Presented annually to a UVM studio art major that excels in printmaking and plans to continue its study and practice. Given through the generosity of Emerita Professor Kathleen Schneider in honor of Bill Davidson, Professor Emeritus.
May 2023
I made this piece in memoriam of 291 Colchester Avenue, and in reference to Barbara Kruger's "Thinking of You. I Mean Me. I Mean You". The phrase "Listening To You...Listening To Me" attempts to implicate the reader as Kruger had, but with a softer tone, of which admiration and discomfort equally comprise. Created out of nostalgia for the present moment, my senior year of college, I wanted to capture one of the first times I had ever lived in an intense proximity to those who saw me at my core -- whether I wanted them to or not. Hearing myself be heard, watching myself be seen; it had the same effect of standing on a small stage in a crowded theater, with a mirror reflecting the light that neutrally absorbs your every move. It revealed painful vulnerabilities, and it also bridged canyons of isolation with community. Being understood is both nerve-racking and nothing short of beautiful.
March 2023
Nothing felt real then. I stood in what felt like the disillusioned carnage of my immaturely-colored childhood/adolescence, and watched my compulsive bids for control spark the gasoline-ridden humanity behind my inability to have and be everything, everywhere, all at once. After months of "crawling through the desert, repenting", nothing I could embody was good enough for me; in forbidding myself from nearly any "guilty" pleasure (sleeping in, sedentary days, nights out, imperfect relationships, unfocused semesters), I was blind to concept love being unconditional, "in spite of" who I was or wasn't. My benchmarks for worthiness kept shifting farther and farther away, along with my concept of reality. The neurotic pride that I clung to would result in self-sabotage, self-isolation, and self-harm in the place of practical self-compassion. I would walk home from classes and see flashes of a figure that looked like mine, only their head had been bashed into the telephone pole I was walking past. Nothing was perfect, ergo nothing felt good. My accounting classes were no exception. The balance sheet felt like a perfect metaphor for the emotions I was experiencing during this time; nothing followed the prior year's lackadaisical attitude, I was in an unprecedented state of over-leveraged stress.
On the asset side of my balance sheet, I have my college apartment beautiful room - complete with posters, a weighted blanket gifted by my ex-boyfriend, and clean, open space. My contra-assets, biblically introduced as flames erupting along the asset borders, were largely made up of my rapidly-declining self esteem. The liabilities side is set in the patient room where I first started seeing a pelvic floor therapist. The room's walls are riddled with to-do lists, and haunted by a shadowy figure of anorexia-induced iron deficiency anemia.
April 2023
The act of wearing weird pants felt so electric when I first moved to Vermont. Prior to UVM, I was completely removed from any sense of personal style; "what are we wearing" was a common question echoed in my old group chats. After all, clothes were clothes, and I was kidding myself if I thought I had any sort of fashion - let alone the beauty or confidence to pull something off. I held this belief unflinchingly until I left the uniformity of private catholic school. Shopping used to feel like a terrifying chore, full of tears and sweat and poorly-lit changing rooms; to say I was surprised myself with the overjoy I felt while thrifting was an understatement. I found the loudest, most obnoxious, attention-grabbing, fit-and-flared jeans; I walked through classrooms in turtlenecks lined with lingerie; I found cute masks with gingham patterns, frogs, and my favorite TV show, "The Midnight Gospel"; I hastily scribbled clunky cat eyeliner, cut micro-curly bangs, and viewed every occasion as baby-tee-crop-top appropriate. For most people on campus, this seemed like an ordinary affair. I tried to pretend I had always seen it this way, too. But inside, I reveled in how what I was doing felt so disgustingly fun. The clothes that would've made me a social outcast in highschool, that would've gotten me called a slut in middle school, that would've made me a problem child - they were now my daily uniform in this weird northern wonderland. The salmon sophomore corduroys I anxiously ordered from Urban Outfitters to my dorm room was the pinnacle of these days. Not only was I unafraid of being different, I actively strived to be the weirdest version of myself possible. Weird pants taught me the power of self-expression in the face of fear, shame, and guilt.
May 2023
I was so stupid! is a phrase I found myself repeating, like an anxious tick, every time I reflected on memories from my first year of college. It wasn't a seamless transition, and I was far perfect. I failed a class, I withdrew from another. I missed a plane flight home that I had sworn I was capable of waking up early enough to catch. I was so excited to study art, but I had no motivation to apply myself in anything other than essay-based assignments. One of my closest friends at the time got sick and couldn't finish her first semester. I would leave lecture halls to cry and worry about how things kept changing. I got into a relationship in what I thought had been a very prudently-paced timeline, until I found myself hearing "I love you" two weeks in (and, after gasping in shock....saying it back). My brain was melting from weed and congealed dining hall eggs. Some days, I felt like I was running a scam and everyone liked me for no reason. Within days, I would suddenly feel like a campus pariah. Every moved at the speed of light, while I could only drag my feet out of bed to eat before class so quickly. If every year was like my freshmen year of college, I don't know if I could defend myself. But the point of freshmen year is that everything has to happen once before you can learn to do it right the next time. I screwed up then so I can never screw up that way again...although I'm confident in my ability to find even cooler ways to screw up now.
April/May 2023
There was an allocated portion of time at my summer camp called "the changeover period". The changeover period occurred after one session of overnight summer camp had ended, and all of the kids from that session had gone home, but the new session of campers had not yet arrived. It usually lasted no longer than 2-3 days, and mostly consisted of maintenance work, counselor parties, and going out for seafood in southern Maryland. As one of the few campers who stayed for 2 or more sessions, this weekend could be simultaneously serene and unmooring. When I was younger, I felt as if the majority of my problems could be solved by having more time and space where I was truly alone - a room that wasn't shared with my sister, a back porch that didn't spill into my neighbors' townhouses, a quiet, open field that wasn't a car ride away. I failed to consider the fact of the matter, which was that I was living in a prison of my own social anxiety. Nevertheless, I had a morose interest in the way this "changeover period" made me feel. Why was I sick to my stomach over the anticipation of something I knew would be so sweet and exciting, and why did staying at the camp after my friends left feel like someone had hollowed out my heart with a carving knife? Between leases uses a townhouse from Washington, D.C. and the 291 Colchester residence to explore the eerie feeling of feeling like you have been left to face the future on your own.
Mays 2024
When I led bike treks through Cape Cod, I found myself solving the weirdest mechanical issues. There was a rainy night in Provincetown where an elderly women approached our group of bike trekkers for help with her bike. Several bungee chords were tangled around the gears of her back wheel, like a mess of eels, and were acting as an unwanted brake. I remember proudly pulling the derailleur backwards, releasing the wheel from the bike frame in a fluid motion, and tracing my fingers through the greasy mess to extract slimey, wrapped cords. The twisted, snapping sensation I felt from these tension-filled bungee cords perfectly emulated the experience of breathing through 8 broken ribs and a collapsed lung in the winter of 2023. This piece, and its long-winded explanation, attempted to shed light on the weird phenomenon of physical regeneration through an abstract analogy.
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