Exhibition Statement

INTRODUCTION

As we are moving regularly with our college lives, the COVID-19 lockdown seems far away. However, many of us feel a residue from the grief of the heaviness and the struggles of abandonment and self-contemplation.”Grief Through Wilderness” aims to give space to students who feel like they are mentally falling behind ~ it is okay if you still feel emotional about a catastrophic event that happened recently, even if it appears like everyone else has moved on. The capstone consists of descriptive poetry that describes and enhances paintings centered around a subject navigating the wilderness, a metaphor for navigating coping mechanisms and overcoming grief during lockdown.

LITERATURE REVIEW 

The capstone draws upon art as a setting in the wilderness, centering around a subject being lost within the woods as either a safe haven or a strange place to vacate immediately. The capstone draws upon this dichotomy in the artwork, comparing the forest to the mind - how we are forced to look inwards (due to lack of contact) and how this journey can give us pain and self-contemplation, peace, and discovery. Ekphrastic poetry is how the message is conveyed - poetry that vividly describes and enhances an artwork. A cartoon show helped inspire the theme - called Over The Garden Wall - where two brothers get lost in the woods and work together to find a way out - they have two opposing personalities and they meet many strange discoveries on an unknown terrain (McHale). The story of the poems aims to draw comparisons between these two personalities as a direct reflection of our mental states. Studies have been found regarding how college students have coped during the pandemic, and how they went through periods of self-discovery to figure out how to cope, as they have experienced disproportionate levels of stress compared to other age levels - the main reason why this audience is the main focus of the capstone (Dawn).

METHODS

I am using a type of poetry called ekphrastic poetry - poetry that vividly describes and enhances a painting (Getty Center). Typically, a poem goes on to describe the colors, tone, and moods of the painting, but for my capstone, I will not extend super far to make my project more accessible to people reading my poetry without it becoming too dense. I speak about both the forest scene that is described as well as the grief of being trapped in one's room, and how this grief is eventually healed (even though there is a “residue” which I will paint as the final piece). I interviewed 10 college students (class of 2025) about their coping mechanisms and negative feelings they experienced in the pandemic and how they overcame these feelings and found eventual solace (or even if they didn’t). I incorporated these themes into each of my poems, describing paintings that I made.

AUDIENCE AND IMPACT

My intended audience for this project is the class of 2025-2026, or specifically students that underwent a transition from high school to college with the COVID-19 pandemic disaster fresh in their minds. The turmoil of the transition as well as trying to live normally to a new chapter of life makes this group’s perspectives unique and impactful in terms of my project significance. 

REFERENCES

Apgar, Dawn, and Thomas Cadmus. "Using Mixed Methods to Assess the Coping and Self-regulation Skills of Undergraduate Social Work Students Impacted by COVID-19." Clinical Social Work Journal, vol. 50, no. 1, 2022, pp. 55-66. ProQuest, https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/using-mixed-methods-assess-coping-self-regulation/docview/2628405960/se-2 , doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10615-021-00790-3.

Clemente, Zachary. “Talking Homage, Adapting from Nothing, and Atmosphere with 'over the Garden Wall' Creator Pat McHale.” The Beat, 31 Aug. 2015, https://www.comicsbeat.com/talking-homage-adapting-from-nothing-and-atmosphere-with-over-the-garden-wall-creator-pat-mchale/. 

“Education The J. Paul Getty Museum.” Ekphrasis: Persuasive Poetry (Education at the Getty), 2014, https://www.getty.edu/education/teachers/classroom_resources/curricula/poetry_and_art/lesson02.html. 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I’d like to give a special thank you to the faculty advisors for College Park Arts Scholars, Harold Burgess and Heather-Erin Bermenstuhl. Also an extended thanks to those I interviewed, and everyone who payed ArtsFest a visit this year. Thank you so much for making our capstones the successes they were!