By Emma Watkins ‘23
Staff Writer & Copy Editor
Photo courtesy of Jamie Capps ’21 (Directly below: Jamie Capps ’21 explores pandemic anxieties through mix media art.)
During a year largely defined by social distancing, lockdowns and the COVID-19 pandemic, many individuals have found comfort in virtual events. Online art galleries and events have enabled artists to continue creating and displaying their works throughout the past year. For 15 student artists from the Mount Holyoke College classes of 2020 and 2021, the “Long Distance Relationship” virtual exhibition allowed them to share their “Senior Studio” capstone course projects with the Mount Holyoke community and a wider virtual audience. As expressed by Associate Professor of Art Lisa Iglesias in its introduction, this exhibition, unveiled on May 4, strives to “stitch together new visions for our changing world.”
The exhibition begins with a statement from Associate Professor of Art Lisa Iglesias, who quoted poet and activist Sonya Renee Taylor, saying, “We should not long to return, my friends. We are being given the opportunity to stitch a new garment. One that fits all of humanity and nature.”
Iglesias shared that she selected this quote to launch the exhibition because it “particular[ly] resonated with [her] in terms of a kind of an optimistic hope that we can learn from recent events including the global pandemic, gun violence, the effects of institutional racism, economic downturn — and more.”
Igelsias added, “[We can] invent new ways to more compassionately and expansively advocate for greater equity and justice in our communities. Artists can play an important role in this process.”
The 15 artists constructed this metaphorical garment using “Zoom, Google, Discord, Instagram, FaceTime, Moodle, Spotify and other virtual structures,” the exhibition website states. Through technology, members of the group were able to reach across physical boundaries and experience a creative community despite the limitations of the pandemic world. These new ways of communicating and collaborating, along with ice-breakers, quick drawing or collaging exercises and deep listening activities, were necessary to “find ways to create trust and excitement for making art in an online course,” Iglesias said.
Split into four categories on the exhibition’s website — Fragmented Bodies, Stitching Past into Present, Constructing Memory and Chromatic Abstraction — “Long Distance Relationship” taps into the healing and expansive properties of art. The pieces in each category explore outcomes of individual, isolated journeys and new forms of collaboration and connection. Each artist statement in the exhibition explains how the pieces emerged from the lived experiences of the artists in the past few years, with a larger focus on the recent year defined by the pandemic.
Iglesias explained that Associate Director for Engagement and Weatherbie Curator of Academic Programs Ellen Alvord and Assistant Museum Preparator Nina Frank of the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum first encouraged her to create the four categories. Alvord and Frank “suggest[ed] that doing so would provide clarity and organization for the online viewing experience,” Iglesias said. “Studio Art Professor Ligia Bouton and I then viewed all of the work and talked about what kind of thematic categories would unify artworks while also potentially opening up new ways to interpret the artworks based on their groupings.”
When it came down to grouping and naming the categories, Iglesias noted how easily everything fell into place. “The categories naturally revealed themselves because of the deep bedrock of communication that my colleagues and I have with each other, as well as our knowledge of the students and their artworks,” Iglesias said.
Though the artworks are all displayed in one exhibition, “Long Distance Relationship” showcases a considerable diversity of artistic media and subject matter. Projects range from portrait photographs to experimental papermaking, lively high-energy paintings to storytelling fabric art, whimsical sculpture installations to abstract and visually striking printmaking and other media. Even within the exhibition’s four categories, viewers can feel the richness of the different perspectives and inspirations each artist brings to the table.
One artist, Jamie Capps ’21, who specializes in printmaking on materials ranging from canvas to found cardboard, explained that the pandemic altered “pretty much every piece of art [she] made over the past year.” Capps explained that the transition from the comfort and familiarity of a classroom to working at home necessitated a more mobile working environment. She added that this experience, though initially upsetting and disruptive, made her more optimistic about continuing her artistic practices after graduation.
“I was able to create a small screen printing area in my basement, shifting my printing practice to screen prints, gel prints, cyanotypes and everything I would be able to do creatively while living just about anywhere,” she said.
For many artists in the class of 2020, these projects began in classes on campus and had to be completed at home in the middle of the spring of their senior year. Lauren Ferrara ’20 — who mostly creates sculptures, interactive installations and performance artworks — began their contribution to “Long Distance Relationship” while at school, but finished at home in New Jersey after the pandemic began. Ferrara expertly communicates this geographical and emotional shift through their art, particularly through “6 Feet Apart,” a performance art piece detailing their family’s new routines that came out of the pandemic.
“Throughout my performance art, I explore the relationship between body and space. … Reflection of environment and self is prominent throughout my practice,” Ferrara explained.
“Long Distance Relationship” allows viewers to gain insight into how these artists created their pieces using inspiration found in stress, distance and trauma, both related and unrelated to the pandemic. The entire exhibition showcases an intimate conversation about familiarity opposed to the unknown, connection and disconnection and a plethora of other subjects with which many have rediscovered their relationship to in the past few years.