First Annual Writing Program Contest – Winners Announced

The Humanities and Sciences Department of the School of Visual Arts announced the First Annual Writing Program Contest winners yesterday at an awards ceremony hosted by the Visual Arts Library.  Professor and WORDS editor Lou Phillips emceed the event, and the Michael Hashim Trio provided vivid jazz stylings.

Respect and thanks to all students that submitted.

Warm congratulations to the following winners, whose work will be published both here and in WORDS over the coming months:

Poetry
1st Place   Harris Bauer (Visual & Critical Studies)
2nd Place  Monique Pelser (Photography)
3rd Place   Alison Cheevers (Advertising)

Memoir/Personal Essay
1st Place    Michael Loscalzo (Visual & Critical Studies)
2nd Place  Josette Taylor (Graphic Design)
3rd Place   Sophia Zdon (Illustration)

Film Script or Play
1st Place    Tal Lurya (Film and Video)
2nd Place   Ha Lim Kim (Graphic Design)
3rd Place    Max Copolov (Visual & Critical Studies)

Short Story
1st Place    Evan DeCarlo (Film and Video)
2nd Place   Joshua Barclay (Film and Video)
3rd Place    Anne Clinton (Fine Arts)

Critical Essay
1st Place    Colleen Tighe (Illustration)
2nd Place   William Patterson (Visual & Critical Studies)
3rd Place    Seamus Light (Animation)

Grandma’s Couch by Kjersti Faret

I am sitting on Grandma’s couch, fabric so rough it feels like dried hay against my legs. My fingertips are gross and raw and gnarled because I bit and picked them all the way on the ride here.

I sit still and shift my eyes to the left. My loser of an uncle sits there with his lazy arm around Cherry’s neck. Cherry has twisted teeth. Almost like stereotypical British teeth, where they stick out every which way, except she’s Spanish or something and not British. I think Cherry’s name might be Shelley. I forget.

On the floor, my younger fat cousins are sitting and they remind me of three plump pigs in a pen. Their stomachs flood over the sides of their waistbands and threaten to pop the buttons. They’re wearing jeans and I look at myself in a nice stupid pretty dress. Why am I the only one wearing something nice for Christmas Eve?

My other fat cousin, who is older than me by a year and some months, has gotten fatter. She’s wearing jeans too. She just shoved a shrimp in her mouth. I think she ate the shell.

The stale smell of smoke is in the air. I sneak a gaze at my loser uncle again and I think the stench comes from him. Each time he speaks he reveals bits of cracker stuck between his yellow teeth. Acne scars or pockmarks or something have left dents in his cheeks.

Sitting on the tiny bench at the dinner table is my big aunt. She is supposed to have been losing weight but instead has gained. Her body shape reminds me of a basketball, with little nibs or stumps popping out for her arms and legs and neck. Like her daughter she shoves shrimp in her mouth. She keeps consuming without realizing the shell is still on the shrimp. Dipping sauce dribbles down her five chins.

I lock eyes with my mom on the other side of the room for a brief moment. She attempts a smile, to reassure me, but her gaze is distracted and her eyes flitter back to my aunt with the shrimp. My mom is being tormented here. She is imagining that one day I will be as fat as my relatives and it scares her.

There’s a knock on the door and I perk up, like a dog that has been offered a treat. The chipped red door opens and in walks my favorite uncle, aunt, cousins and that skinny boy. They all struggle to squeeze into the dining area, packed with tables and chairs and various bulbous relatives.

My new cousins who have just arrived smile politely and say hi to me and everyone else and join us. The skinny boy, who is not a relative but in fact my cousins’ friend who joins us every year, looks at me and for the first time since I’ve been here I let a smile slip. He’s a string bean with a goofy smile and big nose and he takes a seat next to me on Grandma’s hay couch.

There’s about five of us jammed together on the couch now. Secretly, behind our bodies, string bean holds my hand and my stomach does flips. I try not to stare at him since he’s sitting right next to me, but when I get a peek all I see are the lights of the Wildwood piers at night and the lighthouse cup. Between our hands I feel the grains of sand. There’s the backyard, the smell of smoke and sting of pixie sticks mixed with some sort of alcohol, home-cooked bacon and pancakes, the silhouette of my uncle in the door…. I hear the laugh of us and my cousins and the ocean roaring in the background. A layer of summer mist sits on our skin and my cousin Meg smiles; I remember the four of us walking around the streets of Cape May at night, just the street lamps guiding us to Wawa.

Somehow we all ended up here, months later packed in Grandma’s tiny house. I don’t know what or how my two cousins remember that August vacation, but skinny boy here still holds my hand and for a little while I’m existing in summer again, instead of being trapped in winter on Grandma’s hay couch.

[reprinted from WORDS 75 (SVA literary journal), edited by Professor Louis Phillips]

Untitled by Maya Meissner

Henri Cartier-Bresson 1933
Valencia, Spain 1933

I can so clearly recall the sour but dry and pleasant smell of the fixer that saturated the cool air of that classroom: the last classroom at the end of the hall, on the farthest corner of campus, the end of the fourth corridor (out of a grand total of four). Mondays were always designated as the day to present the “photographers of the week.” It was either the third or fourth week of the year, and I was just starting to wet my toes in the field of photography. I was already in love with the zany genius, Mr. Martz. It was his fascination with all things beautiful (from Ansel Adams to Ren and Stimpy), his ability to sing exactly like John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats, his informed celebration of childishness, his almost obsessive attention to order–but most of all, his passion for the art of photography. Looking back now as I’m almost done completing my BFA in Photography, I can say that without a doubt my high school photography teacher Jeff Martz, more than anyone, has shown me how much a person can love the medium of photography.

It was either the third or fourth week of the year, and our photographer of the week was Henri Cartier-Bresson. As Mr. Martz flipped through his analog slide projections of Bresson’s images, I was shown photographs that made me realize the potential of what a camera was able to capture when put in the right hands. Henri Cartier-Bresson’s images contained a human poetry that I had never seen before. They were a formal organization of forms combined with the preservation of moments of grace and surprise that together transformed the gestures of the everyday into an homage to living. One slide after another I found more and more images that I fell in love with. I often credit Cartier-Bresson as my first, favorite photographer, and it is because his images showed me why I wanted to pursue the art of photography.

There is one image of Cartier-Bresson’s in particular that I hold very close to my heart. I can’t say I have a definitive favorite piece of art, but Cartier-Bresson ‘s work was defining for me, and this particular photograph stands out often in my mind as one of my most beloved pieces of imagery.

In this particular photo taken in Valencia, Spain in 1933, Cartier-Bresson focuses in on a young boy. The boy is small within the frame. As he walks along a large overbearing wall, he has his left arm outstretched to caress its surface. His head is thrown back and his eyes are rolled back in an almost ecstasy. On the surface of the wall is a dark stripe with chipped white paint. But it isn’t just a boy touching a wall. Cartier-Bresson transforms this simple dilapidated wall into a galaxy through which this young boy is drifting and having a private moment of rapture. In the real moment when Cartier-Bresson took this photograph the boy was actually tossing a ball into the air and is waiting for it to fall, but as Cartier-Bresson has cropped out the ball he so brilliantly tells a whole other story of a whole other truth, of a young boy feeling his way through the cosmos.

It is this magic of capturing a unique moment in time and creating a document of the ephemeral that has driven me to make photography my chosen art form. As Bresson said himself of the act of photography, “It is putting one’s head, one’s eye, and one’s heart on the same axis.” Even as technology progresses and art evolves, there will always be a fascination in the exquisiteness of frozen time. Henri Cartier-Bresson was a master at making the intangible tangible, and transforming what would otherwise be a forgotten moment into something bigger than it ever could have been without his gaze, such as the simple act of a young boy tossing a ball into the air.

[Maya Meissner is a Photography major graduating in 2013.  For this Writing About Art assignment, she wrote about a work that had a powerful influence on her own practice.]

On Joni by Alex Tremitiere

Right off the bat, I had difficulty with this question. I found it hard to pinpoint a singular work or body of work in ANY of the artistic realms—I feel as though I have so many that have had an impact on me! But I have whittled it down to what I believe gave me my voice emotionally, artistically, and even physically. Although visual art has provided me with much inspiration, it was music that first brought forth my inner self. It did not take long for me to recognize one artist who has had the biggest effect on me. Her name is Joni Mitchell.

Sitting in my room, I pulled the CD sleeve from my bass case and held it lightly, feeling its frail weight countered by significance. My so-called love interest had slipped it in with my bass when I wasn’t looking. Scribbled with a Sharpie by urgent, pre-pubescent hand, it read Joni Mitchell: Blue. This was a moment one should not forget, a moment of pivotal nature unbeknownst to the player in the game. I popped that baby into the stereo on my wall and pushed play. Surrounding my skull were rhythmic chords twirling, with one note ringing out true underneath it all. And then the voice. The words. She sang and it soared like that of an imperfect angel, much more impactful than any divine being.  I sat back in awe, soaking up every last nuance that dripped out of her mouth. She sang of love, but not in any way I had ever heard before. Every single line hit me hard: I love you when I forget about me/ Do you want to take a chance on maybe finding some sweet romance with me baby/ All I really, really want our love to do, is to bring out the best in me and you. I was beginning to hear so many of my core feelings, feelings that I had no words for, being put into a song written twenty-something years before I was even hinted to exist. Immediately, I was moved.

In some respects, Joni Mitchell’s music had a greater effect on my own music rather than my photography. For many years I had struggled to figure out what my voice was. I would sing and listen to others, and it did not quite make sense. We were so dissimilar. They could roar. I was more inclined to soar, floating to high notes and letting my vibrato ring. I felt alone and out of place, unaware of my place vocally and emotionally. Discovering Joni felt like meeting a long-lost relative for the first time, and finally having answers to those questions you were never able to solve. You see in them what you were trying to find in yourself. Sure, that is a dramatic example, but it hints at how this discovery felt to me. Finally I had found someone I could connect with artistically. The way she leapt from melancholy to joyful to sorrowful, sometimes within the same song, reminded me so much of my own swirling emotional whirlwinds. Sometimes slow and introspective like the looping of a spoon in a water glass, or overwhelming, a mini dust storm that hits you by surprise and lingers only a few moments too long. I began to see how this would show up in my photography as well. I am not quite sure how to explain it, but the quality of my photos have the same quality of the stories I imagine in my mind while I listen to her songs…a watercolor-like, shallow depth of field, beautiful yet dark, tangible yet a little off-image. I also seek to capture my subject in ways that are genuine and subtly introspective. It’s about trying to achieve and portray honesty and emotional nuance.

Joni gave me my first true artistic inspiration, because it was not just about liking an album, it was about connecting with that person’s creations in all aspects. Although I may not even enjoy every single one of her songs, it really does not have anything to do with them anymore. Her music to me is about self-discovery. She helped me put emotions, like the ever-complex love and friendship, into words. Things I felt but could not express. And in turn, this has affected me in all aspects of life! My photography and music are just two facets in which I can see the direct correlation.

 [Alex Tremitiere plans to graduate in 2015 with a Photography BFA. For this Writing About Art assignment, Alex wrote about an artist whose work influenced her own creative practice.]

98000 by Monica Lo

I was a month shy of my nineteenth birthday when I found myself strapped to a seat several thousand feet above ground, listening to Ryan Adams’s “The Shadowlands” on repeat. The airline ticket I held in my hand told me that I was en route to Nice, France, but that wasn’t my true destination. The truth was, I hadn’t the slightest idea where I was going. All I knew was that what I truly wanted was to return to the giant metropolis of New York City as a brand new person. I hoped that the trip would help me to reinvent myself. Frankly, I didn’t have a clue what the concept of “reinventing” oneself even meant.

To backtrack, I was going through a rather rough period. My older friends joked that I was going through a quarter-life-crisis six years too early. In actuality, I was simply being melodramatic over not having been accepted into the school of my choice, The University of Chicago. The thing was, I had my entire life mapped out. I intended to graduate with a B.A. in philosophy, to join the Peace Corps upon graduating, and then finally settle down with a job at EF Tours. Everything seemed to go according to plan until it all fell apart.

In the months following my letter of rejection, I turned down school after school until there was not a single institution left for me to turn down.

Months later, I found myself dragging a hefty grey suitcase out the door.

Upon arriving in Southern France with thoughts of reinvention in mind, I looked forward to spending my days in French monasteries, churches, and on the beach. I was told as a child that nothing in the world heals the soul quicker than sitting by the ocean and watching waves ebb and flow.

That all changed when I had an epiphany four days or so into my trip. I was thousands of miles away from home and all that I knew, unable to speak more than twenty words of French, and I felt no different than before. I needed a change and I needed one quick.

And so, shortly thereafter, I found myself an hour away in Mote Carlo, Monaco. I can’t tell you why I thought that spending time in a casino could help remedy the problems I had at hand. But my life has not been the same since.

Have you ever wondered about those individuals slumped over casino tables at three in the morning? Or those who are pacing back and forth along the expensive casino carpet? Have you ever studied such people’s expressions? I have, and I must say that they are the most intriguing lot—a fountain of untold stories regarding addiction, heartache, defeat, loss, and triumph can be found.

There I was taking every bit of this in and wondering why I had not discovered this before; especially when I, admittedly, spent much of my childhood in the hotel rooms of Atlantic City. And so I sat at a table observing those around me, my eyes hardly ever on the stack of multi-colored chips laid out in front of me. I shamelessly loved every minute, every second, every millisecond of it. I loved the saturated colors—the reds, greens, yellows, and blues—that surrounded me and how it made me feel out of my element. It was as if I had been cast in some movie and I was simply playing a part. I loved the piercing, indecipherable sounds that filled the air, and my ears that helped to shut out my thoughts. I even loved the smoke lingering in the air that filled my lungs.

Overwhelmed by it all, I found myself standing out front on the steps facing the Hotel De Paris moments later. A stranger and I struck up a conversation that ended with him telling me that he no longer feared hitting rock bottom, but rather, his fear lay in how many more times he has to hit it.

As I stood there alone, I couldn’t help but think of everyone else who had been at the green felt table with me. How many times did the man with bloodshot eyes who sat next to me hit rock bottom? How many times did the other native New Yorker hit it? How many times did the woman who willingly imbibed one too many elixirs hit it?  And how did they hit it? Why? When?

I knew then and there that these questions had to be answered. That every part of my being ached for their stories and the stories of every other living soul. And it was only in that moment that my trip had truly begun.

Weeks later, when I opened Final Draft for the very first time, I found that I already had words in mind.

INT. CASINO – DAWN

DAVID paces along the expensive casino carpet, a glass of Macallan in hand.

[Monica Lo is a Visual and Critical Studies major, class of 2015.]

On Solitude by Berny Tan

One.

I have recently made the observation that I am increasingly uncomfortable being in groups. One other person – fine. But in groups of three or more, it leads to more opportunities for realising how apart I really am, how much everyone else is close to everyone else, how much they are okay with being away from me… I don’t know. It’s as if the part of that person that is real to me is the one I encounter in the intimacy of our respective duos, and I can’t seem to deal with how much they change when they are around other people, other situations. And that’s when I start to judge them, and myself, start to compartmentalise irrationally. Me, a control freak, you, in your little box, determined by the experiences we’ve had with each other and nothing else. It’s scary how selfish I am.

Maybe this was something that had been disturbing me since I was a child – it seems to be a familiar, albeit more intense sensation. But it was also something that I repressed for some reason; perhaps I felt it to be “not right”, or I was trying to assure myself that I wasn’t all that different from everyone else, even though all I had to do was look in a mirror to see that was a lie. As I grew older, it seemed to me that everyone else found someone or some group that they connected with in a manner that sadly eluded me. Even now, I think back on the people that I have felt closest to in my life and all I can see are the differences and distances. The people that, at some point or other, I honestly felt were everything I could ask for in a friend, have drifted so far away. I remember I once called this… the un-equivalence of need. Or something along those lines.

It’s sad when you fear loneliness so much that it paralyses you, you, alone, in your own body, your own empty shell filled only with the memories of what once was, memories that define each person’s existence. People change, they snatch out a memory from under their own little memory pile, and suddenly everything comes tumbling down…

And that is why I need to be alone. I don’t want it to be this way. But I need loneliness to protect myself from being lonely.

One and One.

I was on the flight back to New York when I realised something. I sat back in the chair and thought: “It’s so fucking loud in here. I can’t even hear myself think.” It was strange; I felt like I had noticed it before but I just never cared. It just really got to me this time, how loud it really was in there, and how everyone didn’t seem to notice that continuous bass note of static coming from the engines mouths saying, “I just wish this flight was over so I can stop being so loud and hear myself think.” That sort of extended muffled roar that no one could care to listen to, but once your brain realised what your ears were hearing you just couldn’t shake it.

In fact, it was so loud that you could be in the restroom – those “lavatories” – and say anything you wanted at the top of your voice and no one would even hear you. The noise would suffocate you before you could even get around to screaming. I could have said anything I wanted in there. I stepped out of myself and thought, this is intensely solitary. Here I am in this space, steps away from the next person on this plane, and yet they wouldn’t be able to hear me shout. Here I am spending the entire flight sitting, sleeping, and eating next to a complete stranger, thousands of feet above the sea with the engines blaring in my ears…

People really are oblivious to how alone they are. Maybe the big secret is… we pretend that we are not lonely because it is the most unbearable thought in the world.

Long Island Railroad by Vincent D’Oria

Penn Station is crowded at 5 PM. Businessmen and businesswomen await their trains back home from a day full of work. Tourists stand with their shopping bags filled with souvenirs from a fun day at Time Square. Lines form behind the ticket machines. People stare at the electronic board above, anxiously waiting to see what track their ride home arrives on. Everyone is tired and ready to be in the comfort of their homes, free of the crowds that populate the city. The train to Port Washington arrives at 5:09. Passengers rush towards the platform, hoping to get a seat on the train. Those who aren’t quick enough will have to stand.

The seats are much more comfortable than the ones on the subway. The Long Island Railroad seats have cushions. They are wider, and in rows. Everyone has more privacy. In the middle of each car are two rows of seats facing each other. This makes an awkward situation for passengers who don’t know each other. Knees pushed against those of a stranger. Some passengers will stand instead, but some are too tired, and would rather face this irritation.

As soon as everyone gets on the train, heads start to lower and eyes start to close. It is quiet. The train departs Penn Station at 5:19. Soon, the train rises above the ground to the sun slowly setting behind a stunning view of the Manhattan skyline from Queens. A phone rings, and its owner answers it in a seemingly loud voice. His conversation is interrupted by an annoyed passenger who is far too tired from work to listen any longer.

The train arrives at Woodside. A handful of passengers step out. They are the lucky ones, the first to get home. Woodside is larger than the upcoming stations. Some of these passengers will be making transfers at this stop. Soon afterwards, the train arrives at Flushing Main Street. Outside the train window one can see signs and lights similar to those of Times Square, only these are mostly in Asian characters. It is the perfect example of how diverse this city is. Flushing is a great place to shop, but also the best place in the city to get Chinese, Japanese, and other types of Asian cuisine on a night out.

Moments later, the train stops at Murray Hill. This station is not as long as the rest, so only the rear four cars will open at this stop. Passengers rush to the back of the train, just realizing they cannot get off in the front cars. If they don’t make it in time, they will have to wait to get off at the next stop and go back. The next stop is Broadway. The streets start to look more suburban at each stop. The houses being past on Broadway are all of the same architectural design, but they are all painted different colors. Their owners decorate their yards with different ornaments and flags, saying a little about each family that lives there.

After Broadway is Auburndale. Passengers see mostly apartment buildings. They all look the same. Red bricks and dirty lawns in front that haven’t been mowed in a while. It is much cheaper to live in Auburndale than it is to live in the city, if you are willing to sacrifice twenty-five minutes to get there. Bayside is the next station. The train glides over the traffic on the Clearview Expressway, there is bumper-to-bumper traffic below. The large apartment buildings that occupy Auburndale now turn to two family homes in Bayside. You can see Bell Boulevard, a long street with many great dining options of all types. People are enjoying happy hour at the bars after their work shifts end. It is getting dark, the night is just beginning. This is my stop.

[from the Writing New York Spring 2012 class with Professor. Yongsoo Park, reprinted from the class blog]