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Ilana Panich-Linsman ’02 Returns for Photographers’ Lecture Series

 

Emily, 11, poses for a photo with her fellow competitors. Emily is not pleased with the outcome of this pageant-- she had hoped to get a higher title. Emily Dextraze is an eleven-year-old beauty pageant competitor who lives in Westfield, Massachusetts, a small town of 42,000 people in Western New England located about two hours west of Boston, Massachusetts. The beauty pageant industry in the United States is estimated to be worth 5 billion U.S. dollars annually; the estimated number of pageants in the U.S. ranges from 5,000 to 100,000, according to an Internet search. It is conservatively estimated that 2.5 million American girls, from babies to teenagers, participate. The cost to a family for a daughter to participate in a pageant ranges from $1500 to considerably more. Entry fees, elaborate costumes, makeup, hairdressing, artificial tans and weeks of professional coaching contribute to the high cost. Photo by Ilana Panich-Linsman
Emily, 11, poses for a photo with her fellow competitors. Emily is not pleased with the outcome of this pageant– she had hoped to get a higher title. Emily Dextraze is an eleven-year-old beauty pageant competitor who lives in Westfield, Massachusetts, a small town of 42,000 people in Western New England located about two hours west of Boston, Massachusetts.
The beauty pageant industry in the United States is estimated to be worth 5 billion U.S. dollars annually; the estimated number of pageants in the U.S. ranges from 5,000 to 100,000, according to an Internet search. It is conservatively estimated that 2.5 million American girls, from babies to teenagers, participate.
The cost to a family for a daughter to participate in a pageant ranges from $1500 to considerably more. Entry fees, elaborate costumes, makeup, hairdressing, artificial tans and weeks of professional coaching contribute to the high cost. Photo by Ilana Panich-Linsman

Ever since Ilana Panich-Linsman graduated from the Williston Northampton School in 2002, her career as a photographer has been on an amazing upward trajectory.

A former student of photography teacher Ed Hing, Ms. Panich-Linsman earned her bachelor’s degree at Scripps College before completing the Eddie Adams Workshop, earning a master’s degree in photojournalism and documentary photography from University of the Arts, London, and graduating from the International Center of Photography’s photojournalism program, where she received a Director’s Fellowship.

Mr. Hing noted that, even as a high school sophomore, Ms. Panich-Linsman started at a higher level than most students.

“Ilana was a student that always took her photography a step beyond expectations,” he wrote in an email. “The imagery was personal and inventive and she was willing to push herself outside of her comfort zone.”

Mr. Hing recalled a biography assignment that Ms. Panich-Linsman completed with flair by calling the subject, noted photojournalist Mary Ellen Mark, for an interview.

“I knew she had the determination to make things happen,” Mr. Hing wrote. “We’ve talked at many points throughout her career building years and it’s been amazing to be able to watch her succeed.”

SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS - M.P., 21, waits with her 2 year old daughter at the San Antonio Greyhound Bus Station for a bus to Houston where she has family. November 10, 2015: Asylum-seeking women, most of them with children, have been bussed to San Antonio's central bus station from Dilley Residential Center or Karnes County Residential Center. Organizations including the Interfaith Welcome Coalition and the Red Cross greet the majority of women at the Greyhound Bus Station and assist the women in traveling on or offer temporary shelter in San Antonio. From here, many will transport to family members throughout the country. Others will go to Raices House, a shelter in San Antonio, where they will be assisted. Most women are forced to wear electronic ankle monitors. Ilana Panich-Linsman for The New York Times
SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS – M.P., 21, waits with her 2 year old daughter at the San Antonio Greyhound Bus Station for a bus to Houston where she has family. November 10, 2015: Asylum-seeking women, most of them with children, have been bussed to San Antonio’s central bus station from Dilley Residential Center or Karnes County Residential Center. Organizations including the Interfaith Welcome Coalition and the Red Cross greet the majority of women at the Greyhound Bus Station and assist the women in traveling on or offer temporary shelter in San Antonio. From here, many will transport to family members throughout the country. Others will go to Raices House, a shelter in San Antonio, where they will be assisted. Most women are forced to wear electronic ankle monitors. Ilana Panich-Linsman for The New York Times

On January 21, Ms. Panich-Linsman will return to Williston to talk about her documentary photography, as well as working for such clients as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, NBC News, The Boston Globe, Al Jazeera America, and CNN.

“It’s a thrill to see her credit line on a regular basis in The New York Times,” Mr. Hing wrote. “I’m not surprised by what she’s accomplished so far. She’s telling thoughtful and interesting stories with her images and she’s still in the early stages of her career.”

Ms. Panich-Linsman was named one of Magnum Photo’s 30 under 30 2014, and received the Multimedia Award at the 2010 Lumix Festival for Young Photojournalism. She was nominated for the World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass and participated in the VII Mentorship Program, assisting Stephanie Sinclair and Donna Ferrato.

The lecture will be held at 6:30 p.m. in the Dodge Room, Reed Campus Center, and like all the talks in the series, is free and open to the public.

Grubbs Gallery Presents Jessica Tam

Colossus, ink on acetate, 20 x 25 in., 2014 Jessica Tam
Colossus, ink on acetate, 20 x 25 in., 2014 Jessica Tam

In the Gallery: January 6-28:
Reception: Saturday, January 9 from 1:30-3:30 p.m.

In her gallery-wide installation, “Welcome to the Jungle,” featured in Northampton’s Oxbow 04Gallery over the summer, Jessica Tam’s wrestling figures twisted and flexed, their bodies thrown against one another.

Her painting covered the gallery walls—some 80-feet in length—with contrasting and overlapping images of men, an audience, window panes, a referee, limbs, agonized faces.

In January, Ms. Tam will bring her abstract works, based on sensationalist popular culture, to the Grubbs Gallery for the first show of 2016.

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Linda Batchelor in Grubbs Gallery

Waltz of the Chicken, Linda Batchelor
Waltz of the Chicken, Linda Batchelor

On Display: November 2-January 5
Reception: Saturday, November 7 from 1:00-3:30 p.m.

Working with prints and collage, Linda Batchelor explores the emotional harmonies created through colors and patterns. Her work ranges from stylized bottles and figures to the most abstract. After focusing on monotypes and collages, Ms. Batchelor has recently been working on larger scale pieces.

In her artist statement, Ms. Batchelor notes her earliest efforts at collage were “jazzy and colorful with a sense of humor,” but that she has lately increased her focus on straight monotypes.

“These new pieces combine composition skills honed through years of collaging with a freer, more experimental, approach to transferring ink to paper via a press,” she writes. “The pieces can be quieter and more contemplative. I think of them as my northern work.”

The award-winning artist, who includes a merit prize from the Smithsonian American Museum of Art among her various accolades, has exhibited both regionally and nationally. Ms. Batchelor’s work is featured in collections at the Boston Public Library, Baltimore City College, and Fidelity Investments. She attended Brown University and Maryland Institute of Art and has a studio at One Cottage Street, Easthampton.

 

Roomful of Teeth to Visit Williston

The Grammy award-winning ensemble will teach techniques and perform from their diverse repertoire
Photo by Bonica Ayala of Bonica Ayala Photography, courtesy of Roomful of Teeth
Photo by Bonica Ayala of Bonica Ayala Photography, courtesy of Roomful of Teeth

Members of a Grammy award-winning ensemble will bring their unique sound to the Williston Northampton campus on October 20 as part of an hour-long workshop with the school’s choral ensembles.

Roomful of Teeth will teach the Caterwaulers and Widdigers new techniques, talk about their process, and perform a private concert for the students.

“I’m hoping the students’ idea of a choir or vocal ensemble can be expanded in a way they’ve never thought about,” Director of Choirs Joshua Harper wrote in an email about the visit. “This ensemble defies every genre line for singing, and what they do is very groundbreaking and very fresh.”

Roomful of Teeth is an eight-voice ensemble that was founded in 2009 and incorporates singing traditions and techniques from around the world. In their biography, they note that their repertoire includes such styles as Tuvan throat singing, yodeling, Sardinian cantu a tenore, Hindustani, Persian classical, Inuit throat singing, and Korean P’ansori.

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Grubbs Gallery Presents David Gloman

Keystone Bridge 2015 copy
Keystone Bridge 2015, David Gloman

Light and geometry are the two themes that run through the whole of David Gloman’s paintings, whether he’s working on a watercolor of the Southwestern desert landscape or an oil painting of a swimming hole in the woods.

“The role that light and weather play in an agricultural place and the grid like geometry of the fields are two elements always present in my work,” wrote Mr. Gloman in his online artist statement. “I paint directly outdoors and the paintings are distilled visual experiences of specific places.”

Mr. Gloman, who has been a featured artist in previous Grubbs Gallery seasons, returns to the Williston Northampton School campus on October 1 for a show of his latest work, “Rocks and Water.”

The paintings in the exhibit—created through the in-nature style that Mr. Gloman has perfected through his use of a truck-based mobile studio—feature such locations as the Green Mountain National Forest, Chesterfield Gorge, Dead Branch of the Westfield River, and Chester, MA.

Becket Quarry 2015, David Gloman
Becket Quarry 2015, David Gloman

“The paintings are an attempt to capture the particulars of a specific place: time of day, weather, topography, and season in the simplest painting language possible,” Mr. Gloman noted recently. “I was seeking out places where there was interplay of rock and water: permanence and fluidity.”

Mr. Gloman is the artist in residence at Amherst College and offers Saturday art classes in the fall and winter for talented high school artists. He has previously worked with such Williston student artists as Emma Kaisla ’15.

“Rocks and Water” will be on display in the Grubbs Gallery from October 1-29. A reception for the artist will be October 10 from 1:00-3:30 p.m. in the gallery.

Grubbs Gallery Presents O’Flynn and de Bethune

Copy of Facebook Post

Reception: Saturday, September 26 —cancelled

A husband and wife team, who explore the space between realism and the abstract, will open the Grubbs Gallery 2015-16 season. See Grubbs Gallery hours.

Agnes de Bethune and Thomas O’Flynn met in Boston in the 1970s and began traveling the country, refining their own styles: his in collage and sculptural assemblages, hers in the two-dimensional realm of oils, watercolors, and acrylics.

Although the art they create is distinct, Ms. de Bethune and Mr. O’Flynn have had a long history of mutual inspiration. Arguably one of the best examples of their playful collaboration is their annual holiday card, which can be assembled into a 3D art cube. Turn the cube one way and it becomes Ms. de Bethune’s hyper-realistic oils; turn it the other, and it’s suddenly Mr. O’Flynn’s assemblages.

Ms. de Bethune, a Massachusetts native who lives and works in Jersey City, received a Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. She has worked as a graphic artist, as a teacher at Pratt Institute in New York City, and on museum exhibits. Her work been exhibited in New York City and elsewhere in New England and California. Prior to establishing her own studio, she attended Massachusetts College of Art.

In considering her work, she asks viewers to examine the small details, composition, the psychological content, and the so-called “Photoshop effect.”

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Joshua Harper at Yale Summer School

What do teachers do over the summer? If you’re Director of Choirs Joshua Harper, you sing—and conduct, and learn from a world-renowned professor—all through Williston Northampton professional development funds. This week, Mr. Harper reports that he’s embarking on an exciting professional development opportunity at the Yale Summer School Festival at Norfolk.

Mr. Harper will be attending the Chamber Choir and Conducting Workshop from August 16-22 and will be studying with Professor Emeritus of Conducting Simon Carrington (founding member of The King’s Singers, an acclaimed ensemble from Kings College, Cambridge University). Mr. Harper received an Ellen Battell Stoeckel Fellowship and professional development funds for tuition to the program.

According to the program’s website, the workshop is “divided into coaching, master classes, rehearsals and seminars for advanced singers and choral conductors. Repertoire ranges from the Renaissance to the 21st century and includes both choral and instrumental music.” At the end of the week, the Fellows of the Workshop hold a concert in the Music Shed in Norfolk, CT.

In February, Mr. Harper’s edition of Schubert were presented at the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) national conference and his a cappella edition of “Die Einsiedelei” was published by Colla Voce LLC. As the high school chair for the Massachusetts chapter of the American Choral Directors Association, Mr. Harper said that one of his goals was to make classical music more accessible to high school students and conductors.

FilmFest8 Winners

2015 FilmFest8 winners

Congratulations to all the winners of the 8th Annual Williston Film Festival! Held on Friday, May 8 in the Reed Campus Center, the festival featured “great turnout [and] great films,” according to festival organizer and arts faculty Ed Hing.

“Some  submissions were allowed through the internet and that made the tech part way easier,” he noted. “Next year will be all online submissions.”

Some 70 entries were whittled down to 30 films, presented in two 45-minute ‘acts.’ Anthony Leung ’15 performed and there was pizza during the 20-minute judges deliberation. This year’s judges were NYC-based film editor Patrick Burns ’89; Professor Emeritus of Media Studies at the UNC Tony Fragola ’62; and Northampton-based film maker Jared Skolnick ’05.

The first prize,  a $50 Tandem Bagel gift card, went to Will Harrington of Concord Academy.

“The judges commented that all participants should be proud of their entries, that every film showed creativity and effort,” noted Mr. Hing. “They were impressed with the caliber of the work.”

Best Motion Picture: “The Frog Whisperer,” Will Harrington, Concord Academy

Best Editing: “De Dans en Dehors,” Jacob Bridgman, Northampton High School

Best Screenplay: “Bad Habits,” Karen Morey, Walnut Hill School

Best Cinematography: “Rembihnutur,” Mikaela Dillon, Walnut Hill School

Best Animated Feature: “War is Hell,” Forrester Menson, Northampton High School

Best Documentary: “Couture for a Cause,” Helen Luo, Dana Hall School

Best Music Video: “Emitime,” Oliver Holblitzelle, Vermont Academy

BEST PSA:  “Bike Helmet Safety,” Risa Tapanes, Williston Northampton

Most Creative: “Experimental,” Jen Carellas, Williston Northampton

Best Williston Film: “Ford Hall Syfu-r,”John Kay, Williston Northampton

Eighth Annual Williston Film Festival

By Ed Hing

Attention high school film makers! Submit now. Go to the website for guidelines and entry forms.

Williston students can enter this year’s special category for Best Williston Film. First Prize is a $50 Tandem Bagel gift card. The film doesn’t have to be fancy. Use your phone, have some fun, be creative. Contact Cade Zawacki ’15 or Mr. Hing for details.

The 8th Annual Williston Film Festival will take place this year on Friday, May 8 at 6:30 p.m. in the Reed Campus Center. Over 65 high schools from all over New England have been asked to submit student films for consideration. Awards will be presented for the following categories:

Best Motion Picture
Best Editing
Best Screenplay
Best Cinematography
Best Animated Feature
Best Documentary
Best Music Video
Best PSA
Best Williston Film
Most Creative

This year’s judges are NYC based film editor Patrick Burns ’89; Professor Emeritus of Media Studies at the UNC Tony Fragola ’62; and Northampton-based film maker Jared Skolnick ’05.

Posters, entry forms, and additional information are available on the website: www.williston.com/filmfestival. It’s an awesome opportunity to showcase the best grade 7-12 student work in New England.

Come for the popcorn, pizza, and some great film making.

Uniting Ethics and Design

Tom Johnson’s ethics class and Natania Hume’s Design II class collaborates on a project called “Ethics and Objects”

Editor’s note: The following piece was written by fine and performing arts faculty member Natania Hume, who teaches Design II “Ethics and Objects.”

Photo by Dennis Crommett
Photo by Dennis Crommett

As consumers, we make moral and ethical decisions almost every day; sometimes without knowing what the full impact our decisions are on other people and on our environment. This was the underlying concept behind the Trimester II collaboration between Tom Johnson’s Ethics class and my Design II class called “Ethics and Objects”.

Throughout the trimester, the classes engaged in collective activities ranging from a debate about the ethics of owning and using iPhones, to researching the ethical impact of common products we use like various brands of clothing, shoes (like Uggs), chocolate, bottled water, etc. Students also researched design companies who currently design products and engage in projects that are meant to address social and environmental ills.

Students studied both these kinds of recent developments in the design world, and three of the major approaches to ethics (utilitarianism, Kantian ethics, virtue ethics) for assessing the ethical value of situations and decisions. For their final project, teams from both classes conceived of unique objects and products that would have beneficial social or environmental impacts. The ethics students wrote a paper in defense of their teams’ designs, and the design students built prototypes of the objects.

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