Salon!

Usually, during the last week of classes, we hold a little gathering with food, classmates and friends of classmates, and an air of general festiveness to celebrate the work students have made in their individual, weekly practice. As with all things in the second half of this semester, this salon had to be done remotely, but that didn't dull the quality of the work students made, or the enthusiasm they showed in sharing and talking about it. We've gathered representative samples of that individual practice at our IG page. Click on through a give it a look.

Inspiration

[Photo taken in Long Beach, Monday 4/29, around 11:00pm]

Spot Collaboration: Cross-Genre #3

Andy Goldsworthy

Because of Covid-19, we didn't have the luxury of having students work together in person for this last spot collaboration, which doubled as the last of the cross-genre assignments. Students were asked to integrate, or respond to, or be inspired by the work of artist Andy Goldsworthy and the poets Anna Akhmatova, Mitsuye Yamada, and Czeslaw Milosz in the work they made. Students were given about 45 minutes to put something together, however they could, while they communicated with each other via video-conference. Below are the results.

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Dahria Messina and Eden Theule, plant pots inscribed with text from books in the room by Christina Rossetti, Donna Tartt, C.S. Lewis.

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Emma Fellows, Emily Jacobo, after Andy Goldsworthy's voids and Milosz's "A Song on the End of the World."

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Emma McLaughlin, Hannah McLaughlin, Juliana Fujii, inspired by the same texts as the piece, above.

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Hannah Sapigao, Dienna Catuna, Emily Bontrager - first lines from the poems we read this semester by Yamada, Milosz, and Akhmatova [check out the whole piece here]:

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Jasmyne Bell, Johanna Nelson, Lori Lusk. Lori writes, ‘All three are stanzas from the middle of “Late Ripeness,” [by Milosz,] as seen through the perspective of Andy Goldsworthy's Voids, which became portals in a way.’

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Lavender Tonini, Zach Jimison, Anna Winters, integrating motifs from Goldsworthy and text from Milosz into a Minecraft landscape. 

Class Visitor - Autumn Krause

Fiction writer (and Biola alum) Autumn Krause visited VVP yesterday to talk to our students about her writing and revision practice, adapting that practice to raising children, and the mechanics (aka, the non-romantic side) of the publishing process. We are so grateful for her direct, practical advice to our students and for her clear, down-to-earth description of her journey from aspiring to published novelist. (You can pick up her YA debut, A Dress for the Wicked, here.) Thank you, Autumn!

Cross-Genre Conversation Piece #2

Prior to this project, we all read three short stories and one essay by George Saunders, and we looked at paintings by and a documentary about Kerry James Marshall. The students were then asked to take no more than an hour to make work that reflected or responded to what we read and looked at. Preferably, the writers would make something in response to Marshall, and the artists in response to Saunders, but this was a lightly held instruction. (Also: sometimes the writers make visual work, and sometimes the artists write.) The project was assigned before campus was shut down due to Covid-19 campus, and the work was presented online and discussed by the class via Zoom. Below are the results. [Click images to enlarge them.]

- Dienna Catuna, after Saunders's "The Semplica-Girl Diaries" and Marshall's Past Times.
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- Eden Theule, after Saunders's "what writers really do when they write"
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- Jasmine Bell, after Marshall's SOB, SOB
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- Emma McLaughlin, after Marshall's Bang and Saunders's "The Semplica-Girl Diaries"
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- Juliana Fujii, after Caravaggio's The Incredulity of St. Thomas, on themes prevalent in both Saunders and Marshall
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 - Emily Jacobo, on themes drawn from both Saunders and Marshall ["I feel like so often we think that reality stains us or that even the color of our skin does. In light of our skin, our personality, dreams, life situations and circumstances, successes and sins, after reading and looking at the artist's pieces and writings, I could feel all of this pouring out of it. So what if it was the same with the colors and life we were given. We aren't just one thing and we never will be, but one thing for sure is that God loves you and you are not the same as anyone else. And we can let that sift through and out our body and skin, and we can pour it out by just being who we are."]
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 - Zach Jimison, Stomp Upon Seeing, on themes present in both Saunders and Marshall
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- Lori Lusk, after Saunders's "The Semiplica-Girl Diaries"

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 - Johanna Nelson, Danger - EXIT RIGHT, on themes found in Marshall and (most directly) Saunders
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 - Hannah Sapigao, after Saunders's "Victory Lap"
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- Anna Winters, "meant to represent the general feeling I had in response to Saunders' work, while still attempting to hold elements of his stories and writing styles in the work. I chose bright colors and simple images to represent the accessibility and almost playfulness of his writing style and separated the piece into 4 sections to mimic his tendency to switch abruptly from character points of view."

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Privilege

Band-aids match my skin tone
I’ve never been pulled over, even when I made direct eye-contact with a cop while going 15 over in a residential area
I usually look like my classmates
Our wealthy family friends let us use their vacation homes in the summer
If someone asks to touch my hair, it’s never because it’s weird or different
Dolls are my skin color
I’ve never been called a racial slur
My minority status is invisible
I am often sarcastic and daring with authority
I’m never “randomly” selected
My parents are married and employed
When I’m loud, I’m not a threat
When I’m quiet, I’m not a threat
My presence is not a threat
When I speak up, I’m not “spicy” or “fiery”
I don’t have to get my eyebrows threaded and my body hair is blonde
My religious beliefs are respectable, intelligent, and proper
I’ve never worried about my next meal
Getting loans for school is easy
Eyeshadow and eyeliner are simple to apply for my eyelids
I’m naturally skinny
My neighborhood is safe
I’m pale enough to wish for a tan and fuller lips
In my household, guns are recreational
I can afford new school supplies each year
I go to the doctor and dentist regularly
I brought “normal” lunches to school
No one asks where I’m from
In a foreign country, everyone speaks my language
I can have sex and donate blood the next day
I thought it was ok to “not see color” for most of my life
For interviews, I’m usually in a room full of people that look like me
“You’re so pretty [tall and skinny], you could be a model”
The people that surround me daily worship the same way I do
I have a high life expectancy
“Why does representation matter?”
People assume I will marry a man
Explaining otherwise causes a scene, and I must be sensitive toward the others as they probe me
I don’t get drunk
“I don’t want kids.” “You never know,” *wink*
When outside at night, I take comfort in my short hair and androgynous appearance
But still hold my keys between my fingers, keep a knife in my bag, and never listen to music
I almost lost my job due to a dating relationship
Men speak over me
When I speak over men, the conversation becomes controversial, confrontational, and uncomfortable
I move to the side when I’m in the way of another person
I’m nervous what my parents will say when I wear a crop top
Not many Christian men will date a woman who has dated women
I’m a crazy, queer, godless liberal
Sometimes people call me ‘sir’
I’m not thicc enough
Shaving my head made people concerned
“Why don’t you wear make up?”
Sometimes cuddling makes me physically sick with guilt
“Text me when you’re home”

- Micah Brady, after themes found in both Saunders and Marshall
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- Emily Bontrager, after Saunders's "Victory Lap"
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- Hannah McLaughlin, after Saunders's use of limited narrative perspective [Full video is here]

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Cross Genre #2 - VVP due 4/7/20 // In response to G​ulf Stream, ​by Kerry James Marshall 1:48-2:48pm 4/6/20

I think there’s something awful about seagulls. Or any birds, really. Something about their beady eyes, triangle tails, pointy beaks.

Or maybe it’s just that I don’t have those hodge-damn majestic wings that they do, flying away like that without a care in the world.

They fly high, high above. Two of them. Wings out. Grey against periwinkle blue.

There’s four of us in this boat, and we’ve long forgotten our Christian names. Now we’re Bitters-boop, Skywalker (yeah, after ​Star Wars), ​Little Fish and me, Friehel. Usually people just call me Frie.

Bitters-boop’s sitting down, legs out, manning - or womaning, I guess - the stereo. She refuses to listen to our requests, demanding and complaining how we outta know better about the kind of music’s out there, you know, knowing Bitters-boop herself, afro and all. She’s got a pout on her face and it doesn’t match the way her arms extend out, kind of like their own cotton-wrapped form of the actual wings above us. She looks almost as if she’ll take flight, but her pouting face’ll hold her down.

“Alright, Bitters-boop,” I say. “Whatever you want. Just something good.”

It’s a game we all play. Of course we know she’ll choose something good. Just like she’s something good.

I hope to ask that girl to marry me someday, and get to face that pout when I put on the toilet paper roll the wrong way.

She reaches into her netted bag for something good, and the rest of us longue about.

Little Fish ain’t so little anymore. She stands near the back of the boat, her balance unimpeded by the waves. She’s got a long white dress on, cinched at the waist with a blue scarf. I watched her dye that scarf with indigo herself, waiving it and her stained hands after Paper, our Papa, when he left for the job festival.

He got shot coming back, carrying 60 grand with him. In paper. Hah. That was Papa Paper for you.

He survived the shot. Now he wags his half-hand at us to scare us when we do something bad, but we’re all adults, now finally Little Fish, too, and well, he ain’t so scary when he’s grey and one and a half handed.

Skywalker’s sittin’ across from Bitters-boop, bobbing his head to the music. He’s got a foot on either side of Little Fish, almost guarding her from the coil of rope next to her. He’s the only one on this boat related by blood to me, and he’s the only one I feel like pitching off the side every so often.

Little brothers, huh. Gotta love them.

I’m sure he feels like pinching me off the side every so often, too. I know I would.

I pull up the collar of my coat against the wind, gazing back at the growing pile of storm clouds.

They’re heavy, pregnant with grey and beginning to block out the sun.

“Storm on the horizon, Frie.” Skywalker rolls the “o”s in his mouth, sounding like a

hodge-damn steamroller of old.

“I see her,” I say back, sounding like me. I shift the rudder and the sail, running parallel with

the coastline. The docks sit in the distance.

    

“Feeling cold, Little Fish?” Bitters-boop asks the girl.

“Not a slice.” Little Fish stretches out her arms. I can see the goose-flesh from where I stand on the starboard side of the ship, but I know that girl ain’t cold. That girl never gets cold.

Bitters-boop still gives Little Fish one of Skywalker’s extra coats, even buttons it up for her. Skywalker watches Little Fish’s every move. That little girl looks even more little in that string-bean’s coat. How does that even happen.

“You ain’t getting a cold on my watch,” says Bitters-boop, by way of explanation.

Yup. That girl. My wife, someday.

The little box in my pocket seems to be invisible and weightless. I can’t see it, though I know

it’s there.

*

I turn back to the waves, leading the boat out along the coast. We keep parallel, or rather, I keep parallel. Bitters-boop has gone back to messing with the stereo, and now Skywalker has asked Little Fish to cuddle with him on the port side.

I like sitting up at the bow alone, the rope for the sail in my hands. I give it a bit of an adjustment every now and then, accommodating the wind.

“Got any leftover cheese and crackers?” I hear Skywalker say.

“Yeah, it’s in your pocket.” says Bitters-boop.

“Which coat?” Little Fish giggles. I imagine she’s stuffing her hands in the pockets of his coat

and looking for them herself, pleased when she notes there in h​ er ​coat of his. They eventually find the snacks and I can’t hear anybody chewing over the crashing of the waves as it kicks up for the storm, but I imagine it sounds kind of like the waves crashing. Maybe quieter.

Someone sneezes and they all blame each other. Papa Paper will shred us to bits if any one of us gets sick with a storm like this coming in, but ah, it’s just ‘cause he worries. He ain’t so bad, after all. Just loud, every so often. Dad of the neighborhood. Mr. Rogers but less gentle.

I watch the seagulls fly above us. The sun has taken too much of me to have any energy to curse those guys, so I don’t. Instead, in my heart, I wish I was with them, too.

*

We get back into the harbor, it starts to pour. A pelican lands on the port of the boat and screeches when we get too close. He’s wet and grumpy.

Bitters-boop screeches back, in tune with the sick jams she’s bumpin’. “Ain’t no crime to park here, buckoo. Go on, scoot.”

The pelican gives in real quick. Aw, ship, I would too.

We get the boat all docked and set for port, sail folded and all. It looks a bit sad, the way it’s filling with water. If it floods and the sands carry the kelp forests in, we’ll have to fish it out of the sand dune beneath it, ‘bout four feet down, when the storm passes. I’m alright with that. Something about yanking out bundles of green and orange goo and kicking up to the surface, hauling bum, is real satisfying.

That’s not even sarcasm. That’s pure truth.

Little Fish and Skywalker head on ahead of Bitters-boop and I. I can tell Little Fish is getting tired. That girl’s dragging her feet, and not joking about it too.

“How do you feel around marriage?” I call out to Bitters-boop, who’s pulling on her yellow rain coat. She’s soaked to the bone beneath it, so I can’t see the point for the moment, until she shimmies out of her long-sleeve and jeans, dropping the sodden things on the dock and begins to pull some other clothes on out of a bag. I turn away once I realize what’s going on, so I don’t see anythin’ beneath the fact, and I’m only telling you, reader-reader, what I’m guessing she’s doin’ based on the fact she got my foot with her throw of sodden denim.

She waltzes around in front of me, jacked zipped, hood up, lookin’ like some sort of wizard, fairy creature. Or a lighthouse, against this grey painting.

Her eyes twinkle. Aw, those eyes. “That ain’t the way of asking.”

“Oh, my b. Let me try again.” I get down on one knee, feeling the water soak through immediately, and fish out the little wood box I’ve been carrying around with me.

“Bitters-boop,” I say. “Would you do Frie the grand, golden honor of becoming Mrs. Frie?” I clear my throat. “I mean, will you marry me?”

“Yeah, I’ll marry you. But the moment we step into the house, we drop these stupid names and go back to being Fred Marker and Betty Loop. Well, I suppose Betty Marker then. Deal?”

Anything she’d ask me with those eyes, I’d say deal right away. I’m fond of these names, though, and I know they won’t leave us, ever. The entire town calls us these names, and frankly, it’s been years and years since even my teachers have called me Fred. But I get what she’s saying, and I’m up for it. In our house, aw man, o​ ur, h​ ouse, we’ll be Betty and Fred.

“Deal,” I say.

I take her hand, and have to put the ring temporarily on another finger since it’s so big and her fingers are already smaller from the cold. I knew I got it too big, but I wanted to surprise her and not have to ask her.

“Alright, the future Mrs. Frie, uh, I mean Mrs. Marker. Are you up for some grub?”

“And to get out of this rain.” She links her arm through mine and I click my heels with glee. We walk off the dock, our shoes and socks soaked through. There’s gotta be at least a few inches on the ground.

“How about one of Tom’s Shepherd Pies?”

“We’ll run into some folk there,” Bitters-boop warns.

“Aw, no worries. Folk ain’t so scary anymore. We’re gettin’ married now, they’ll be off our

backs.” I turn to her, pulling us to a stop in the middle of the sidewalk. Nobody’s really around, except for Old Jaffa outside of the coffee shop, and he’s too busy drinking his coffee. “Can I kiss you?”

“After thirteen years, he now proposes and asks to kiss in the same day?” She cocks her head, smiling. That smile.

“I’m a slow grower,” I say.

“Like hell you are.” And she nods, pulling her sleeves over her hands. “Yeah, honey-bee, you can.”

 I kiss her, quick. I’m a bit nervous and can’t quite feel my face ‘cause of the rain.

“Warm enough?” I ask her as we head in the way of Tom’s.

She’s got rainwater runnin’ down her face. “Sure am. How many pies you think you can eat

tonight?”

“Mm, twelve.”

“Twelve?”

“We didn’t have lunch today, we just snacked.”

“Snacks ain’t so bad.” She says, voice defensive, that pout coming back.

“Yeah, but snacks with Skywalker and Little Fish are. Those two eat like mouses.” Cheese and

crackers. Who eats cheese and crackers for a meal? That’s not a meal.

“Alright, alright. So you’ll eat twelve and I’ll eat eight, so we’ll order an even twenty. Deal?” “Deal.”

- Lavender Tonini, after 

Extended Collaboration #2 - Picture Plane

This second extended collaboration was assigned just before the campus was shut down due to COVID-19. Artists and writers were put into groups together to make work that combined alphabetic text and imagery, favoring the picture plane (that is, the site where we usually experience imagery: the canvas, the screen, the sculptural object, and so on). In a normal semester, the final projects are then brought to class and we all gather around each one, talking about what we see, observing how the objects are made, asking questions, and talking with the makers. Alas, since the student collaborators couldn't meet in person to brainstorm and build their projects, and because we as a class couldn't get together in the same place and see what was made, everything had to be done remotely. Below is the remarkable stuff the students came up with.

Dienna Catuna and Emma Fellows:

[Watch the video these stills are from here.]

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Micah Brady and Hannah Sapigao:

[View the rest of this project on Instagram.]

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Dahria Messina, Zach Jimison, Lori Lusk:

[View the rest of this project on Tumblr.]

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Johanna Nelson and Emma McLaughlin:

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Eden Theule, Jasmyne Bell, Juliana Fujii:

[Watch the video these stills are from here.]

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Emily Bontrager, Lavender Tonini, Hannah McLaughlin:

[To play this game, pick up some rules, engage a Dungeon Master, and Godspeed!]

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Emily Jacobo and Anna Winters:

[To watch the videos these stills came from, go here, here, and here.]