Letter to a Man I Do Not Know

Dear Sir,

I think of you every single day, and I often wonder whether you think of me. About a week after we met, I was in my living room with one of my best friends, listening to music. Drinking tea. Michael Jackson came on. (cue https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBrWNbjw3RA; play from 0:13-1:03).

And I really tried to play it cool. But that’s one of my favorite songs. Shaun looked at me: Did I want him to change it? And I wept. In that moment, I was angrier with you than I was before or have been since. You fucked up the song, man!

There were still newspapers taped over the dining room windows — triple-layered, so that even at night my silhouette couldn’t be seen from outside. I told Shaun not to change the song, and laughed … and wept … and made him feel really uncomfortable. I felt crazy, and I was acting crazy, and I knew it, and I couldn’t help it.

But at least I had people with me. The neighbors who ran from their homes when they heard me screaming. Especially Sam, who came out in her bathrobe to make sure it wasn’t only men who came to help. My partner, who sprinted the two blocks from our house. Hanover Police. Lebanon Police. A full set of EMTs. All within minutes. And you were … alone, in your car, somewhere. How did it feel?

In the weeks after, I obsessively locked the doors. I couldn’t sleep with the (second story) window open, no matter how hot and stuffy my room was. I couldn’t even piss alone. Every moment, everywhere, I feared that you would Come Back. That you would Try Again. Every man who looked remotely like you sent me into a panic.

But at least I had people I could talk to. The ER nurses, who laughed awkwardly at my fucked-up jokes. Detective Norris, who filmed an on-scene reenactment the very next day. Deans, shrinks, cops, and cops, and cops, and a slew of Facebook friends. My partner, who never tried to get me to stop crying and who put his fingers in his ears when he accompanied me to the bathroom so that I could piss with some shred of dignity intact.

What about you? Did you have anyone you could confide in? I imagine you felt similar fears, for a while. Would someone recognize you from the police sketch? Would the next knock on your door be law enforcement? Were you crazy?

I have so many questions. Like … did you know me? Or was it totally random? How long had you been planning it? Had you done anything like that before? Was it what you expected? What did you expect? What did you want to do to me? Were you nervous, or scared, or excited? Were you looking forward to it? Did you go to work that day, or visit your mom, or anything? What about the day after? How often do you think about it? How did you feel when you saw the news report? Do you regret it? Do you make jokes about it? (‘Cause, like, I do.) Where did you get the stun gun? I’ve imagined you shopping around online, optimizing for price and performance value. Do you still have it? Do you still have the clothes that you were wearing? Mine are in an evidence bag somewhere, probably forever … and those were my favorite jeans. My mom replaced them, though. Exact same kind. So it's cool.

I’m comfortable being home alone again, and pissing has long since ceased to be a social activity. I can even walk through an unfamiliar neighborhood after dark. And “Smooth Criminal” is still one of my favorite songs.

What I’m trying to tell you is: I’m okay. Are you?

Sincerely,
Callista Womick

The Dartmouth: Hop Garage exhibit will showcase artwork inspired by bodies

Shared from The Dartmouth:

Tomorrow evening, BARE, “an open gallery art show with nothing to hide,” will open, featuring sculptures, videos and works of other artistic media that explore different aspects of the human body.

A major in studio art, organizer Callista Womick ’13 said her inspiration for the exhibit came from a project that she had worked on as a senior in a sculpture class.

“I made an iron cast of my own vagina, and it was a really affirming experience,” she said. “After that, I reached out to a number of different groups on campus about how maybe I could create an opportunity for other people to explore their own bodies in their own or similar ways.”

Womick had previously worked with the Center for Gender and Student Engagement, which is sponsoring the exhibit, to develop a pregnancy support program for undergraduate students. In addition to offering her advice and administrative assistance for the BARE project, the center hosted a series of “making sessions” at its Choate Road offices last week, giving visitors the space, time and materials, including plaster for body casts, necessary to create work for the exhibit.

Between the sessions and Womick’s calls for art over Facebook and over email, she said she has received “a couple dozen” submissions, spanning different media.

“We have a sound piece, a video of a performance, photo, painting, sculpture,” she said. “It’s a really eclectic show.”

Although making work for the exhibit required no prior artistic experience, many who have contributed identify as artists. Samantha Freese, a private school teacher from Canaan who plans to become a full-time artist, said she will display a work called “Dressed to Form,” a portrait of a woman measuring her waist in a mirror, her body “obstructed from the viewer by a dress form.”

Often turning to the human form to explore either issues she struggles with or those faced by the world at large, Freese said that this piece “shows the struggle that nearly every woman faces to fit into what society has deemed the perfect body.”

“When I created this piece, I was feeling a little insecure — earlier in the day I was getting dressed, and none of my clothes fit me the way I wanted them to,” she said.

That day, Freese decided to face her insecurities by eschewing clothing altogether. She said she realized that her inhibitions would likely strike a chord with many women.

Ruth Cserr ’88, a landscape artist, also drew on themes relating to the female body. Taking four separate studies of a single photograph and mounting them on handmade paper, she created “Bare Knuckle Studies May 2014,” a piece that she said considers the parts of a woman’s flesh that are conventionally forbidden from public view.

“I was thinking about things like how nipples are always X-rated on women, and yet they can go out in public on men, and I was also thinking very much about how women’s bodies are so completely objectified — often, not always — but then they are policed,” she said. “So we say, ‘Oh, this nude body is so sexy and sensual, but you can’t show it.’”

What Cserr did, then, was take multiple images of the same female torso and combine them to create a pattern. The result, she said, took on a decorative quality, reminding her of a William Morris print.

“I was interested in the body as an ornament, and just playing with it and putting something out there that you weren’t supposed to put out there,” Cserr said. “This pattern of body bits becomes itself a different kind of ornament.”

Ezra Teboul, a student in Dartmouth’s digital musics program, created a piece from the noise that Pop Rocks make in people’s mouths.

In his art, he said, he works off of common concepts and methods.

“Starting with a term as ubiquitous as ‘pop rock,’ I immediately thought it would be interesting and fun to get a few people to use the candy as an instrument,” he said.

Ultimately, Womick said she hopes the exhibit fosters compelling conversation.

“I think we have a diversity of work, and some are quite provocative, so I hope that people who visit the show will come away asking questions of themselves and of one another,” Womick said. “It wouldn’t be a good show if that didn’t happen.”

Submissions will be accepted until the Hop Garage runs out of room, Womick said. The show will be on display until June 9.

Interview with Georgi Klissurski '14

*** Edit: Content removed at the request of the narrator.

Edible Book Festival: Booklava

Shared from Dartmouth Spoon:

Berry Main Street was filled with delicious (and some questionable) treats Monday evening as the Dartmouth College Library participated in the International Edible Book Festival for the first time in Dartmouth’s history. Also known as Edible Book Day, the festival has been celebrated since 2000 all over the world. Despite being first-timers, Dartmouth’s participants rose to the challenge, turning out a large variety of punny, mouthwatering culinary artwork based on famous novels.

Walking down a set-up of fold-out tables, students and faculty alike ooh-ed, ahh-ed and lol-ed at Robert Frosting’s “The Rocky Road Not Taken” (accompanied by an equally creative poem); a terrifying, bloody “Killer Angel Food Cake” based on Michael Shaara’s historical novel Killer Angels, which depicted a marzipan hand and knife projecting out of the center of a scrumptious-looking angel food cake; and, finally, “Booklava,” a chocolate-bound baklava, which won the title of Most Creative for paying homage to the festival’s inspiration: the book.

Photo by Katelyn Jones; Booklava by Callista Womick

"spring"

It snowed today. It actually snowed today.

© Callista Womick 2014

Modeling for Juliette Belmonte

I spent several weeks this spring modeling for a small group of local artists at the studio of painter Juliette Belmonte. Here's Juliette's piece:

I connected with Juliette through the Upper Valley listeserv, which is terrific for connecting with all kinds of local people about all kinds of things. 

Dartmouth Wants to Make It Clear They're Taking Sexual Assault Seriously

In a recent press release sent to Jezebel, Dartmouth characterizes sexual assault as "high-risk behavior" alongside drinking and hazing. Alright then.

On b@b, again

“Post #3820980: B@B has been used as a primary means by people to harass, threaten, mock, and demean students and organizations at this school anonymously. I seriously want the fans of this site to defend b@b in light of all the shit this site has caused for the school. Feb 8, 2014 @ 6:22pm”

Okay.

I began using BoredatBaker at 11:46am on September 23, 2010. That’s the timestamp of my first post, anyway. Two years later, my senior seminar work was digital performance art on B@B. The next year, as a Dean’s Office Student Consultant, I used the site to advise students and refer them to campus resources. Throughout, B@B has allowed me to express myself anonymously.

The site itself is a free service provided for anyone with an @Dartmouth.edu address, funded out-of-pocket by its owner and administrator “Jae Daemon.” In a recent message to the community, Jae wrote, “I am providing this place for you as a safe haven where you can talk about anything and everything, honestly, without fear of judgment.”

Bored@Baker provides a valuable service to our community by allowing people across all social groups and backgrounds to come together on relatively equal footing. With anonymity, age, sex, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, nationality, socioeconomic status, and the myriad other visual cues we use on a daily basis to categorize people and decide how much to respect them are stripped away.  We are able to experience thoughts and opinions perhaps unrepresented within our own friend groups shared by people we otherwise may have never met.

Anonymity also allows us the freedom to experiment with aspects of our identities. It allows us to seek advice about tough issues we may not want to discuss in person—sexual violence, mental health, eating disorders, drug addiction, academic trouble, parental conflicts, and money problems. I’ve seen all these and many more in my time on the site, and the community has consistently proven itself a tremendous source of support.

That said, there are those who abuse the service. People can be...horrible. I don't have to enumerate those things. We all know. Probably a good many of us have been targets, too.

For those reasons, there are those who have called upon the College to take action against the site. I, too, am sometimes overwhelmingly disgusted with the depths of human depravity that B@B shows us in our peers, but it is important to remember that the abuses of a minority do not represent the standards of the B@B community and are in direct opposition to the goals of the site. 

It is also worth noting that on the Global Board—a B@ page accessible to anyone with a .edu e-mail address—users from schools with their own B@ pages frequently comment on the uniquely abusive nature of Bored@Baker. Regarding the recent post targeting a first year student, a user from Carleton remarked, “I can't imagine something like that happening on our board.” The absence of the problems for which our board often finds itself in the spotlight from other schools’ boards suggests that B@B is showing us something particular to our community.

There is currently a team of 12 student moderators who work tirelessly to remove posts that violate the Terms of Service. Neither Bored@Baker nor the vast majority of its users want to be associated with the kind of abuse that bigots and bullies sometimes post. That's just not what Bored@Baker is about.

Unfortunately, there will probably always be people who will violate the standards set forth by the site and the community at large, but denouncing Bored@Baker for the actions of those individuals disregards the tremendous amount of thought, time, and effort that has gone into building and continually improving the site and threatens to take away from the majority something that is a source of support, enjoyment, and community, simply because a few people will abuse the system.

For the site's part, there needs to be a faster and more forceful way to address some of the problems that arise. We are well aware of this and continually discussing our options. Not too long ago, the threshold for removing posts was lowered so that moderators can remove posts more quickly. It's an improvement, and not the last that we hope to see in the moderation system.

For the parts of students, staff, and faculty who may be concerned about the Bored@Baker atmosphere, I would encourage you to look at it for yourselves. Take a look at the Zeitgeist. Read the top posts from today, this week, all time. Look at how the Bored@Baker community—our community—responds to abuse. Perhaps consider making a few posts yourself to add to the positive and supportive atmosphere that the majority of us try to foster. The more voices like that, the more irrelevant those that espouse hatred and violence. The abuse that happens shows us that there are individuals among us all too willing to hurt others; far more important is how we as a community respond.

The Dartmouth: Students back tougher policy

Shared from The Dartmouth:

Replacing Dartmouth’s current sexual misconduct policy with a zero-tolerance policy for students found responsible for sexual assault has recently gathered momentum on the Improve Dartmouth online forum. Since a Feb. 10 gathering on the Green, when students met in support after a male student threatened a female member of the Class of 2017 on Bored at Baker, discussion surrounding the policy has grown.

Under the zero-tolerance policy students found guilty of rape would be separated from the College. The suggestion, proposed on Jan. 23 by Cally Womick ’13, is Improve Dartmouth’s highest voted submission.

Dartmouth’s current policy states that students are prohibited from engaging in any kind of sexual misconduct, which refers to any form of sex-based discrimination, harassment or nonconsensual sexual contact. Sanctions can be as severe as permanent separation from the College, though Dartmouth is not currently required to separate students who are found responsible for rape, according to the student handbook.

Expelling offenders will decrease the cases of sexual assault and increase community safety, Student Assembly president Adrian Ferrari ’14 said.

Chair of the Student Presidential Committee on Sexual Assault Will Scheiman ’14 clarified that any zero-tolerance policy would apply only to cases of rape and not for other cases of sexual misconduct.

“Once an outcome is decided and the [Committee on Standards] process finds someone responsible of rape, that person no longer has a place in the Dartmouth community, now or ever,” Scheiman said in an email.

As of Sunday night, the post had received 1,401 unique page views on Improve Dartmouth, said Alison Polton-Simon ’14, who analyzes the website’s traffic. The majority of activity related to the post occurred on Feb. 11 and Feb. 12, the days immediately following the student gathering.

As of press time, the post had 921 up-votes and 24 down-votes, for an overall feedback score of 897 on Improve Dartmouth, which is a crowd-sourcing website for ideas launched by student group Dartmouth Roots last month.

The website team provides biweekly reports to College President Phil Hanlon on site activity, including visitor demographics, popular ideas and actions resulting from the ideas, co-moderator Esteban Castano ’14 said. The group submitted its most recent biweekly report, which included the zero-tolerance policy proposal, to Hanlon last Tuesday, said co-moderator Gillian O’Connell ’15.

In July 2013, SPCSA recommended specifying in the student handbook that students found responsible for non-consensual sexual penetration be expelled.

The current COS policy states that students found responsible for engaging in actual or attempted penetration without consent or for repeated sexual misconduct could face permanent separation. Not all students found guilty of rape, however, are expelled, Scheiman said in an email.

The proposed policy would mandate expulsion in cases of rape.

The current policy’s breadth makes it unlikely that Dartmouth would feel confident enough in its legal standing to expel a student who violated the policy in any way, former head of the Center for Gender and Student Engagement professor Giavanna Munafo said.

“When somebody’s found responsible for being a predatory rapist, I think that’s the kind of incident that the person wouldn’t be allowed to return to campus,” she added.

Munafo said discussion of a zero-tolerance policy has become more prominent due to the Title IX investigation and alumni activism.

Discussion on Improve Dartmouth included a suggestion for a negotiable expulsion policy that would protect a survivor from unwanted legal proceedings that could arise if expelled students decided to pursue defamation charges.

Matthew McFarland ’16 noted that implementing a zero-tolerance policy requires there to be no doubt that the individual committed the offense.

This addresses Dartmouth’s use of a “preponderance of the evidence” standard, which states that a person is responsible for an offense if the Committee on Standards finds that it is more likely for the violation to have occurred than not.

Concerns regarding the preponderance of the evidence are important, Munafo said. Alternative decision-making standards and motivations of the current policy should be discussed, she said.

One problem with a zero-tolerance policy is the lack of control it grants the survivor, Scheiman said in an email, adding that he believes all survivors should have control with regard to reporting and the COS process. Yet because some survivors choose not to go through the COS process out of fear that their perpetrator will not be removed from campus, the policy may have a positive impact, he said.

Students have raised similar questions at peer institutions.

Over the past decade, Yale University has faced several investigations into its handling of sexual assault cases. In the first half of 2013, six Yale students were found guilty of non-consensual sex. None were expelled and just one was suspended, sparking national outrage.

Harvard University’s policy has also been strongly criticized, The Huffington Post and The Crimson reported in partnership. At Harvard, penalties for sexual harassment depend on the nature of the offense and range from reprimand to dismissal.

Unlike many American universities, including Dartmouth, Harvard does not have an affirmative consent policy. Affirmative consent defines sexual assault as occurring in the absence of enthusiastic verbal or physical consent. It must not be given as a result of physical coercion or threat of bodily harm.

Dartmouth’s sexual misconduct policy, in contrast, states that “one should presume that there is no consent in the absence of a clear positive indication of consent. Likewise, non-consent or lack of consent may also be communicated in a variety of ways both verbal and nonverbal.”

Harvard and Princeton are currently the only Ivy League schools without the preponderance standard.

In April, students at Swarthmore College filed a Clery Act complaint against their school, alleging that administrators did not support those who reported sexual harassment.

Swarthmore is reviewing its sexual misconduct policy and currently has an interim sexual assault and harassment policy, which places all responsibility for investigating and taking appropriate action on Swarthmore, not the complainant.

The Dartmouth: Bored at Baker users report positive culture

Shared from The Dartmouth:

When the Jan. 10 post targeting a female member of the Class of 2017 was published on Bored at Baker, site moderator Blaine Ponto ’14 said it was removed so quickly after being reported by other users that she herself never saw it, despite being a frequent user of the site. If it had stayed up, however, the number of users who clicked “disagree” and “newsworthy” would have made it clear that the Bored at Baker community disapproved.

Since the post became public after its target wrote about it on the Class of 2017 Facebook page, Bored at Baker has been thrust into the spotlight, with many students decrying the sexist, racist, homophobic and overall offensive nature of some of its content. Last spring, students who protested the Dimensions show for accepted students were targeted by anonymous rape and death threats posted on Bored at Baker.

Users of the site, however, argue that Bored at Baker only receives public scrutiny following posts that violate the site’s terms of service, posts that they say are promptly removed.

The site’s content is overseen by moderators, a group of dedicated users that can remove posts that students say violate the site’s terms of service. There are currently 12 moderators, three of whom must agree to remove a post. The current moderator feature was introduced to the site in May 2013.

Aaron Pellowski ’15, who began using the site the summer before he matriculated, said that in the week following the Jan. 10 threat, the site’s most popular posts either denounced its author or expressed sympathy for the target.

“Everyone on Bored at Baker hates the people who post those things because they’re unrepresentative of the people who use the site,” Pellowski said. “Then everyone who doesn’t use the site jumps to the unintelligent conclusion that that’s what the site is, when really that’s the opposite.”

Pellowski said that the Feb. 10 gathering on the Green in response to the post allowed the Dartmouth community to come together, but it only allowed two student leaders to speak. In contrast, he said, a substantial and broader discussion took place on Bored at Baker.

Other students argued that the problem is not the site itself but the way that Dartmouth students choose to use it.

“The board without the students using it is a blank slate — it doesn’t invite any particular type of content,” said Callista Womick ’13, who has had an account since 2011 and continues to use the site as an alumna. “It’s really just a mirror of our own culture.”

Frequent users contend that the majority of users are sincere and intelligent.

Womick said she first made an account her sophomore year after hearing that the site was “a haven for the worst people on campus,” a claim that piqued her curiosity.

“In addition to the horrible things posted, there’s a really strong community who may not know each other in person, but they know each other online and share jokes and support each other,” she said. “There were upperclassmen users who I liked what they had to say, as well as lot of really funny people, and it allowed me to explore a lot of my thoughts and values and honed the way I communicate.”

Derek VanBriesen ’17, who created an account last summer, said he values the site because anonymity allows students to share their real opinions.

Bored at Baker also serves as a news source, VanBriesen said. Last fall, he first learned of Theta Delta Chi fraternity’s suspension from the site.

Pellowski said that Bored at Baker is the only place on campus where he has found authentic discourse about important issues, because in-person conversations must remain polite.

“There’s a huge amount of alternative experiences that would be completely invisible to me if I never used Bored at Baker, like how people view their fraternities, financial aid, classes and personal lives, and a lot of that stuff gets shared on the site,” he said.

He also said he was initially concerned before matriculating that Dartmouth students would be incapable of intelligent discourse, but that he was relieved when he found Bored at Baker and was able to converse with users who think critically about the College.

“It turns out that 95 percent of the people here are really pretty stupid and shallow and basic and vapid,” he said, calling Bored at Baker an “IV drip of realness” that keeps him sane.

Other students have used the site to work through personal issues. A male Ph.D. candidate at the College, who operates an account named “Pinkie Pie,” said that Bored at Baker has helped him battle his depression and feel connected to other people. He first joined the site in early 2011 and created the Pinkie Pie account during the interim between fall 2012 and winter 2013.

Users are able to create personalities on the site, giving them names and pictures. The Ph.D. candidate, who declined to reveal his identity because he wanted to preserve his anonymity on the website, said that Pinkie Pie has become her own entity, separate from himself, whom he refers to as the writer. Bored at Baker, he said, is a place for Pinkie Pie to express herself.

“There’s really no other kind of site where I’d feel comfortable with this kind of ... experiment,” the Ph.D. candidate said in an online message. “I’m ‘hacking’ my own brain, toward trying to stabilize myself. If the end result is something superficially like dissociative identity disorder or schizophrenia, I’m not sure I really care. I’d rather operate well with something like that than be depressed as much as I have been in the past.”

Reaching out for help on Bored at Baker is not uncommon, and many users use the site to ask for advice or seek companionship, said Pinkie Pie, the Ph.D. candidate’s online personality. She said that while it is easy to abuse anonymity, people will more readily reach out for help than they will in the real world.

A male member of the Class of 2014, who wished to remain anonymous because he did not want to be associated with the website, said that when he used the website he would often send personal messages to users who appeared to be going through tough times and offer to talk through their problems with them.

During the week, around 700 to 800 unique users log in per day, Pellowski said.

Ponto said she would estimate that slightly more males use the site than females, an inference based on interactions with users and observation of their content. She added that a majority of users seem to be sophomores, juniors and seniors, as freshmen are likely less aware of the site.

She said she believed that most content is generated by a relatively small percentage of users, while the larger community provides feedback by agreeing or disagreeing with posts.

The Ph.D. candidate, writing as Pinkie Pie, said that the site’s users represent a wide variety of students.

“[Bored at Baker] gets the shy, awkward, depressed, lonely, the angry people who need to vent, the frustrated social justice warriors, the desperately horny and the staunchly upbeat,” she said.

The original Columbia University version of the site, Bored at Butler, was created by a 2006 Columbia graduate named Jonathan Pappas, who goes by the name Jae Daemon online. There are now “Bored at” sites at Dartmouth, Harvard University, Princeton University, Carleton College, New York University and other colleges, as well as a “global board” connecting the sites.

Dartmouth users have been able to infiltrate other schools’ sites through various means, including via friends’ email accounts or asking for access on the global board. Ponto said the Columbia site is “tamer” than Dartmouth’s, while Pellowski noted that it is not used as much or by as many people and the posts are less interesting.

Users could not pinpoint exactly what about Dartmouth is different that makes the site more prone to offensive posts.

Ponto said that during a conversation with another longtime user, the other person said that Bored at Baker acts as an “equalizer” because anonymity grants all users an equal voice.

“We are so stratified at Dartmouth,” Ponto said. “All of these people can come together on Bored at Baker, and the anonymity erases all of these things.”

Womick said that posts targeting students on Bored at Baker reverberate around campus when students who do not use the site are informed if they or a group they belong to is being discussed.

“I don’t know how many students I’ve seen targeted in very hateful and extreme ways,” she said. “I don’t know how one can walk around campus and not know who was saying those things, or if you knew them, or if they would be physically safe.”

While offensive posts do appear on the site, the tone has changed, users said. With the introduction of moderators in 2012, reported posts are removed much more quickly than they had been in the past, Ponto said. She added that there are continuing conversations about potential changes to the website, including creating a permanent user ban or modifying what types of posts should be removed.

Students currently logging onto the site are confronted with a message from Jae Daemon, which responds to the recent controversy by stating that “great anonymity comes with great responsibility,” and should not be abused. He said he will continue to post similar reminders on a monthly basis.

The Dartmouth: Workshop hides resources in plain sight

Shared from The Dartmouth:

A secret hides in Baker Library’s basement, and you have probably never noticed it.

No, it is not a three-headed dog you will need to lull to sleep or a madwoman locked away, but Dartmouth’s full-service Book Arts Workshop, which allows students and community members to handcraft invitations, birthday and holiday cards, flyers and even entire books. The workshop offerings include printing presses dating from the 19th century to the mid-20th century, a letterpress and bookbinding studio.

English professor Alexandra Halasz called the studio a “fabulous, little-known” resource — one of Dartmouth’s most under-appreciated spaces.

“For those who are artists, the book workshop offers an array of three-dimensional and sequential forms that take printmaking and other practices in new directions,” she said. “I think what students value is the disciplined creative practice, the hands-on experience and the wonderful variety of books they see each other making.”

Students can take workshop courses and use the facilities during open studio hours without previous experience, instructor Sarah Smith said. The workshop staff, which includes professional designers, printers, binders and artists, answers questions and assists with equipment.

Studio art professor Louise Hamlin noted the significant connection between the workshop and the library itself.

“It is a fabulous thing to be able to print books in the building that preserves them,” Hamlin said.

In order for students to begin using the letterpress, they must first attend an orientation session. Letterpress involves covering a raised surface, such as an engraving of metal or wood type, with ink and imprinting the image onto paper with a printing press, letterpress instructor Robert Metzler said.

Letterpress was the primary printing method for 500 years, until the 1950s, Metzler said. Recently, it has witnessed a revival in popularity.

“Letterpress has the unique quality of creating a distinct solid color image impressed onto paper that no other process possesses,” Metzler said.

Smith said the sensory experience of engaging with letterpress products distinguishes them from other printed materials.

“[It] has the smell of the ink and the feel of the slight impression of the type pressed into the paper,” she said.

The workshop also offers short classes on bookbinding structures and printing techniques, as well as field trips to visit local printers, binders and artists, Smith said.

Bookbinding instruction at the workshop varies from making traditional sewn and glued books to less traditional origami-based folded books, Metzler said. Halasz is currently teaching a course about the history of the book that includes a typesetting exercise and allows students to create a book in place of a final essay.

Many students use the workshop and printing presses to make projects that are both aesthetic and functional, Metzler said. Students typically print and design invitations, cards, posters, poems and artist books.

Halasz said she has even seen students make knit books and books in the shape of a double helix or an altarpiece.

Julie Skinner, a graduate student who frequents the workshop, said she uses the presses to design her own unique sets of stationery. Callista Womick ’13, who took Halasz’s class last year, said she is currently working on a book with metal covers and locks along the fore edge.

While the workshop specializes in traditional methods of letterpress and bookbinding, the studio space has been expanded to include some digital capabilities. Smith said that many students have begun experimenting with relief plates from computer-generated images and type, using tools like Adobe InDesign, Photoshop, photocopy transfer and laser cutting.

“This creates a nice physical link across the centuries that complements the typical printmaking process,” Hamlin said.

TBT: Photo by Dan Routh

In honor of my coming graduation from Dartmouth, a photo from my senior year of high school, shared from Dan Routh Photography:

© Dan Routh 2009 | Callista Womick

Oral History Interview

At long last, the exclusive Oral History interview with Callista Womick! Wow! Rare!!! (Enjoy.)

Sculpture 2

Update from fall term:

Welding | © Callista Womick 2014

Bloomberg: Dartmouth Leader Tied to Animal House Vows Tolerance Amid Outcry

 Shared from Bloomberg:

When Hanlon arrived on campus as a student in 1973, Dartmouth was divided over a decision the year before to let women enroll in what was for more than two centuries an all-male bastion. The most virulent opponents were the fraternities, said Nicholas Syrett, who wrote “The Company He Keeps: A History of White College Fraternities.”

Subtle echoes of that opposition remain, said Callista Womick, a senior studying art who said she was sexually assaulted by an upperclassman in her freshman year. Students stamp their feet when singing the words “lest the old traditions fail” from the Dartmouth alma mater song. Some students refuse to stamp because they say it began as a protest against admitting women.

“Most students don’t even know why they’re doing it,” Womick said.

More through the link. 

yarnbomb totoros!

There's a construction fence outside of the Fayerweathers...I improved it.

Yarnbomb Totoros | © Callista Womick 2013

Yarnbomb Totoro | © Callista Womick 2013

Yarnbomb Totoros | © Callista Womick 2013

Yarnbomb Totoros | © Callista Womick 2013

Yarnbomb Totoros | © Callista Womick 2013

Yarnbomb Totoros | © Callista Womick 2013

campus yarnbombing

The Dartmouth College Library Facebook page is featuring one of my recent yarnbombs!

yarnbomb | © Callista Womick 2013

The Dartmouth: Public art brings the museum to campus, enlivens outdoors

Shared from The Dartmouth:

Enriching where we work, study and play, outdoor art exposes community members to a range of artists and styles as they walk across campus. From colorful graffiti-inspired yarn bombing to a melancholy stainless steel spider, public art has piqued interest in the arts in an accessible and affordable way.

With more than 14 works scattered across campus, students are bound to come across a piece on their daily walking routes, even if they do not pass through the Hood Museum's doors.

Perhaps the best known work of public art on campus is one of the newest, "Crouching Spider," located in Maffei Arts Plaza outside the Black Family Visual Arts Center. Created by Louise Bourgeois in 2003, this piece is an ode to her mother, who died when Bourgeois was just beginning her career as an artist. The piece is made of bronze, stainless steel, silver nitrate and polished patina and is on loan from the Bourgeois family estate for one year.

Studio art major Gabriel Barrios '15 said he appreciates how "the gestures and the angles all work together to present something deeper than what's visibly present." His Drawing 1 professor took the class to see the spider and explained the symbolism behind the piece and the connection to the artist's remembrance for her mother.

"It also represents the strength and power of a woman, rather than just the woman," Barrio said. "It is a largely feminist, powerful and personal piece which makes it even more amazing."

Hood director and chair of the public art committee, Michael Taylor, has previously called Bourgeois's spider "the greatest piece of public sculpture that's been made in the last 25 years."

Also located in the newly designed arts plaza are the "Dartmouth Panels," five colorful aluminum rectangles attached to the facade of the brick building across from the Visual Arts Center. This site-specific work, created by Ellsworth Kelly, was dedicated on Sept. 14 in honor of the center's opening ceremony.

But Dartmouth's public art pieces expand beyond this corner of campus. Various abstract sculptures dot alcoves around Dartmouth, including minimalist sculptor Richard Serra's "Two-Plate Prop," two plates of Cor-Ten steel propped against each other and weighing a staggering 2,600 pounds, and George Warren Rickey's "Two Lines Oblique Down, Variation VI," five stainless-steel components welded into a "Y" that play with reflective surfaces. Both pieces are located in an alcove inside the Hopkins Center.

Toward the north end of campus, Charles Perry's "D2D," a large bronze sculpture resembling an organic compound, stands in front of Fairchild. This is an appropriate choice, as the former artist-in-residence was also a puzzle-maker and architect, fascinated with the relationship between art and the natural sciences.

Also on the lawn in front of Fairchild is Beverly Pepper's 1977 "Thel," five pyramidal forms of Cor-Ten steel that sprout from the grass. "Thel" is a part of Pepper's "Earthbound Sculptures," a series that interacts with its natural environment.

Perhaps more notable to prospective students and their families is Peter Irniq's "Inuksuk," which adorns the lawn of McNutt Hall. Inusuk, which describes the structure of the stones in a piled formation, literally translates to "likeness of a person," traditionally a beacon for native travelers living in Canada's northernmost regions. The sculpture was crafted by hand specifically for the College, and the stones comprising the sculpture were selected from a field in Haverfill.

No longer on view is the Moskow Linn Architects' "Ice Chimes," which provided a soundtrack during Hanover's icy winter. Formerly located in front of the Class of 1978 Life Sciences Center, the 20-foot fall piece functioned as a weather-responsive musical sculpture that chimed when it collected ice and snow.

Taylor said the Hood was "thrilled" to exhibit the sculpture last winter.

"One of the goals of the Year of the Arts is to bring art to different parts of the campus, and Ice Chimes,' with its blend of architecture, art, engineering, music, and science seemed like the perfect work to install outside the Class of 1978 Life Sciences Center," he said.

Students have recently installed their own smaller, whimsical pieces of public art on campus and in the Upper Valley. Last spring, Cally Womick '13 received a grant through the College's Year of the Arts to fund her yarn bombing public artwork.

Yarn bombing, which is also known as graffiti knitting or guerilla knitting, is a type of street art that uses colorful yarn rather than paint or chalk to cover spaces in a community.

Womick said she was attracted to the idea because of the "intervention" of the art into student's daily life.

"They serve to make the space more beautiful and engage the people in a different way and make people just feel happy," she said. "We have lots of really intelligent, creative people and I think most of us have a sense of humor and like to have fun, and I'd love to have more art that reflects that."

A review of public art at Dartmouth would not be complete without George Lundeen's statue of Robert Frost near the BEMA. Created in 1996, the statue has been featured on countless admissions booklets and informational websites.

The work, which captures Frost as he writes "Mending Wall," is often featured on students' personal Dartmouth bucket-lists as a place to visit before they graduate.

Public art brings the fine arts into daily life. Not only have these various works served to beautify campus, they have helped foster a community appreciation for the arts.

Interview with Sharang Biswas '12

Excerpt from my May 12 interview with Sharang Biswas '12:

Callista Womick: Is there anything we haven’t talked about yet or that I haven’t asked you that you’d like to cover?

Sharang Biswas: I had a positive experience at Dartmouth. I don’t think everyone else does. I was listening a few days ago after the Stonewall Lecture. One girl was talking about how after she was part of the protest, everyone was treating her so badly she had to go to mental health issues—or, I mean counseling. It was terrible to think this one woman is having such a terrible experience at Dartmouth. It was horrible.

One of Talene [Monahon]'s pieces—one of the women she interpreted said, “More telling about Dartmouth is the reaction that these protests got.” And I’m, like, “Yeah.” Like, I disagreed with the protests. I did not think they way they happened was the right way to happen. I do believe that they have a right to protest, and I do believe the issues they were bringing up were very important. So, while I believe I didn’t like the way they did the Dimensions protests, I still think they had a right to do so.

And the backlash they’ve been getting is terrible. And I think if Judicial Affairs does something—because they might have broken some Judicial Affairs stuff, maybe—I think it’s totally between them and Judicial Affairs. It doesn’t involve anyone else. Just like any other person who breaks any other rule at Dartmouth. I don’t think the campus has a right to know what happens to these students. It’s their business. I don’t think they should be excessively punished because if they did break any rule, it’s not something heinous because they went into a function kind of thing. Like, that’s not a heinous rule they broke.

I think the issues they brought up are very important. But the telling thing was that a lot of people got really angry at them and gave all these death threats. And some people were, like, “Oh, yeah, but everyone gets death threats.” But that doesn’t make it okay. If I were to receive death threats, I wouldn’t think, Oh, I’m fine with it. I would be very upset about it. And so that one was very—the woman she was channeling during that piece was very—I think that was good. Like, more telling is the reaction people got.

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Dartmouth Community and Dartmouth’s World is an ongoing oral history project that launched in 2012. The project’s goal is to document the changing nature of the Dartmouth community in the second half of the twentieth century with an emphasis on the concept of the insider and outsider and how those roles and perceptions change for various constituencies over time. Narrators will include members of the Dartmouth community from 1945 to the present, representing a broad spectrum of voices and perspectives.

The Dartmouth: Bored at Baker stirs controversy

Shared from The Dartmouth:

In the midst of national controversy about privacy and government surveillance, Bored at Baker users' anonymity has been called into question following the revelation that the author of the June 5 Commencement bomb threat was a Dartmouth student. Although campus has yet to receive further information about the investigation of the threat, the finding has spurred many students to reflect on the values of anonymity, security and Bored at Baker's impact on campus.

The threat, which Safety and Security reported to campus the day it was posted, warned that "dirty bombs" would explode if Real Talk Dartmouth members protested at Commencement. At the time, Safety and Security wrote that it was acting out of caution and had "reason to believe the threat is not credible."

Callista Womick '13, who described herself as a casual user of Bored at Baker, said that few people on campus were worried, especially because the author of the post quickly wrote a reply to say the threat was not serious. While some students who did not use the site were "freaked out," Womick said that most were aware of the often exaggerated nature of Bored at Baker posts.