Alumni Gatherings

CLASS OF 2020

Alumni Gathering

In June, Collegiate welcomed back members of the Class of 2020, the first group to return to campus since our reopening plan. They had the opportunity to reconnect with their classmates and their former faculty and staff. The special celebration included live music from classmates, food trucks and a raffle.

COUGARS CONNECT ONLINE PLATFORM

Stay connected with our nearly 8,000 active alumni across the world by joining Cougars Connect! In order to better serve and connect our alumni, Collegiate recently launched this web-based platform for networking, mentoring and more. Get connected at cougarsalums.com.

Alumni Comedy Night

One of the truest forms of connection is to laugh with another person. In April, Collegiate School alumni came together over Zoom to enjoy a night of comedy and connection. Participants were entertained by comedians and alumni board members as they incorporated some special Collegiate touches in their sketches. Performers included: former Alumni Board President Pettus LeCompte ’71; current Trustee Mayme Donohue ’03; alumni board members Lauren Cricchi ’10, Wortie Ferrell ’88, Peyton Jenkins ’00, Amrik Sahni ’06, Jasmine Turner ’11 and Harry Wilson ’01; and Penny Evins, Head of School. The night reminded us that, during the COVID-19 pandemic, we are still part of a special Cougar community.

FINDING CLARITY AMIDST THE CACOPHONY

TWO COLLEGIATE ALUMNI FIND EXPRESSION THROUGH ART

By Weldon Bradshaw

Life during COVID-19 has brought unprecedented and often daunting and heart-rendering challenges.

It’s not the challenges that define us, though. It’s how we process them, address them, respond to them and gain clarity amidst them.

Among those challenges has been, at least in the early months of this now year-long Twilight Zone existence, a discomfiting sense of isolation and detachment from much (and many) that we hold dear.

Wishing them away is an exercise in futility. Finding joy and equilibrium in the moment is a healthier path to that still-nebulous destination called New Normal.

How, though? That’s the million-dollar question.

Julia Stewart and Annie Leeth, 2015 Collegiate School graduates, lifelong friends and skilled and innovative practitioners of their crafts, have found a way, albeit after a bit of a search.

They’ve created an installation combining art and music entitled But I Huff and Puff and You Still Won’t Come Out that was on display outside Collegiate’s college counseling office in the South Science Building until March.

“This is an immersive experience,” says Pam Sutherland, their Honors Art Teacher at Collegiate and at whose behest they shared their work. “You’re looking at the painting while hearing the music.

Stewart’s oil-on-canvas painting is entitled Containment. She created it over a roughly fourmonth spring-summer interlude in 2020 when she spent much of her time alone in her studio in the Manchester district of South Richmond.

“I was feeling trapped in my little space,” she says. “I was literally scared to go out even to the gas station across the street because of this virus. I was wary of jumping on whatever trend is going on and painting about it. It’s a tricky thing to paint about a pandemic.”

Containment became a reflection of her feelings.

“Painting is a way for me to say whatever I want to say, even if I’m not sure what my final stance is,” Stewart says. “It’s definitely a form of communication, even if it’s a really confusing message and there might not even be one specific message.”

Though they are separated by distance, Leeth (who lives in Atlanta) and Stewart worked in concert nonetheless. The theme of their collaboration revealed itself in time.

“We wanted it [the artwork] to be true to our own experiences,” Stewart says. “We were both feeling trapped. We had to get to know our physical surroundings a lot better. We were both protesting over the summer. She was stuck in her apartment just like me. After we began our projects, that’s when the collaboration happened.”

Leeth’s presentation is a song entitled “All We Are.” Her friend LeeAnn Peppers, a multi-talented artist (singer, songwriter, poet, filmmaker) based in Athens, Ga., wrote the lyrics.

Leeth wrote the music to accompany Peppers’s spoken words and produced the final product, which was accessible by scanning a QR code beside the painting.

“She’s talking about the idea of materialism as comfort instead of each other,” says Leeth, a University of Georgia graduate, talented violinist and an engineer for Maze Studios. “She’s saying that we’re not comfortable around each other in the way that we should be, and we cover it up with the things we own and then don’t understand when we start to feel trapped.”

At its best then, for both artist and observer, amidst the cacophony and consternation, disillusion and upheaval that envelopes us, reflection, introspection and creation can have a therapeutic effect.

“Art in many ways is a coping mechanism,” says Sutherland, an accomplished artist herself. “Not just artists know this. Many people going through the pandemic know it. You can be shut off from other things, but you can be alone with yourself and create something. That’s really valuable.”