MASSHIRE ArtWorks PROGRAM Brodt’s experience is a shining example of the program when it works best.
“It is about as good as it gets,” Cumes acknowledges. “I feel like it couldn’t have been a better mentorship. … Caroline was an amazingly hard-working, sweet, sweet human being. It was so wonderful to see her work develop. Everything I shared with her or taught her, she integrated into her work.
WHEN PHOTOGRAPHER JULIA CUMES WAS FIRST APPROACHED about serving as a
mentor for Barnstable High School junior Caroline Brodt in the fall of 2016, she was initially hesitant. Cumes, who travels extensively for work, had trips planned to Cuba and Kenya, and aside from having a full schedule, she was skeptical about offering mentorship. “In the past, I’ve had experiences where the young students didn’t invest the kind of energy I did,” she explains. Still, she offered to look at Brodt’s portfolio, which featured photos of her sister Olivia’s experience with cancer. “I was immediately struck by the raw power and intimacy of her images,” Cumes says. “It was clear to me that Caroline had a wonderful sense of composition and light, and her work showed an exceptional willingness to engage with her subject in a way that seemed beyond her 16 years.” And so Cumes agreed to mentor Brodt through the MassHire Cape and Islands Workforce Board’s ArtWorks program, which will be entering its 24th year and has been partially funded in recent years through a grant from the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod. Through the program, sophomores, juniors, and seniors in high schools across the Cape are connected to mentors in arts-related fields as part of a 40-hour internship that takes place over the course of a six-month period.
“It was incredibly satisfying to watch her develop so wonderfully as a photographer and see her shine,” Cumes continues. During Brodt’s internship, she continued to chronicle her sister’s journey, which ended in April 2017 when Olivia died at the age of 20. The project was exhibited at Barnstable High School during Caroline’s senior year. “It was one of the most powerful and beautifully executed photo essays I’ve seen a student put together,” says Cumes. Cumes's relationship with Brodt has blossomed beyond high school. Brodt, who will be entering her junior year at Rochester Institute of Technology, where she is studying advertising photography, traveled to Kenya with Cumes in 2018 to photograph the great migration. Last year, Brodt served as an assistant to Cumes on a photography workshop she led in Cuba. This summer, Brodt is continuing to sharpen her skills as an intern at the Cape Cod Times. “I think the mentorship had a huge snowball effect on me,” she says. “I’m very grateful I put myself out there at a young age and took that risk and gained something beautiful from it.”
“Artist mentors really open amazing doors for these young students in this program,” says the workforce board’s Executive Director Kara Galvin. “Oftentimes mentors are not only teaching students about art, but helping them secure scholarships, writing them recommendations for college, and forming relationships that last beyond the internship.”
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