Fall 2013 Issue 8 - Feature Section by Whitman College Wire

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October Creations

FEATURE

OCT

31 2013

Whitman art students worked together to make relief prints using a steamroller at the first annual community festival for Día de los Muertos, a Mexican holiday that honors the dead. Photos by Volpert

Students celebrate with giant prints by Isabel Mills Staff Reporter

his Halloween season, Walla Walla is filled with events, including a festival, a fundraiser and a family tradition. One of the events is the very first Day of the Dead Festival, which was held at the Gesa Power House Theatre on Friday, Oct. 25 and Saturday, Oct. 26. It featured a Latino concert, an altar display, food trucks and a collaborative art project created by Whitman faculty and students. Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, is a Mexican holiday that celebrates the lives of those who have passed. Assistant Professor of Art Nicole Pietrantoni, who teaches a variety of classes, including printmaking and book arts, instigated the Day of the Dead printmaking project. “It remembers those who have passed. It’s a celebration; it’s not morbid. Because a lot of the imagery in Day of the Dead is skulls and skeletons, it seems like

a huge Halloween party, but it actually has very rich religious and spiritual roots,” said Pietrantoni. Whitman students in Pietrantoni’s classes have contributed huge pieces of art to be made into giant prints using a steamroller. Members of the community were able to make their own smaller prints at the festival and then transfer them onto T-shirts. “We are making giant relief prints ... We run ink across the raised surface and can print this image that the students have carved. My students will be making their prints in the street using a steamroller as the printing press,” said Pietrantoni. The students creating the prints for this project tried to interpret Day of the Dead imagery and aspects of Mexican culture into their artwork. Senior Catherine Hannan has spent around 25 hours on this project. “There are flowers, which are often placed on the altars. It’s sort of based on the idea that the dead come back to visit their relatives. So their relatives put out these al-

tars with food and water because they’re hungry and thirsty after their journey. So I just took all of the ideas from the altar and tried to interpret them in more of an abstract way,” said Catherine. First-year Gillian Gray attended the festival and had a great time. “There were beautiful and colorful alters to celebrate the dead, as well as fascinating steamrolled prints made by Whitman students. Kids could have their faces painted, decorate sugar skulls and masks and even make their own prints. Everyone seemed to be smiling and having fun,” she said. Another community event, which takes place from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 31, is the D.A.R.E (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) fundraiser. D.A.R.E. is an international education program in which a uniformed officer visits elementary schools to educate the children on avoiding drugs, gangs and violence. Vicki Ruley, a crime prevention coordinator and crime victim advocate for the Walla Walla Police Department, has been

able to help out with the fundraiser through her department. “We’re going to have a parade of costumes for the kids and an opportunity to sell pictures. We have a little staging area to get your picture taken. We’re encouraging people who like kids, and who may not see a lot of costumes, to just sit, have dinner and watch what’s going on. It’s a great place to do that,” she said. Anyone from the community is welcome to come enjoy a $5 spaghetti dinner, which will include scary marinara sauce and spooky salad. All proceeds raised at this Halloween event will go directly to D.A.R.E. Another event this year, a favorite among Whitman students, is the haunted corn maze. The maze has been operating for 14 years thanks to a group of loyal volunteers, particularly the Filan family. “My husband recreates the maze every year. It could take him a day or all winter depending on what he wants to do with it. It’s a new design every year,” said Katy Filan, whose husband

and father-in-law own the land. You enter the maze in the pitch dark. In some places, the ground may suddenly drop as if you are on a trampoline. Around most corners, there are people dressed up in a variety of scary costumes, waiting to jump out, scream and possibly follow you. Fortunately, the costumed volunteers are not allowed to actually touch the maze-goers, and they must tell those in the maze the way out if asked. First-year Eva Geisse went to the corn maze for the first time this year with other brave students from her floor in Anderson Hall. “The corn maze was terrifying, to say the least. At one point I was chased by a bloody clown. It was worth it, though, despite the mini heart attacks waiting around every corner. Make sure you take a friend who doesn’t mind you latching on to them the entire time!” said Geisse. From artwork to spaghetti to clowns, Walla Walla is bringing all the aspects of a wonderful fall season to the community.

Alumnus writes psychological thriller novel based on experiences in local cemetery by SERENA runyan Staff Reporter

n abandoned road not far from Whitman leads to an old graveyard with chipping headstones and weeds as old as the bodies they grow over. At night the moon barely illuminates the grass where Whitman alumnus Stanley Wilson ‘66 sat with his date on the night they saw a drunken Walla Walla citizen get pushed into an empty grave. Stubblefield Cemetery isn’t just where Wilson saw an unfortunate incident — Walla Walla legend says that the graveyard is haunted. According to anonymous post on si-web.com, Walla Wallans in the 1800s killed accused witches in the cemetery, which has been haunted since. This local lore inspired the setting for Wilson’s psychological thriller, “Stubblefield,” in which Walla Wallans say that multiple gravediggers were mysteriously buried alive years ago. The story describes two young adults’ run-in with a predatory police officer at Stubblefield Cemetery. Wilson’s experiences at Whitman, including his memory from Stubblefield as a first-

year, are incorporated into his novel to create an engrossing tale of two lovers in Walla Walla trying to escape their law-breaking past. The book begins with a chessprodigy Whitman student Bryan and his Walla Wallan girlfriend Lydia who decide to drive out to the abandoned Stubblefield Cemetery amidst stretches of wheat fields. Here they encounter a dangerously corrupt police officer and make a decision that launches them into a daring game with the law. Wilson’s time as a Whitman student wasn’t the only experience he drew on for his book. His own disconcerting experience with three police officers who threatened to kill him was the real inspiration for the plot of “Stubblefield.” Wilson preceded his account with his sincere respect for law enforcement, but he believes that corruption is possible everywhere. “Three police officers had threatened to kill me for no good reason other than the fact that I [was] a ‘60s hippie with long hair. They took us out to the woods ... I felt terrified and helpless,” he said. But despite the heavy, suspenseful nature of his book, Wilson says it’s really a love story. “My favorite part [of writ-

ing the book] was the development of the love relationship between these two,” said Wilson. Because they were both abandoned by their mothers in childhood, Bryan and Lydia simultaneously fear and long for intimacy. “So they fall very much in love,” said Wilson. Their incident with the officer in the graveyard pits these two insecure teenagers into a troublesome future that tests their relationship. “It’s not a ‘who done it,’” said Wilson. “They have to kill him [the officer]. The question is: Are they and should they get caught and how is it going to affect their relationship?” Although Wilson was a psychology major, he credits his time at Whitman for his ability to write. His background and experience as a psychologist also helped him develop the format for “Stubblefield.” “Being a psychologist, I’m used to listening to people,” said Wilson. Thus, the story within “Stubblefield” is told entirely as a flashback from Bryan’s point of view, and he regales his experiences to his friends many years later. Wilson wrote from the first person to connect the reader with

Bryan’s emotional development. “By writing in the first person, I think that it’s easier for the reader to identify with Bryan’s desperation and insecurities,” said Wilson. Consequentially, Wilson said readers tell him they enjoy the story line and character development so much so that “Stubblefield” actually has a five-star rating on Amazon.com. And what’s more, Wil-

son is in the process of developing “Stubblefield” into a screenplay, something he hasn’t done before. “Someone said to me, ‘Stan, this would make a great movie.’ So I said, ‘You know, this really would,’” said Wilson. Whether or not it becomes a film, Wilson’s successful Walla Walla-based thriller gives life to the cemetery amongst the wheat fields.

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