at Evergreen’s 2013 convocation last Monday. The students who have only just arrived on campus gave strong evidence of having read the book by peppering Isay with questions. By all accounts, it was a great start to the 2013-14 academic year.

The book, a compilation of conversations that have aired over the years on public radio stations, was the assigned “common read” for all incoming students and all faculty members. Common read seminars will go on throughout the academic year, uniting the campus community around issues such as identity, agency, the power of voice, and the impact of stories as cultural and historical milestones.

At a college known for encouraging students to chart their own individual educational experiences, the common read program serves as a touchstone, something students will experience as a community as well as in their own, individual ways.

Alumni are encouraged to read “Listening is an Act of Love” this year and share comments in this web log, on Evergreen’s Facebook page or with each other in conversation circles wherever Greeners gather.

Let us hear from you about this book, the Common Read program, or other related issues. For information on how to form a reading circle in your area, contact R.J. Burt in the office of Alumni Programs.

Fotoland Galerie: a Look Back at Evergreen 2012-13

Posted on September 24, 2013 by R.J. Burt

Editor’s Note: See the full text and gallery at Inside Evergreen, and more great photography by our Photo Services colleagues.

A photographer’s job doesn’t end after the pictures are taken. You could say that’s the beginning.

On stage at the 2013 performance of the Vagina Monologues presented by the TESC Womyn’s Resource Center. Photo by Shauna Bittle

From untold thousands of images, (as well as videos and audio recordings) brilliantly captured during the last academic year, staff Photographer Shauna Bittle and her intern Andrew Jeffers continue to work. Continue reading →

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