The Dartmouth Mirror 3/28/18

MIR ROR 3.28.2018

THE POLYMATHS AMONG US | 2

MENSTRUAL TABOOS | 4-5

TTLG: MY LITTLE HOUSE LIFE | 8 JEE SEOB JUNG/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

2 //MIRR OR

Editors’ Note

The Polymaths Among Us STORY

MICHAEL LIN/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

Renaissance translates to “rebirth” in French. The term “renaissance” evokes images of art, science and humanism, of the printing press and the Sistine Chapel.

It evokes beauty and transformation and humane progress. Similarly, the start to a new term is certainly full of change and adjustments to those changes — your schedule, your wardrobe, switching from being cooped up in Thayer to being cooped up in the Life Sciences Center. “New term, new me,” you say to yourself, as you walk leisurely, rather than scurry, to your 9L. And this may be how you get by for the first two weeks, as you temporarily remain energized from all that extra sun and sleep you gained over spring break. As the days get longer and your mind struggles to refocus on school, you become accustomed to the term.

With the birds finally chirping in the morning, and plant life peeking through the not yet melted snow, Mirror wanted to focus on a topic that encompasses the feeling of spring (Is spring a feeling? We think so.) In this issue, we sat down with women trying to revolutionize the way we view women’s menstrual hygiene, art history professor Jane Carroll, novice and experienced sculptors from the studio art department and some multi-talented students (commonly known as “Renaissance men and women”). Spring is a time of the new, a time of rebirth and renewal, a time when we distance ourselves from the dark ages of snow and ice. Spring is our very own Renaissance.

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3.28.18 VOL. CLXXV NO. 3 MIRROR EDITORS MARIE-CAPUCINE PINEAUVALENCIENNE CAROLYN ZHOU EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ZACHARY BENJAMIN PUBLISHER HANTING GUO EXECUTIVE EDITORS IOANA SOLOMON AMANDA ZHOU

By Cris Cano

Dartmouth, as a liberal arts knowledge to confront complex issues. institution, not only encourages but Sounds like the perfect liberal arts also requires students to take a variety student, right? This week, the Mirror of courses in many different subjects. interviewed three students known on In a given term, it’s not uncommon to campus as multi-talented to learn hear of students pairing engineering more about how they successfully classes with writing workshops, manage such busy schedules. chemistry labs Jo e l l e with foreign Park ’19 is language drills or “Saying that I’m a pursuing an e v e n a d v a n c e d Renaissance woman economics senior seminars modified with introductory- just feels strange with film level lectures. For because I’ve always major and a many students, digital arts their diversity of seen it as something minor, but i n t e re s t s i s a l s o that I’ve struggled her résumé apparent outside of stretches their coursework in with in making sure far beyond their extracurricular that I don’t take on too w h a t s h e activities. studies. She I t s e e m s l i k e much.” is currently while Dartmouth finishing a s t u d e n t s h ave a gap year at general reputation -APRIL LIU ’20 a ministry for embracing school in many interests and northern passions simultaneously, there always California, but she has been an seem to be students who somehow active participant, and sometimes juggle even more activities than the even a leader, of many on-campus norm. One might even view these groups, including Kappa Kappa students as modern-day incarnations Gamma sorority, Street Soul and of “polymaths” or “Renaissance men Agape Christian Fellowship, just to and women.” Historically, the term name a few. She has also worked polymath refers to someone who as an undergraduate advisor and excels in several distinct fields or as a teaching assistant for Patricia subjects and uses their vast wealth of Hannaway, a lecturer in the Computer

Science department.

What may be Park’s most unique activity is not linked to a student group, but is rather one that she began in high school and has continued at Dartmouth: making YouTube videos.

Her channel, JustJoelle1, has been active for over four years and has over 4,100 subscribers. Her most popular video, which gives viewers 10 tips to survive high school dances, has over 113,000 views, while her most popular Dartmouth-related video, a video tour of her sophomore year dorm room, has over 18,000 views.

Amber Liu ’20 is hoping to double major in economics and Computer Science modified with digital arts, though like Park, her extracurricular activities do not always seem directly related to those subjects. She dances for the dance group Sheba, works as a student manager at House Center B, is part of the Dartmouth Investment and Philanthropy Program and is a teaching assistant for Computer Science 22 “3D Digital Modeling.”

Liu admitted that she knew many of the activities that she wanted to participate in before arriving at Dartmouth. Her research process included watching videos of Sheba online before auditioning to get a sense of what the group was like.

“I was one of those super SEE RENAISSANCE MAN PAGE 6

Q&A with Art History Professor Jane Carroll STORY

MIRROR //3

By Kylee Sibilia

Professor Jane Carroll is a senior lecturer in the art history department and a member of the steering committee of the Medieval and Renaissance studies department. Her area of expertise include women and the arts in medieval Germany, the iconography of female piety and early woodcuts.

ruckus, saying this definition seems to not actually fit in with what’s going on in the countries we study. So I do mostly Germany and the Netherlands, a little England and a little France. For us, it is not actually a very good definition, and we began to use the term “early modern,” which is what I say I am.

I’m an early modern scholar. With How do you define the that, there’s more of a continuum Renaissance? with the medieval knowledge. Aquinas, JC: There is for example, is a traditional very popular definition that “There’s a bit of hubris and very c a m e a b o u t in thinking we changed important. basically at the end other cultures, but I And that is of the nineteenth, not as if we early twentieth know that people were do not look century. Scholars looking at Western to the classical began to say that world to bring it was a time creations.” us some new when we began ideas and new to see ourselves -JANE CARROLL, ART inspiration, differently from but that we do the medieval view HISTORY PROFESSOR so with less of of man in service an academy to God, and as they always switched to a view had in Italy. of glorifying man And we do it or promoting the much more as social network. That definition lasted an individuals in communication, often awfully long time. Then about twenty through letters, so letters between years ago, scholars who work in places important scholars began to be the other than Italy began to raise quite a way in which ideas were flourishing.

It’s a slightly different platform and it’s a slightly different emphasis.

How did you come to focus on Renaissance studies and the Early Modern Period?

JC: I went to graduate school and thought I was going to be a Rembrandt scholar, so that was in the seventeenth century. I loved Rembrandt and I still do. But I took a course where I had to do work on the early sixteenth century, and I’ve always been interested in times that are on the cusp of change, so that the end of this period, right before the Reformation breaks out in 1517, is a period when there are so many ideas bubbling up, and that fascinated me. The idea that you are going to be saying something so pivotal to your life as your eternal fate, and you have to decide suddenly if you’re going to go with the traditional, what we call now, Catholic fate, or if you’re going to go with this new idea, and what’s at stake is your eternal soul. That to me is a fascinating time to think about how humanity is going to juggle these ideas.

A lot of people think of the Renaissance as primarily a European phenomenon, but do you think it had a cultural impact on other areas of the world?

COURTESY OF JANE CARROLL

Jane Carroll (right) posed with fellow art historian and friend as Martin Luther and his wife.

JC: Yes it did. There’s a bit of hubris in thinking we changed other cultures, but I know that people were looking at Western creations. Mostly it really was in Europe. But I can give you the example that Albrecht Dürer, when he worked in France, worked on papers that are light and easy to transport. We have information to say that his prints were purchased in what we now call India, as well as all the way across the Middle East and into what was then Constantinople and is now Istanbul as well as across Europe, so that’s a pretty wide reach.

How did women feature in the Renaissance?

JC: There’s a great classical article from the 1970s called “Did Women Have a Renaissance?” and the short answer is no. I think that’s a kind of exaggeration.

The truth of the matter is that in the Middle Ages, if a person who was the head of a studio or workshop died, oftentimes his widow would take over.

Because workshops tended to be in the house, it was much easier to have the wife be a part of the enterprise, and daughters as well. And the first women artists whose names we know tended to be women whose fathers were artists, so they got trained that way. The Renaissance is the first set of names that we have of women artists, because of course there’s a lot more stuff that gets recorded at this point.

So very famous ones come up on a minor scale for that period. The other thing we have at this time is the idea that in the Renaissance, the workshops suddenly get placed outside the home, so that there’s a place of business and there is a domestic sphere. And that actually pushes women out from being active daily workers in the workshop that existed in the Middle Ages. So that’s why Joan Kelly, when she asked

the question, “Did women have a Renaissance?” sort of said no because they became much more confined to the domestic sphere. But there are always the remarkable women who broke that model.

Even today, people are still talking about the Renaissance, and it’s a very well known period. There’s almost a kind of infatuation around it. Why do you think that it is still so prevalent today?

JC: First of all, there’s been some great PR, and we still use the phrase “He’s a real Renaissance man,” or “She’s a real Renaissance woman.” When we say that, we mean somebody who has this pan knowledge, this ability to think across disciplines and see connections.

That is a pretty amazing thing when you see it in someone. When somebody does that today, I always think to myself, “Oh they’re smart, they’re seeing that connection.” So I think because that’s become attached to the term “Renaissance,” it is something that lives in a positive fashion in our minds. And I think the second thing is that it’s the first period in the West for which we have huge numbers of names. We can trace careers of artists along the way and see how they’ve developed, and a lot of them wrote as well. It’s also the time when what we call the first art historian, Giorgio Vasari, in 1550 wrote his “The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects.” So we have all this information, and the Renaissance becomes people we begin to understand, so we begin to see them as living breathing flesh rather than just names on a piece of paper. And that’s pretty powerful.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.

4// MIRROR

The Invisible: Menstrual STORY

NORA MASLER/THE DARTMOUTH

Menstrual stigmas are rooted not in admited. “I thought, ‘This has got to what is said but in what goes unsaid. We happen,’ [so] I just kept yelling, ‘Get your encounter them in the silence between tampons!’ and things like that.” words, in the euphemisms that have spilled It was a timely yet unorthodox gesture into our social script to claim a language of that naturally raised a few eyebrows. their own, reflexive “There was a range of but prosaic. “I’m [reactions],” Gallen said. under the weather.” “I thought, ‘This has got “I think most people were really excited ... [but] “It’s my time of to happen,’ [so] I just there were also people m o n t h . ” “A u n t kept yelling, ‘Get your who were maybe made a Flow is here.” All little uncomfortable about substitutes for a tampons!’ and things p r o c e s s w h o s e like that.” it, or were confused or a little embarrassed and denotation of blood wanted to kind of just walk and connotation of dirtiness have -KAYSI HERRERA-PUJOLS ’20 past without making eye contact.” rendered it too “unfeminine” It’s the 21st century after all, an era characterized by to be called by relentless activism and an its formal name: unwavering commitment menstruation. to equality. Women no We r e l e g a t e menstruation to longer have to embrace the private and thus invisible sphere. Kaysi docility as a marker of femininity. They Herrera-Pujols ’20 believes firmly in the de- no longer have to confine their identities to stigmatization of women’s hygiene. “It’s a the cult of domesticity, or sexual expression silencing factor for a lot of women,” Pujols to the domain of marriage. However, this said. “It’s something that we are taught from vision is only one side of the coin, as the when we are young to be ashamed of even same backward beliefs that once conflated menstruation and uncleanliness have not though it’s something natural.”

On International Women’s Day, Pujols vanished despite our progress.

Pujols locates the origins of this worked at a booth handing out women’s hygiene products. Hannah Gallen ’19, invisibility in the widespread adherence to who worked for the company Brandless gender binarism. “A lot of people believe during her sophomore spring, set up a in the [gender binary] when it’s obviously “Take Care” booth in Novack Café that a spectrum,” she said. “And since women handed out free tampons and pads as part are viewed as being so different from men, of Brandless’s initiative to deconstruct the [menstrual periods are] just another factor that makes women different.” shame associated with menstruation.

Difference: a double-edged sword. On “I was very obnoxious about it,” Pujols

one hand, difference forms the bedrock of “But do I think it’s right? Of course not. identity. After all, we perceive the world It’s such a natural process ... The reason in binary oppositions, such that the first why men are on this earth is also because step in defining who we are is determining of menstruation.” who we are not. We are living because we Nanji-Totani observes that menstrual are not objects, humans because are not stigmas wreak the most havoc in “places animals and, in the where women context of gender, “In Kenya, girls school don’t have as much male because we are authority.” She cites not female, or female attendance goes down Kenya as one such because we are not when they are on their place. male. The condition “ I n Ke n y a , ” periods ... because they of ‘difference’, then, N a n j i - To t a n i sustains the ver y think that boys are going said, “girls’ school categories that form to shun them for being attendance goes down our gender binary. when they are on their A s a b i o l o g i c a l on their periods.” periods ... because they marker of femininity, think that boys are then, menstruation going to shun them becomes the chosen for being on their point at which a -SERENA NANJI-TOTANI ’21 periods.” unified human The deeprace fragments into seated, if outdated, gender categories associations between and males and menstruation and females diverge into uncleanliness account their separate scripts. a s mu c h f o r s u c h What began as a d e c l i n e s i n s ch o o l differentiating factor between the sexes has attendance as does women’s inability morphed into a social stigma. to access adequate hygiene products.

“Everything [about menstruation] is Therefore, Kenyan girls likely fear not their supposed to be very hidden,” Pujols said. period itself but rather the reactions that “I feel like that’s very unfair because you a visible period stain may elicit from their shouldn’t have to hide something that’s just male counterparts, revealing the extent a normal bodily function.” to which blood has become a source of Serena Nanji-Totani ’21, whose life shame. The solution? Conceal any and all experiences in England, France, Hong signs of menstruation, even if this means Kong, Nigeria, Romania and Singapore compromising their education. have forced her to navigate multiple cultural “This is a huge detriment to women,” terrains simultaneously and with ease, Nanji-Totani said. After all, Kenyan girls’ expressed similar sentiments. decision to skip school not only perpetuates “There’s a belief that being on your a culture that seeks to render menstruation period makes you unclean, so culturally I invisible but also reinforces the very understand why there’s a stigma,” she said. stereotypes that stigmatize menstruation

NNAH GALLEN

COURTESY OF HA

By Va

MIRROR //5

Taboos in the 21st Century

anessa Smiley

in the first place. as their own, but even participate and Granted, we must be careful in drawing at times find empowerment in their own parallels between girls in Kenya and objectification. women at Dartmouth, as the socioeconomic Unsur prisingly, advertisements for climate in Kenya has denied women menstrual products often trumpet a nonchoices most students here have. Still, even menstruating figure as the ideal woman Dartmouth is not exempt and blatantly from the social and “If people get to talk less overlook matters of political implications of menstrual health, about [menstruation], menstrual stigmas. focusing instead “We still live in a it means there is less on how to prevent patriarchal society,” leakages and boost Nanji-Totani said, “so awareness of issues confidence during tampons are taxed, pads related to the topic.” the menstrual are taxed, even though phase. Moreover, Viagra is not taxed.” in a crass attempt The state governments, - SUNBIR CHAWLA ’21 promote an attitude that selectively of secrecy towards tax these products, menstruation, thereby participate in these ads regularly the stigmatization of employ blue liquid women’s hygiene: in as a symbolic g ranting Viag ra but substitute for blood. denying tampons taxImplicit in these exe m p t s t at u s, t h ey advertisements is u n w i t t i n g l y exc l u d e the message that menstruation from the now-also-patriarchal women ought to hide their periods from category of “necessity.” the public eye. To appear non-menstruating To make matters worse, menstrual is to legitimize the invisible nature of stigmas have encroached on the terrain menstruation, itself the perfect breeding of ideology, packaging themselves as the ground for stigmas. norms and standards to which women hold Sunbir Chawla ’21, who lived in India themselves and others accountable. before coming to Dartmouth, admits that This norm of invisibility originates he has “no idea whatsoever” about periods. at least partially in a heterosexual male “I’ve never talked to any girl about this, fantasy that objectifies the female body. not even within my family,” Chawla said.

Unfortunately, women have internalized “I never knew things like this existed until the male gaze such that they do not merely I was about 16 or 17 ... we don’t even talk embrace the size-zero-toned-abs body ideal about this in my house.”

NNAH COURTESY OF HA

GALLEN

COURTESY OF

HANNAH GA

LLEN

Pujols noticed this same unawareness in in general interacting with this display in some of the males who approached her at a public space,” Gallen said.

Novack.

Gallen added that setting up the “A lot of guys were Take Care booth on super interested and just “A lot of guys were International Women’s grabbed products for their Day was “an apt way friends or sisters,” Pujols super interested and to celebrate” by “desaid. “But they weren’t just grabbed products stigmatizing very natural sure what anything was bodily functions that for their friends or [and] would be like ‘Oh aren’t talked about.”

I don’t know about this,’ sisters,” As Puljos saw or ‘Don’t ask me about it, the tactic they used periods because I don’t to spread awareness was know anything about - KAYSI HERRERA-PUJOLS successful. “People kept them.’” coming to us and asking ’20 This silence and us questions about ‘What lack of awareness fuels is this for,’ ... and things the stigma against like that,” Pujols said. menstruation.

We cannot tackle that which cannot “If people get to talk less about be seen. Granted, one campaign will not [menstruation], it means there is less eradicate a stigma that has now claimed a awareness of issues related to the topic.” relatively permanent status in society.

Chawla said.

“It takes a long time to change people’s The Take Care booth at Dartmouth last mindset,” Gallen said. “Stigmas are a social term therefore sought to render the invisible and cultural force that [are] more complex visible, and in doing so naturalize a process than just a policy or something that needs that has been horribly de-naturalized. to change.”

For Puljos, the public nature of the Take Nonetheless, the initiative to bring an Care booth worked to spread awareness of invisible issue to the forefront is the first menstration and the stigma that follows it. step in normalizing and thereby reducing “I think it really helped people [realize] the stigma against menstruation. We too that [menstruation] is a normal thing.” can contribute to this campaign in our daily Pujols said. conversations by ditching the euphemisms Gallen echoed Puljos’ sentiment, noting and labelling menstruation for what it is. the positive effects of “women and people Period.

6// MIRROR

The Renaissance Man and Woman Today STORY

By Cris Cano

joking tone, he also mentioned that he would tell his younger self to drop the pre-med track sooner to have a gung-ho people who researched the higher GPA. things I knew I wanted to get involved “The things that I get involved in before coming to the school,” Liu with are things that have people said. [with whom] I like spending my Benny Adapon ’19, a geography time,” Adapon said. “Whenever I do major and Spanish minor, spends pursue those projects, it doesn’t feel much of his time working on his like work.” current research projects. One is Park, who is in a unique situation a Mellon Mays Undergraduate because of her gap year away from Fellowship project focusing on Sulu- Dartmouth — and consequently an Island in the all of her Philippines, an extracurricular area that tends “The things that I involvements — to be heavily get involved with has spent her damaged by time in California t y p h o o n s . are things that have reflecting on her A n o t h e r i s a people [with whom] I personal values feminist response and how she does t o P h i l i p p i n e like spending my time. not always agree P r e s i d e n t Whenever I do pursue with some of the R o d r i g o values prevalent Duterte’s War those projects, it among the on Dr u g s, t o doesn’t feel like work.” greater student be presented at population. the American N o w, Association of -BENNY ADAPON ’19 she feels very Geographers’ strongly about annual meeting prioritizing in New Orleans herself and in April. her individual relationships over According to Adapon, planning “achievements” like leadership and conducting research is much positions, for many of which she is more difficult off-campus in the ineligible due to being off-campus Philippines than it is on campus, junior spring. especially because actual fieldwork “I think a lot of Dartmouth isn’t as large of a component in his students want to see that they projects at the College. accomplished something, and they see “Setting up research in the real the accomplishment in the title,” Park world — I didn’t realize — is so said. “I have to prioritize my lifelong difficult,” Adapon said. well-being over my social relevance When not focused on research, [and] my prestige at Dartmouth.”

Adapon also dedicates his time to groups Liu, who enjoys her activities so such as Asian American Students for much that she even found a local dance Action and Divest Dartmouth. He has class to take while studying abroad also worked an assortment of jobs: an in Paris this past fall, has struggled undergraduate advisor, a Spanish drill with scheduling her time wisely. i n s t r u c t o r, a She said that library graphic “I think a lot of she’s constantly designer and working on a b a r i s t a at Dartmouth students lear ning, ter m Morano Gelato. want to see that by term, how to How do these prioritize and three students they accomplished decide what her m a n a g e t o something, and interests are. participate in so “Saying that I’m many activities they see the a Re n a i s s a n c e while still setting accomplishment in woman just feels aside time for strange because classes, friends the title. I have to I’ve always seen it and self-care? prioritize my lifelong as something that A common I’ve struggled with s e n t i m e n t well-being... ” in making sure shared by all that I don’t take three students on too much,” Liu -JOELLE PARK ’19 interviewed is said. “I’d rather that genuine do a few things interest is far very well than just more important than trying to meet dabble or half-commit myself to a others’ expectations or maintain a large range of activities.” certain reputation.

Park, Liu and Adapon may be seen Adapon explained that if he could by their friends as some of the students give his first-year-self advice, he who somehow “do it all,” but it’s clear would say to worry less about career that they prefer quality over quantity expectations and to not be afraid to — whether you call them polymaths, try things that seem unconventional Renaissance men and women or just for an international student. In a some really passionate students.

FROM RENAISSANCE MAN PAGE 1

COURTESY OF BENNY ADAPON

Benny Adapon ’19 is a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow, an activist and an undergraduate advisor.

MIRR OR //7

Achieving Self-Expression Through Sculpture STORY

By Jake Maguire

At Dartmouth, where the four that sculpture is “tactile” and that most popular majors are economics, one’s choice of materials matters government, computer science and greatly. Kat Ramage ’19, a studio art engineering, some undergraduates major and human-centered design overlook the academic discipline of minor from Ledgewood, New Jersey, studio art. The studio art department expressed similar sentiments. She offers courses in architecture, drawing, enjoys having the ability to use natural painting, photography, printmaking materials to create a final product. and sculpture.

“I like using things that I’ve B r e n d a G a r a n d , a s t u d i o seen around nature to create art,” art professor who specializes in Ramage said. “I really like furnituresculpture and making and drawing, believes craftsmanship, “Sculpture can [also] that sculpture and sculpture i s i m p o r t a n t be in your space and [blends the and meaningful affect you differently two].” because it allows people to convey than a drawing on Madison Smith ideas in a unique the wall. People can ’18 echoed way.

Ramage’s “People think relate to sculpture in sentiments dif ferently and a different way and about the see the world in importance of different ways,” dimension.” materials. She Garand said. found the three“Some think in dimensional two dimensions -BRENDA GARAND, and tangible and some think in STUDIO ART PROFESSOR nature of three dimensions. sculpting to be S c u l p t u r e challenging at allows [threetimes. dimensional thinkers] to express Smith, an economics major from themselves.”

Tyler, Texas, took Studio Art 16: Not only does Garand believe that “Sculpture I” as an elective this sculpture as an art form lends itself past winter with studio art professor to individuals who think in three Stina Köhnke. She enjoyed the dimensions, she also finds it to be more course but struggled sometimes to inclusive and impactful than other find appropriate, practical materials artistic processes, such as drawing. that would enable her to convert her “Someone might be afraid to draw, abstract ideas into tangible realities. but they can draw with wire,” Garand “Coming up with ideas and making said. “Sculpture can [also] be in your them into plausible things was often space and affect you differently than difficult for me,” Smith said, adding a drawing on the wall. People can that she is not particularly adept at relate to sculpture in a different way woodcutting. and dimension.”

Ramage said that a further Garand furthermore emphasized difficulty is that sculptors have to

MIA ZHANG NACKE/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

MIA ZHANG NACKE/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

think about their products ahead of sculpting. “[Disciplines such as] painting do not have a tangible product, and you can revise as you go,” Ramage said. “You need more of a plan while sculpting.”

Despite the challenges of sculpting, Smith is glad that she took Sculpture I at Dartmouth. She said that it exposed her to a new way of thinking and personal expression.

“I really enjoy thinking broadly and creatively,” Smith said. “Sculpture I allowed me to use my imagination while creating a product of my choice, unlike in economics.”

Similarly, Ramage said that her sculpture courses have taught her how to express ideas differently.

“Sculpting is almost a different kind of language,” Ramage said. “You learn how to represent things rather than just describe them.”

Smith and Ramage both recommend that other undergraduate students enroll in a sculpture course even if they do not consider themselves to be naturally artistic.

“I’d highly recommend that students take a sculpture course,” Smith said. “It allows them to think in a way that other [programs] at Dartmouth do not, and it requires time and effort, but not natural talent.”

Ramage’s decision to enroll in sculpture courses changed the trajectory of her undergraduate experience. She originally intended to pursue an engineering degree at Dartmouth, but instead intends to graduate in June of 2019 with a degree

in studio art.

“If I hadn’t taken Sculpture I and II, I wouldn’t have become a studio art major,” Ramage said. “It totally reshaped my time at Dartmouth.”

Of all the projects that she has made, Ramage values her creation of various suspended rocks in a frame.

“I had to learn how to weld in order to make the frame,” Ramage said.

“Making the frame was the hardest part and, throughout the project, what I felt dictated the form instead of the functionality of the rocks.”

Smith, who is most proud of a sculpture that she created in the shape of a chandelier to convey the contrast between her inability to speak Spanish and her family’s Cuban heritage, has grown to believe that Dartmouth’s student body underappreciates the discipline of studio art.

“Studio art is undervalued and often dismissed as ‘the easy way’ to get a degree at Dartmouth,” Smith said. “People don’t realize how much time and effort it takes, and how much personal growth it inspires.”

Garand, who has taught at Dartmouth since 1995, first became seriously interested in sculpture when she was seventeen. She grew up on a farm in New Hampshire and often worked alongside her father, a carpenter. He taught her how to use several tools and materials, such as roofing paper, that she now incorporates into the sculptures that she creates.

Prior to becoming a studio art professor in the same state in which she grew up, Garand wore many different professional hats. She painted homes

and apartments, worked in galleries, assisted various artists and taught at several other institutions of higher learning, starting with Queens College, City University of New York.

Garand’s position at Dartmouth is by far her favorite occupation.

“I love my job and have no complaints,” Garand said. “Honestly, it’s great, and my students are the best part.”

Garand’s students have also helped her adjust to her medical condition.

She has a rare form of muscular dystrophy, a genetic condition that affects the portions of her body above the neck and interferes with her ability to speak. Garand’s condition began to manifest itself slowly but progressively worsened, forcing her to take some time off from work. She returned this term after nearly a year away from campus.

Garand credits her students with motivating her to teach. She says that they inspire her every day and have done so both before and since the onset of muscular dystrophy.

“My students are always changing themselves and always challenging themselves and me,” Garand said.

“The students are why I’m here. It’s really their class — I just teach it.”

Likewise, Garand’s passion for sculpture has helped her cope with her condition amidst significant hardship and extensive medical appointments.

She believes that sculpture can help individuals fully express themselves in both figurative and, at times, literal terms.

“Sculpture is all about finding your voice,” Garand said.

8// MIRROR

Through The Looking Glass: My Little House Life TTLG

By Riley Carbone

I don’t remember when I first read Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series. I can picture the ninevolume paperback box set, each cover a different pastel gingham, sitting on the lower left of the downstairs bookcases as if it has always been there. I know that the first book in the series, “Little House in the Big Woods,” was read aloud in my preschool group; I would ask my mom for two “Laura braids” when she did my hair in early elementary school.

Wilder’s childhood and my childhood are woven together, zigzagging across two centuries and the continental United States.

Wilder wrote the Little House series as a fictionalized account of her childhood in the Midwest during the 1870s and 1880s. The eight original books relate Laura’s life from the age of four, living in a Wisconsin log cabin with her Ma, Pa and sisters Mary, Carrie and Grace, to the age of 18, newly married to Almanzo Wilder and homesteading in South Dakota.

A ninth book, “The First Four Years,” is typically included in the series and was published following Laura Ingalls Wilder’s death from a first draft recovered from her daughter’s belongings.

Quick chapters, often no more than a few pages, jump between topics, stories and chronologies.

Almost like diary entries, the chapters form a collection of daily routines roughly sorted into books by shared place or time. The ability of the chapters to stand alone, And since that first read of of her husband Almanzo Wilder’s combined with Wilder’s fondness for descriptions of food and its “Little House in the Big Woods” childhood, has always been my preparation, gives the series a déjà — whenever it was — I’ve probably favorite for exactly that reason. The vu familiarity. In one chapter of “On never gone more than two years endless chores on the Wilder family the Banks of Plum Creek,” the Ingalls without revisiting my Little House farm in upstate New York make for celebrate Christmas with a dinner of set. When I reread the Little House a book filled with the educational oysters and baked beans, Pa having books, I’ll often start with “Farmer minutiae I love: training a pair eaten the crackers and candy while Boy,” the second in the series, before of oxen to wear a yoke, cutting continuing on to the other and storing slabs of ice for use lost in a eight. I’ve read the series throughout the year, saving baby blizzard again and again, partly out corn from an early frost and shaving on h i s And since that nostalgic shingles by hand. way home. first read of “Little of c u r i o s i t y The escapism of In the world of the Two books but mostly Little House series, l a t e r i n House in the out o f the books lies homesteading skills “ T h e Big Woods” — s o m e t h i n g in the constant were described in a L o n g m o re : t h e way that made them Wi n t e r, ” whenever it was fantasy of productivity of the seem attainable and w a t e r y — I’ve probably L a u r a ’ s characters’ lives enviable. oyster r e a l i t y.

The escapism s o u p , never gone more The books ... The characters’ of the books lies p o t a t o e s than two years a r e p u r e confidence in in the constant and brown escapism, productivity of the b r e a d without revisiting t e n d i n g their skills and characters’ lives. become a my Little House m o r e knowledge is The tasks and Christmas chores that make up f e a s t fo r Set ... I’ve read the t o w a r d s r i c h l y the basis for their daily routines the family, series again and d e t a i l e d an unwavering are immediately who has h o w - t o and tangibly b e e n again... r a t h e r optimism in essential to their marooned than linear the face of an survival. on its Although the homestead by an unusually harsh narrative. And like uncertain future. uncertainty of the winter. With its simple language and fables, I read each future hangs over soft, black and white pictures, the ch apter look in g the Little House series makes for a quick read; in an for the lesson, one afternoon, I can follow Laura from more piece of advice to store away. series, the life of homesteaders is in “Farmer Boy,” Wilder’s account the moment. Again and again, Wilder childhood to marriage.

PHOTO COURTESY OF RILEY CARBONE

describes how her family emerges and, with each description of those from hard times having carried on tasks, a manual to my own selfwith the daily rituals that would get sufficient future of infinite possibility. them through to the next day — And now, halfway grown up, I building a fire with hay twists can still find a cozy, welcoming escape in warm and feed a family throughout Laura’s life. Of course, this fantasy a winter of requires me to discount u n e n d i n g As a child 150 years of change blizzards, and and advancement and w a r m m e a l s attempting to make ignore the opportunities c a n m a k e sense of school and made available to me even a covered because I haven’t had wagon feel like parents’ jobs and to contribute to my h o m e . T h e piggy bank savings, family’s survival in characters’ significant ways. I’m confidence in the Little House already too old to be a their skills and series offered me married homesteader knowledge is at eighteen and as a the basis for a reassuring world lifelong vegetarian, I’m an unwavering where every task probably never going optimism in smoke venison in a had an immediate to the face of homemade smoker. I an uncertain purpose... can long for a Little future.

House life because I I think this haven’t lived it. self-reliant optimism is the true There’s always something to do escape I find in Wilder’s books. I next in Wilder’s books, which is idealize homesteading, building exactly why I love them. As I was and outfitting a home, feeding and flipping through “Little House in clothing the family inside it and the Big Woods” while writing this ensuring a comfortable and stable column, I found myself skimming future with my own hands. As a through chapter after chapter, child attempting to make sense of caught up in each moment of school and parents’ jobs and piggy productivity. There’s butter to be bank savings, the Little House series churned, bee stings to sooth with mud offered me a reassuring world where and bandages — and then there’s every task had an immediate purpose tomorrow.