The magazine of
Ashley Hall
Perspectives Summer 2012
Creative Intelligent Discerning
Board of Trustees 2012-2013 Chairman - Joseph G. Reves Vice Chariman - W. Scott Parker Secretary - Heidi Ward Ravenel ‘74 Treasurer - Hugh C. Lane, Jr. Members-at-large Angie Hewitt Chakeris ‘89 Sheppard H. C. Davis, Jr. Ann W. Dibble ‘70 Randolph J. Friedman Brett Hildebrand Laurie A. Host ‘73 Elizabeth Rivers Lewine ‘54 Elizabeth Powers Lindh ‘67 Janet Pearlstine Lipov Kevin W. Mooney Anne Tamsberg Pope Barton A. Proctor Malcolm M. Rhodes Lee W. Richards Emily Molony Swanson John E. Thompson Trustees Emeriti Mary Agnes Burnham Hood Martha Rivers Ingram ‘53 Patricia T. Kirkland Karen Jenkins Phillips ‘79 J. Conrad Zimmerman, Jr. Head of School Jill Swisher Muti
172 Rutledge Avenue Charleston, SC 29403 www.ashleyhall.org
Perspectives The magazine of Ashley Hall
The Arts Issue EDITOR Catherine Newman GRAPHIC DESIGN Julie Frye Design, LLC CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Nick Bozanic Kathy Bates ’65 Stephanie Tecklenburg
Table of Contents 3
Headlines Jill Muti
5 Leading with the Heart: The Arts in Education 10 Grace is Strength
PhotoGRAPHY Anna Murray PHOTO ADMINISTRATIVE TEAM HEAD OF SCHOOL Jill Muti
14 Project Based Sculpture
Assistant Head of School for Academic Affairs Dr. Nick Bozanic
17 Taking STEAM to the Moon
Assistant Head of School/ Director of Institutional Advancement Cindy Hay Johnson
22 Strings Evolution
Assistant to the Head of School Elizabeth Gordon
26 Danielle Feerst ’12 The Art in Engineering
Executive Assistant to the Head of School Amy Thompson Chief Finance Officer Audrey Tamekazu Director, GRADES Pre- P - Pre K Dana Van Hook | Ross EEC Director, K - 4 Lois Ruggiero | Pardue Hall Director, Grades 5-6 Catherine Neel | Lane Hall Director, Grades 7-12 Mary Schweers | Jenkins Hall
29 New Arts Faculty Rebecca Stone-Danahy Todd Christopher 34 Follow Your Bliss Kathy Vansant Bates ’65
Director of Admission Amelia Jenkins Director of Athletics Frances Slay Director of Facilities Fred Reinhard Visual Arts Coordinator Rebecca Stone-Danahy Performing Arts Coordinator Todd Christopher Director of Technology Kevin Bourque Assistant Director of Institutional Advancement / Director of Communications and Marketing Catherine Newman International Programs Coordinator Spencer Landvater Dean of Students Kelly Wood
37 Advancement 38 Alumnae Weekend 39 Alumnae Information and Class Notes
Headlines
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Dear Ashley Hall Family, elcome to the Arts Edition of
Perspectives magazine. In his foreword to
the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities prospectus, Reinvesting in Arts Education, US Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, states, “For today’s student to be the innovators and economic leaders of the future, they will need to have experiences as musicians and dancers, painters and sculptors, poets and playwrights—in short, they will need to be creative innovators who will build our nation’s economy for the future. They also will sustain a rich, vibrant culture to nourish the heart and soul of the American people, and to communicate with our neighbors around the globe.”
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P The connection between a strong arts education, superior academic achievement, and community engagement has been consistently proven by decades of research. In fact, new neuroscience research is revealing more clearly exactly how arts strategies support crucial brain development. Yet while clear, compelling cases are being made for the importance of the arts in human development and brain function, virtually every nation in the world is reducing the role of arts and humanities in their educational systems, causing what philosopher Martha Nussbaum calls a “crises of massive proportions and grave global significance...a world crises in education.” The ramifications of this burgeoning crisis are especially clear and particularly disconcerting to me as my participation and education in the arts has so enriched my life and given me the skills I needed to be successful in creating a fulfilling personal and professional life. Growing up in a small farming community with a large Scandinavian and German enclave, it was customary and expected that every family member played an instrument or participated in the arts in some way. My grandmother played the organ, my mother the clarinet and I chose to study the flute. My journey with the flute offered opportunities for me to experience the wider world through my music. This “language of the gods” has allowed me to experience the depth and breadth of human emotion in ways that the written word can not. It also has enhanced my spatial-temporal reasoning skills, taught me self-discipline, collaboration and concentration, and developed my habits of mind. These are the experiences I want for every student at Ashley Hall. Since I began my tenure at Ashley Hall we have introduced violin instruction to the Kindergarten students and provided opportunities for them to continue their instruction as they matriculate. We revamped our theater program to support our humanities curriculum and provide our students with opportunities for collaboration with local theater professionals. We enhanced our Physical Education curriculum with a dance program for the girls throughout the school that builds students’ core muscular strength,
urposeful
poise, and confidence. We integrated the arts into the STEAM curriculum in our Intermediate School, exemplifying for our students the clear crossover of the temporal skills used in the arts with those used in the sciences. Additionally, we built the Carolina Strings Academy and Applied Lessons program to provide students access to accomplished instructors and practice space to pursue their individual artistic interests more deeply. These programs have been integrated into our school and are having demonstrative effects on our curriculum. Our students’ math scores are consistently increasing and we now have students who have matriculated through our Kindergarten violin curriculum that are taking advantage of the school’s partnership with Johns Hopkins to take more advanced math courses than those traditionally provided at their grade level. Our graduates are being accepted at the very best arts schools in the country and Ashley Hall now has strings students performing at Piccolo Spoleto. In this, the Arts Issue of Perspectives magazine, we share with you Ashley Hall’s overarching philosophy on the continued importance of the integration of arts in a classical curriculum and profile several of the specific programs that we have implemented to support it. I hope you enjoy this issue on a topic that is so very vital to the future of our community, our country, and our world and is so close to my heart. Best wishes,
Jill Muti
Creative | Discerning | Worldly |
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“The proper study of M Leading with the Heart: The Arts in Education by Nick Bozanic
Perhaps it is not so very surprising that many otherwise well-informed and serious-minded critics of American education persist in regarding the arts, despite significant scientific evidence to the contrary, as peripheral to the central challenge of preparing today’s students for the increasingly volatile marketplace in which they will eventually seek a niche for themselves. This deeply entrenched utilitarian attitude, based as it is on the assumption that the end of education – its principle purpose and objective – is to provide students with marketable skills and knowledge pertinent to their future occupational pursuits – dominates public discourse about education reform. 4 | The magazine of Ashley Hall Painting by Julia Berggren-Tengsvall
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RE A T I V E
Mankind is Man.” – Alexander Pope (1734)
Although this perspective is understandable, arising naturally enough from parental concerns about their children’s economic well-being, it is nonetheless questionable in so far as any conclusions derived from such assumptions require considerable confidence in our ability to forecast what that future, for which we presume to be preparing our children, will look like. How accurately, in fact, can we predict what professional or occupational opportunities will be available to our children in five years time or ten? Can we continue to base our attitudes toward education on assumptions which current conditions no longer validate? Should we wager our children’s education today against a future outcome we cannot foresee? What distinguishes the arts from those disciplines which claim some concrete relevance to future employment is precisely their overriding concern with who we are as human beings in the here and now, and how that essential condition constitutes the ground of our growth as responsible moral agents in the world rather than as fungible instruments of The Economy. Indeed, the “liberal arts” – a term which embraces the humanities – refer to those activities proper to a “free” (from the Latin liber) person, one whose time and energies are not constrained by the demands of menial occupations or servitude. Thus, the assumption that informed the notion of liberal arts from the outset was that such studies were available to and pertinent to the needs of those who enjoyed sufficient leisure to indulge in intellectual exertions which had no immediate utility with respect to gainful employment. (The word “scholar,” in fact, derives from the Greek word for “leisure.”) Similarly, “Humanities” indicates that these studies pertain to our common condition as human beings, and therefore are of no immediate relevance to our specific roles in the socio-economic system. While the humanities may be (and are) widely regarded as peripheral to our practical purposes in the world, they are central to our condition as moral agents exercising free will in interaction with others endowed with the same innate characteristics and qualities. In other words, the humanities
address that in us which is constant in all circumstances, as opposed to that training which prepares us for a practical purpose. The importance of this distinction was remarked upon by Samuel Johnson (“The Life of Milton” in Lives of the English Poets 1779- 1781) …the truth is that the knowledge of external nature, and the sciences which that knowledge requires or includes, are not the great or the frequent business of the human mind. Whether we provide for action or conversation, whether we wish to be useful or pleasing, the first requisite is the religious and moral knowledge of right and wrong; the next is an acquaintance with the history of mankind, and with those examples which may be said to embody truth and prove by events the reasonableness of opinions. Prudence and Justice are virtues and excellences of all times and of all places; we are perpetually moralists, but we are geometricians only by chance. Our intercourse with intellectual nature is necessary; our speculations upon matter are voluntary and at leisure. Physiological learning is of such rare emergence that one man may know another half his life without being able to estimate his skill in hydrostaticks or astronomy, but his moral and prudential character immediately appears.
Purposeful | Compassionate | Discerning |
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It is worth noting that in the academic taxonomy, law, medicine, and teaching are all regarded as branches of the humane arts in that they deal not with any material production in the world but with fundamental, universal human conditions. And from this we may draw a further inference: the more specialized the knowledge we acquire the more that knowledge distances us from our common humanity. The liberal arts, among their other virtues, temper that tendency toward division by restoring to our consciousness awareness of vital commonalities that strengthen social and emotional cohesion. Or, to put that another way, whereas the physical sciences focus our attention on the principles and processes governing the exterior, non-human world – the natural world apart from our affective relationship to it – the liberal arts focus our attention on the dynamics of our own engagement with one another and the material culture we create as expression of our human nature. By observing what we have done and how we have expressed ourselves over time, we come to an understanding of what we are capable of doing – for good or ill --, and this understanding can inform our own choices, our actions as participants in what former director of the National Endowment for the Arts Bill Ivey termed the “Expressive Life” of society. Moreover, sustained observation to and assimilation of our variegated cultural heritage makes us its custodians. What we know intimately becomes a significant part of who we are. Our own well-being becomes, in turn, a measure of our commitment to the work of becoming fully human. If this is the fundamental role of the liberal arts, the fine arts, far from being peripheral to this educative enterprise, can be seen to reside at the very center of it. The liberal arts inform us of our humanity – our potential for humane conduct as well as our regressive refusal to realize that potential. The fine arts invite us to participate in the creative practices which produce the very culture which we study in those academic disciplines. It is in this regard that engagement with the fine arts differs so dramatically from traditional academic disciplines. In all of our other studies, the content of our curricula is provided by others, by those who have previously made their contributions to our cultural heritage in the form of literary texts or recorded historical events or meritorious works of any kind. In a fine arts class – and it makes no difference whether we are speaking of writing or painting or dance or music or theater or of any of the ancillary arts supportive of these – the content presented for critical appraisal is generated by the student herself. This rather obvious, but nonetheless often overlooked, fact has serious implications both for understanding the vital role the arts play in the overall educative process and for understanding how
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complex are the standards for assessing work in these disciplines. To begin with, because the primary content of the he liberal arts inform us of our humanity course of study is provided by the student herself, she – our potential for humane conduct as well as becomes directly and very personally responsible for that content. Her role cannot be passive or recessive our regressive refusal to realize that potential. – she must produce the work or there will be nothThe fine arts invite us to participate in the ing to study. This reverses the dynamic of traditional academic class work, whether in the liberal arts or the creative practices which produce the so-called hard sciences. In those curricula, the content very culture which we study in those is provided to the student rather than by the student, and the task is to achieve understanding of that content academic disciplines. – intellectual and practical understanding. In the arts, the understanding the student seeks is augmented by an affective understanding, an emotional dimension which is integral to the work itself. One can attain an intellectual understanding of the Pythagorean Theorem and can demonstrate one’s ability to apply that theorem to the solution of a given problem, but it is the rare student indeed who will feel a deep emotional involvement with that knowledge, however much she may appreciate the aesthetic elegance of the theorem. If anything, the sciences encourage a dispassionate attitude, an emotional disengagement we call, with too little concern for either accuracy or desirability, “objectivity.” Such a posture is impermissible in a fine arts course. To take a straightforward example, if, in a creative writing class, the student submits a poem for which she herself, as author, feels no emotional commitment, no felt responsibility, any discussion of that poem’s merits (or probable lack thereof, in such an instance) will be wasted; the student will learn nothing of any importance. True, the class could address superficial matters of craft and technique, but neither they nor the student author can derive any value from such detached observations. Creative work requires – subsists upon – personal engagement with and responsibility for the work at hand. The student in a fine arts class occupies the same position with respect to her colleagues as does a player on an athletic team – if you do not show up and do not play your best – which is never solely a matter of technique – the game cannot be played properly. (And this, by the way, may account as much as anything for why just as few, if not fewer, students will choose to pursue careers as professional artists as choose careers as professional athletes – not because the arts are easy or undemanding nor is it solely a matter of innate talent. It is because sustained artistic activity requires unwavering discipline, constant practice, and unblinking self-scrutiny.)
The student in any fine arts class being personally responsible for the primary content of that class becomes, in turn, personally responsive to that work. Whereas in a literature class one studies closely the work of other artists, those recognized for their technical and thematic sophistication, in fine arts classes it is the students’ work that becomes subject to such searching inquiry. Through rigorous critical assessment of one’s own work, the student develops a heightened awareness of her own thought processes, her own sensibility, her own powers of personal expression even as she becomes aware that such powers can be cultivated and improved through continuous reflection and revision. This practice of mindful attention to her own work as well as to that of her colleagues enhances her capacity to respond, rather than react uncritically, to not only works of art but to any other mode of expressiveness. She becomes, in other words, more response-able, a crucial prerequisite for becoming more consciously responsible in her conduct. We might say that whereas the liberal arts engage students
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in an enquiry into our collective human heritage, the fine arts afford students the opportunity to cultivate their own capacities to contribute to that common cause. And whereas the liberal arts focus on the works and deeds of others, thereby allowing us to see what we are all capable of under any given set of circumstances, the fine arts invite us to self-examination, to see ourselves as agents rather than as mere observers. “Society does not create the artist. It is the artist who creates society, for it is the artist who shows us what life is possible.” Theodore Roethke Through sustained practice in the liberal and fine arts, students become increasingly aware of their own role in affecting the society and culture in which they find themselves. They become more actively engaged as agents for the preservation and the transformation of that society and that culture. This is what we mean when we speak of our children as being “the future.” Indeed, if we expect our children to mature into responsible adults, prepared to meet and to address the challenges of society
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his practice of mindful attention to her own work as well as to that of her colleagues enhances her capacity to respond, rather than react uncritically, to not only works of art but to any other mode of expressiveness. She becomes, in other words, more response-able, a crucial prerequisite for becoming more consciously responsible in her conduct.
Collaborative | Purposeful | Compassionate |
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with confidence, then we must provide them with an education that cultivates all of the skills, all of the human attributes conducive to that end. And this is why, at Ashley Hall, we have undertaken curricular initiatives that will meet those needs. From the Reggio-Emilia program in the Ross Early Education Center to the expansion of the Humanities program and the Harkness Table approach to instruction in the Upper School, our goal is to place the students in a position of personal responsibility for their own learning, to regard the teacher as a guide and mentor, not a hired contentprovider divorced form the subject matter and lacking in any personal commitment to the material or to the intellectual and emotional maturation of the individual student. This, too, is why we have implemented the Strings Program and the incorporated music, visual arts, and dance into the Lower and Intermediate School curricula. These offerings are not “Specials” – they are “Integrals,” essential to the development of the whole child – that child who will depart from Ashley Hall “an educated woman … independent, ethically responsible, and prepared to meet the challenges of society with confidence.” n
“Society does not create the artist. It is the artist who creates society, for it is the artist who shows us what life is possible.” -Theodore Roethke
Did you know? Recent studies have suggested – the results are still provisional – that prolonged reliance upon text messaging and on-line social networking sites tend to erode the user’s ability to recognize and respond to affective signals provided by vocal intonation and inflection, facial expressions, and body language. Thus, in actual face-to-face human interactions, these individuals fail to recognize those subtle clues which contextualize the concrete data conveyed though oral communication. This failure to recognize the signals makes it difficult for the individuals involved to respond to one another in any meaningful way. In short, the
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diminishment of one’s affective life is symptomatic of a diminished response-ability. which, in turn, can lead to a diminished sense of personal responsibility to and for others. A computer can be a tremendous storehouse of information. But thus far we have not succeeded in programming a computer to care about the information. Computers have no affect. Therefore, they cannot love what they know as we can. Learning to care about and for what we learn is crucial to sustaining that learning over a life-time. Performance in the fine arts proceeds from that kind of caring, from an emotional as well as an intellectual commitment to the expressive act.
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nnovative Arts Programming
Ashley Hall’s commitment to the Fine Arts has been a hallmark of the school for over 100 years. This longstanding and storied tradition has cultivated such nationally and internationally recognized artists as D’Anna Fortunato ‘63, Mena Suvari ‘97 and many others. The arts faculty teaching today is committed to continuing this legacy of fostering and cultivating creativity in all their students. n Cindy Andrews n Happy Byrd n Stephanie Christensen n Todd Christopher n Elsa Dixon n Robin Garner n Nancy Langston n Maida Libkin n Tiffany Rice n Rebecca Stone-Danahy n Mary Taylor n Carol Wellein n Jenny Weiss (violin), n Ben Weiss (violin and viola), n Aubrey Gray (cello), n Damian Kremer (cello), n Frances Hsieh (violin)
The projects described over the next four sections The Caterpillar Thriller, Project Based Sculpture, Moon Myths, and the Strings Evolution, are just a sampling of the innovative program and curriculum implemented by Ashley Hall’s Collaborative | Purposeful | Compassionate |
arts faculty.
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Grace Is
STRENGTH
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n 2012, dance teacher, Stephanie Christensen, introduced the Ashley Hall community to her beautiful and touching fable, The Caterpillar Thriller. A tale she penned in 1985 to provide her dance students with an alternative to the disjointed traditional recital, Caterpillar Thriller is a full length story told through dance that offers dancers of every skill level the opportunity to perform in a collaborative, staged production. The story itself is based in deeply personal experiences that Stephanie and her daughter faced in their earlier life together in Banff, Canada. What it gave to the Ashley Hall community was a culminating performance to her students’ dance program that awed audiences with its beautiful costumes, skilled dancers, incredible choreography, inspiring story for the ages, and its moral that touches the heart. The dance program at Ashley Hall was given a new life in 2009 when Stephanie joined the Physical Education faculty to teach dance to students in grades K-6. As students have matriculated through the curriculum the demand for dance courses has exploded and Stephanie now offers dance to students through grade 8. The K-5 students meet with her once a week as part of their PE curriculum and 6-8th graders can choose dance as an elective. She grounds this journey with instruction in classical ballet. Kindergarten students begin their dancing career with playful movement, learning such basic moves as pointing and pulling up. However, once they reach first grade, they head straight to the barre for their first half of class. The work is challenging, and the girls focus on strengthening their core musculature and mastering basic ballet positions and movements. After the warm up of structured movement, the students come off the barre and get to use what they have learned in more playful ways. They enjoy a unit called “Carnival of the Animals” during which they practice their skills imitating the movement of different animals; gliding like a fish, hopping like a kangaroo, and roaring from the core like a lion. “Ballet can be incredibly challenging. It is important that our community understands that I am not working to develop a generation of prima ballerinas. Instead, I want each student to benefit from what ballet can give to them, and it has something to give everyone. I don’t want my students to think about who is the best in the class,
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or measure their success against that of their classmates. Instead, I want them to push themselves to do the very best that they can with the instrument they have been given. Children are so very perceptive and honest. They know when they are being rewarded for mediocrity. This is something that I refuse to do, and they truly seem to appreciate it. When they hear from me that they have done a wonderful job, they know they have truly achieved something,” shares Stephanie. “Physically ballet builds the girls’ coordination and core strength incrementally, and this will allow them to continue to grow and stretch themselves in new ways. Mentally ballet demands its practitioners to use both sides of their brains as they work both sides of their body—often in a mirror. It also helps students to learn self discipline and understand the benefits of honest critique and self assessment. It is a discipline that opens up discussions of physics and leverage as we attempt leg lifts and vertical movement. However, it is also a language whose vocabulary grows with practice and allows its performers to tell complex stories. There is something that ballet can teach every student.” Stephanie’s background in English has only served to enhance her vision of dance as language and has cemented her dedication to helping students express themselves through it. “I view dance as the perfect vehicle for communication in every sense and for years have seen in my students the need to speak the truth as they perceive it. Dance allows them to speak from their hearts and from their whole bodies. As they become more experienced dancers, they become more fluent, and as they have more control of their movements, they can get their point across more clearly. A recital at the end of each year of instruction allows the students to showcase their talents, but the traditional recital is very limiting. Each class, and in some cases each student, tells a different story in a recital. A recital fosters no sense of collaboration or working for a singular purpose, and in most cases it doesn’t allow students to share something meaningful.” It was this understanding that prompted Stephanie to search for a new end of year showcase that would bring her classes together. Not finding a piece that met all her desires led her to write her now celebrated The Caterpillar Thriller. It is the story of a much maligned caterpillar who is seeking a friend, and, among the shows many messages, is the knowledge that true happiness comes from inside and is not about how you look. An interesting story to be told by ballet, an art form that some perceive as fostering the opposite. Her students from grade 3 and up performed individual dances that came together to tell this compelling tale. “The whole of the performance allowed every student to contribute to something greater than themselves, to be a part of something bigger than the individual. It brought them together to say something profound. That is the true meaning of community, communion, and communication,” says Stephanie. For her work teaching our students the beautiful language of dance, for instilling in them self-discipline and a desire to do their very best, and for bringing to our community a breathtaking production, we say to Stephanie Christensen, “Brava! Brava!” n
“The whole of the performance allowed every student to contribute to something greater than themselves, to be a part of something bigger than the individual. It brought them together to say something profound. That is the true meaning of community, communion, and communication.�
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hat can you learn from an empty 10 gallon aquarium? Project management, conceptualization, collaboration, critical thinking and observational skills, self assessment, adaptability, creativity, work ethic, and attention to detail, if Nancy Langston is using it as a catalyst to begin your project based sculpture class. Officially, Nancy teaches sculpture/3-D Design art to the 7th and 8th grade and Honors Studio Art and AP to 10th-12th grade students, however, the skills her students are taking away from her classes are much broader and have implications for how they will function in the world throughout their lives. It often begins for the 8th graders with an empty aquarium. “In the first days of my 8th grade class I divided the girls into groups of four and gave them an empty aquarium and the assignment to work together to design and create a site specific environment. From the start, this provided an opportunity to mentor the girls on their collaboration skills, helping them to understand unity of vision, how their commitment to their individual work impacts the quality of the final product, the necessity of sensitivity to other view points and the realization that nothing can be built upon negativity,” shares Langston. Additionally, as they work through this project, the girls investigate techniques, tools and concepts of art while developing
Project Based
SCULPTURE
In 2011, inspired by a classmates interest in street art, the Honors Art class completed a full installation piece for Jack’s Cosmic Dogs. They developed ideas, concepts, and themes around the unique culture and color palate of their client and presented a concept and scope of work to the owners. This collaborative piece can be now be viewed at Jack’s Cosmic Dogs on Highway 61 in West Ashley. 14 | The magazine of Ashley Hall
a responsive thought process. “When they first start the project they often look to me for answers to questions like, ‘How do I make this piece stand up?’ or ‘What do I need to use for the sky?’ I take these questions and give them back to them, have them think through to a solution, test this solution, and redirect their thinking.” For her students, this begins an examination and evolution of their thought process and redefines what failure means to them. “It is significant when a student spends an entire class working on an element of her project that in the end she realizes is not going to work. Learning to discern when something doesn’t work, the reason it doesn’t work, and then find a solution, instead of quitting or giving up, makes my students stronger in every aspect of their lives. Learning that important lesson, that between the exciting beginning and the fulfilling end there will be many missteps and a lot of really hard work, gives them the ability to step out of their comfort zone and try new things. It also encourages them to not be afraid to fail and, more importantly, to redefine their concept of failure. Succinctly, this group project teaches my youngest students skills that will make them not only better artists, but better thinkers and learners; respect, compromise, cohesion and unity, conceptualization, and analysis.” As students matriculate through the arts curriculum, the clear transfer of concepts learned in their advanced science and math courses becomes even more apparent. “Many of my students are visual learners. When they have to calculate ratios, proportions, or mass, their math lessons become much more compelling. When they are considering the coefficient of expansion or exploring the Mandelbrot Theory, they understand the
science in art. Woven through all this are the formal design concepts; balance, mass, tone, etc. Not surprisingly, my top students are also the students receiving awards in Physics and math. What may be surprising is that students have shared with me that my class is the one that seems to ‘challenge their brain the most.’ Having full control of their project means deciding what they are going to do, predicting, understanding, and solving their unique problems, and then being confident enough to analyze the outcomes and adapt. That can be pretty hard and scary for the girls. But these are the habits of mind that will serve them well in every aspect of their futures.” “Life is dynamic! Our future leaders will need to be adaptable and willing to take ownership of the most daunting challenges. They will need to be able to communicate and articulate both visually and verbally and have a strong work ethic. The visual arts department recognizes its role in developing all these skills in Ashley Hall girls and it is incredibly rewarding to watch a
student’s evolution into a critical thinker. However, underneath it all, it is still the beauty and wonder in that creative process that drives the arts that is the most personally fulfilling for me. Watching a student get lost in her creativity, in that moment of discovery and creation, is awesome. For me it feels almost primal. For in that moment she is doing something that she has never done before and is doing it beautifully. I think I have the best job in the world!” n
The visual arts department is committed to cultivating each student’s critical thinking, problem solving, project management and technical skills as they relate to the arts and beyond. They support the concept that purposeful engagement in the creative process is a direct reflection of the cultural advancement of a society thus an essential component of a well rounded education. Collaborativeclassical | Purposeful | Compassionate | 15
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unit that began with Carol Wellein’s 6th grade art class studying light and dark values evolved into an experience that allowed students to “slip those surly bounds of Earth” while combining many academic disciplines into a fantastical study of myth and the moon. A basic skill that 6th graders must master in their art course is value change and shading and the ability, with this technique, to make an object look 3D. It is not an easy skill to master, students must learn to really control their pencils, to impersonally observe their work, and to blend and shade in a delicate and precise manner. “We begin with 10 rectangles,” shares Carol. “Students must shade the rectangles from white to black with the correct progression of shades of grey in between. They have to frequently step back and evaluate their work and make adjustments and learn precise pressure control of their instrument. To exemplify the technique and demonstrate the power of shading to bring contours and a 3D quality to a flat object we studied paintings and photographs of the moon. When observing the moon it is clearly not a flat disc
Taking STEAM
TO THE MOON
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in the sky, but why our eye perceives its depth is the lesson in the art of value change and shading.” Coincidently, while Carol was beginning her lunar study with 6th graders, the College of Charleston opened an exhibit on the moon, and Ashley Hall 4th graders were keeping moon journals in which they observed the moon each night and recorded and drew its phases. “So many opportunities for collaboration presented themselves and I was especially excited to show once again the clear connections of skills used in art transferring to scientific study, while collaborating not only cross-curricularly, but cross divisionally as well. I wanted this unit of study that had so engaged the girls to offer them opportunity in every aspect of their education.” Carol states. Carol’s students quickly moved from pencil sketches to tempera paint, mixing black and white to achieve their precise shades of grey and blending the colors to bring life to their earliest moon paintings. And then came color! But how do you bring color to a painting of the moon that appears in a black sky in shades of grey? Carol had a solution. She contacted children’s librarian Felicia Craig and had her pull examples of myths that had been told about the moon throughout time, and from there, learning opportunities exploded. Each student chose her favorite myth to share with the class, and then had to write her own myth and illustrate a scene from it. This project was so much richer than its humble beginnings. As the girls read their myths aloud to their classmates they accepted critique from fellow students that challenged them to change their thinking and more fully develop their stories. “The creativity of the group was inspiring. We had frogs and wolves and unicorns all tied to the moon. Then the
challenge to illustrate a scene from their own work engaged them in the project in a way that illustrating someone else’s work would not. The myths they wrote were of course an exercise for them in creative writing and grammar. I required all students to turn in their moon myths to me in typed, formal MLA format. However this was not the greatest challenge the students accepted during this project. Transferring the skills they had learned in black and white shading to color value is difficult and can be tedious. But the girls persevered, they did it, and what resulted was some of the best art I have ever seen produced by 6th grade students. The ownership of their stories, the difficulty of the work, and the engagement with their subject matter all led to this achievement.” Carol shares. However, Carol wasn’t finished yet, she also contacted fourth grade teacher Polly Rainey and writing specialist Jane Pelland, and had the students come together to read to each other their myths and their moon journals. “Speaking in front of an audience can be challenging for some of the girls, even when your audience is made up of 4th graders. But as with most challenges the girls excelled,
even the most reticent students. Then, of course, some of them just shone. I remember as Imani Williams was sharing her story with her group I kept hearing peals of laughter. Those girls were simply in stitches. Imani had really gotten into it and was acting out her myth much to the delight of her audience.” For Carol this moon myth project provides just one more example of the diversity of strengths that are brought to students through the inclusion of arts in primary and secondary education. Critical thinking, learning to ask the essential questions and find their answers, collaboration and observational skills, self discipline and critique, and empathy are just few of the benefits she observes. Her decades long dedication to consistently demonstrating the connections between art and all academic disciplines led her to suggest the introduction of the arts into the Intermediate School’s STEM program. Ashley Hall’s new STEAM curriculum is just one of many examples of Carol’s lifelong commitment to her students’ success and of the role she gladly embraces as champion of arts in education. n Compassionate | Collaborative | Purposeful |
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he 2012-2013 school year will begin the eighth year of the strings program at Ashley Hall. And while it is clichéd it seems most appropriate to say “You have come a long way baby!” What started as a Kindergarten violin class has blossomed into a program that now includes the viola and cello and is open to the community. About 60% of the girls continue with their strings instruction after their Kindergarten year. They move into the applied lessons program through which they take private instruction, however they still participate in a group class weekly. In Intermediate School the program has grown as students have moved into 5th and 6th grade to include 3 group lessons during their school day and next year, as those first students enter 7th grade, Strings will be introduced as an arts elective for the students of Jenkins Hall. Looking back on the progression of the program and the matriculation of its students, violin teacher Tiffany Rice proudly shares the changes she has seen in the girls who have participated. “I can always pick out the girls who have participated in the strings programs. Their poise and self confidence is apparent as they participate in the myriad of activities that require public speaking that Ashley Hall offers them. They have learned through their strings the importance of perseverance and self discipline, and these are just the outward benefits anyone can see.” Strings faculty member Mary Taylor also notes the changes she has seen in her students and how their musical training becomes a part of who they are, “Playing the violin has contributed to the de-
STRINGS
Evolution
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Ashley Hall strings faculty velopment of each Ashley Hall girl. It has developed grace, poise and appreciation for others. These traits are exhibited for all to see in many ways and in a variety of settings. Studying the violin has formed and molded each girl in in a way that nothing else can. One of my students who has played for six years says that she cannot imagine being without her violin, even though she aspires to be a doctor.” Taught using a modified Suzuki method* the strings curriculum teaches girls the benefits of hard work and perseverance from the beginning and requires the engagement of the parents to make the lessons fun. Much like a language, repetition, continual practice and immersion, and the desire to learn are critical to a student’s success in the program. The program purposefully begins in the Kindergarten as students are at the ideal age for the challenges of the program. Tiffany shares, “It seems strange to some that 5 years old is the ideal age to begin, but truthfully the Kindergarten students are the perfect participants. They are physically looser at that age, they have the attention span necessary to concentrate on the program for thirty minutes, and at that age their brains are sponges. They simply soak up the instruction. The program is right for their cognitive development as well; it teaches coordination and enhances gross and fine motor skills, as the girls are using both hands separately. One hand may be moving fast while the other slow or one hand may need to be heavy and the other light. It is also developing their auditory processes and listening skills.” Not surprisingly, the girls who participate are also more efficient in math. From the very beginning of their program they are learning rhythm which is based in counting, and as they progress the strings students are introduced to fractions much earlier than their classmates. “Students are constantly using math as they learn
a stringed instrument. They have to understand how to count how many half notes are in a measure, what percentage of their bow to use if they have to play four notes on the same bow or a half note in two beats. Each year I draw and divide the fraction pie to introduce the idea of subdivision to our youngest students. Not only does this begin their education in fractions, but it also gives them a very real application for it, so when they begin fractions in their math courses, these girls already have an edge.” By the time students have advanced into the Intermediate School program the foundational ground work in music theory and basic skills has been laid. Students then begin to learn to play expressively, to convey the emotion of the music to their audiences. Quite an amazing accomplishment for these young girls! They are also performing for the community during Piccolo Spoleto and last year in a unique partnership with the Ballet Academy of Charleston for the Rainbow Fish ballet. This experience introduced the girls to playing in the pit and brought a whole new level of critical thinking to their performance. Students needed to not only be focused on their individual instrument, but keenly in tune with what was happening with the musicians around them and adapting their playing. When dancers who were using the strings music as their performance cues were added it just intensified the process. The tempo of the music became of the utmost importance because the dancers depended upon them for rythm. As the program continues to grow the entire strings faculty, Mary Taylor (violin), Jenny Weiss (violin), Ben Weiss (violin and viola), Aubrey Gray (cello), Damian Kremer (cello), Tiffany Rice (violin) and Frances Hsieh (violin) are working to develop a balanced Ashley Hall strings orchestra that will perform at music festivals and compete around the state. In past years all Kindergarteners started on the violin and then could switch to viola or cello in first grade. For the first time in the 2012-2013 school year some Kindergarteners will be starting on the cello. The cello has all the exact same benefits of violin instruction and will offer the girls more variety in future strings ensembles. Engaging our youngest students with this low string will build a more robust program while allowing our students to experience all the wonderful benefits of strings instruction. From Kindergarteners plucking and stamping out the Ant Song, to a sixth grader emoting through her instrument to a packed house, to an Ashley Hall String Orchestra performing throughout the state, who knows where this program and her students will go next. It is a signature program of the school and one of which we should all be rightfully proud. n
Suzuki
* More than fifty years ago, Japanese
violinist Shinichi Suzuki realized the implications of the fact that children the world over learn to speak their native language with ease. He began to apply the basic principles of language acquisition to the learning of music, and called his method the mother-tongue approach. The ideas of parent responsibility, loving encouragement, constant repetition, etc., are some of the special features of the Suzuki approach. Parent Involvement: As when a child learns to talk, parents are involved in the musical learning of their child. They attend lessons with the child and serve as “home teachers” during the week. One parent often learns to play before the child, so that she understands what the child is expected to do. Parents work with the teacher to create an enjoyable learning environment. Early Beginning: The early years are crucial for developing mental processes and muscle coordination. Listening to music should begin at birth; formal training may begin at age three or four, but it is never too late to begin. Listening: Children learn words after hearing them spoken hundreds of times by others. Listening to music every day is important, especially listening to pieces in the Suzuki repertoire so the child knows them immediately. Repetition: Constant repetition is essential in learning to play an instrument. Children do not learn a word or piece of music and then discard it. They add it to their vocabulary or repertoire, gradually using it in new and more sophisticated ways. Encouragement: As with language, the child’s effort to learn an instrument should be met with sincere praise and encouragement. Each child learns at his/her own rate, building on small steps so that each one can be mastered. Children are also encouraged to support each other’s efforts, fostering an attitude of generosity and cooperation. Learning with Other Children: In addition to private lessons, children participate in regular group lessons and performance at which they learn from and are motivated by each other. Graded Repertoire: Children do not practice exercises to learn to talk, but use language for its natural purpose of communication and self-expression. Pieces in the Suzuki repertoire are designed to present technical problems to be learned in the context of the music rather than through dry technical exercises. Taken from the Suzuki Association of the Americas at www.suzukiassociation.org
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N T ELL I G E N T
The Art in Engineering “Still waters run deep” is a phrase that comes to mind when you first talk to Danielle Feerst ‘12. Her generous smile, confident yet kind demeanor, and sweet voice all provide a wonderful wrapping for a keen mind that lives with an artist’s soul, and her quiet spirituality lends her a connectedness to the world around her that shines through the clutter of conversation. In every sense of the words, Danielle is truly an Ashley Hall girl.
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Danielle has been involved in the arts from a very young age, beginning with piano lessons at 7. She has also studied dance, theater and voice; taking advantage of every opportunity at Ashley Hall to practice her craft. In 7th grade she landed her first starring role as the cat in Franz Krasa’s production of the children’s opera Brundibar, during which she met Ela Weisberger who played the same role while imprisoned in Terezin concentration camp. (So moved by the experience Danielle keeps a picture of herself with Mrs. Weisberger on her bedside table.) Capping off with her lead in the school’s production of Into the Woods, and with performances in Noye’s Fludde, Comedy of Errors, Little Women, and several others in between, her arts experiences have been vast. Although Danielle acknowledges that her confidence has been built by being on stage, it is not being on stage that is the best part of theater for her. She prefers the backstage moments, before the curtain opens, and the after parties when the final curtain has closed. The camaraderie and collaboration of theater production is what inspires her best performances and feeds her soul. She has found this same camaraderie as a member of the school’s Red Choir. “When you are on stage and singing in front of someone, you are very vulnerable,” shares Danielle. “But when you are surrounded by your best friends, friends that you know will support you through thick and thin, the vulnerability disappears and is replaced with a sense of confidence and accomplishment.”
“Whether I am the spokesperson for an engineering firm or the public relations person for a big robotics corporation, sharing my knowledge with others is something that I have learned also feeds my soul. It calls upon all the skills I have learned through my theater and arts experiences and provides many of the same collegial rewards.�
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anielle Feerst ’12
Collaborative | Discerning | Creative |
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And accomplished she is. Danielle was accepted and attended the summer Spoleto Study Abroad program that is reserved for the most talented students, has travelled to Austria, Hungary and Italy with the school’s Red Choir, and performed with the group in St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. But it is not the big performances that have had the most lasting impression on Danielle. Instead it is the smaller, more intimate venues in which she can really connect to her audience and fellow performers that are the most rewarding for her. “First I have to tell you that my participation in the arts at Ashley Hall has given me so many opportunities I never would have had. These incredible trips to countries around the world have really given me a more global perspective, or I guess I should use our Ashley Hall Hallmark ‘worldly’,” she laughs. “Yes, singing in the Vatican was amazing, but by the time we were actually stepping up to perform we had built this experience up so much and were so amped and nervous that we couldn’t settle into truly experiencing the moment. The most memorable performance for me of our entire trip through Italy was in a tiny chapel outside of Sorento. It was an incredibly beautiful chapel, small and intimate, and when Dr. Garner asked if we could sing our hostess gladly agreed. As we rose to sing
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Cantate Domino you could feel something special was happening. By the end of the song we were all in tears: my father, Dr.Garner, Ms. Webb, and the entire choir including myself. It was just a deeply spiritual and moving moment. These experiences, and the ability to observe them, and take them in, I credit to my arts education. You learn to observe what is around you and the people that are around you…to really be in the moment and fully experience each moment. This gets lost in our world sometimes now. How can you truly experience the moment if you are tweeting or texting about it? These are moments I wouldn’t trade for anything.” So when it came time for Danielle to choose her Senior Project what did this girl with the artist’s soul and spiritual nature choose to research and leave legacy to? Why engineering and robotics of course! Through the course of her college visits Danielle fell in love with Tufts University, and when the time came to begin her Junior Internship, she naturally began to research opportunities there. “I have always been very interested in science and had thought a lot about engineering as a career choice, but didn’t really understand what it would entail. When I was looking for
internships at Tufts, this was always in the back of my mind, so when my father and I came across a link from the Tufts website to the Center for Engineering Education Outreach, I knew I had struck gold. We contacted the Director of the Center, Dr. Chris Rogers, and spoke to him about my interest and opportunities that might be available for me to intern with them. Little did I know I was talking to the man that would help shape my life by mentoring me through this process, introducing me to the world of Lego robotics, and giving me the tools, knowledge and desire to bring this incredible world of engineering and robots back to the Ashley Hall students.” Danielle shares. Senior Projects at Ashley Hall require the girls to include both an aspect of research and service. Like many Ashley Hall seniors who take on this daunting challenge, Danielle’s ambitions were boundless. She wanted to produce quantifiable, graduate level research on why gender influences the impact of interactive tools and the ability and motivation to learn higher levels of math and science. Dr. Rogers and her Ashley Hall advisor, Mrs. Hughes, helped her to channel her enthusiasm into a manageable project. She created a project plan and presented it to the entire staff of the Engineering Education Outreach Center, a daunting task in
Parlez-vous français ?
These experiences and the ability to observe them, and take them in, I credit to my arts education. You learn to observe what is around you and the people that are around you, to really be in the moment and fully experience each moment. itself, and was rewarded with their experienced insights and offers to be a resource for her as she moved through the project. What was this more manageable project? To research current robotic technologies and uses in health care through a partnership with the MUSC Robotics lab and to teach a course to a select group of Intermediate School girls that would ignite their interest in robotics and engineering as a potential career path.
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“My mission with the class at Ashley Hall was to motivate my students to learn more about science and engineering. To show them the real technologies that are currently being used and the jobs associated with them. I wanted them to start thinking that a career in engineering is a real possibility for them and give them a tangible application of the math they were learning, hopefully inspiring them to understand and love math. Something that took 12 years and this project for me to do.” Danielle tells me with a smile. So every Friday in second semester four Intermediate School girls met with Danielle to learn more about robotics and engineering. Danielle collaborated with technology instructor, Vicki McCortney, and used a curriculum that had been written specifically for this purpose by Dr. Rogers and his colleagues. She opened each class with an article or current event about robotics and led a Harkness style discussion with her students. They then moved on to hands-on projects, building and coding their own robots using two Lego Mindstorm NXT kits provided by Tufts. “The system we used to program our robots, LabTeach 2010 Education Edition, is extremely complex and a challenging system to learn. Most K-12 programs use a system called Brick by Brick that is much simpler and more kid friendly, but I wanted to stretch the girls I was teaching and they more than rose to the challenge. The math used in this system is also much more advanced than Brick by Brick. We were measuring the circumference of our robot’s wheels and calculating the number of rotations needed to achieve our goal distance at a rate and in the time we desired. It was so inspiring watching these 5th and 6th graders engage with the process. They began to see the application behind the math they were learning and were able, in many cases, to complete a build quicker than I was. It only cemented my hypothesis that the earlier we start engaging students in these activities, the more agile they will be in their manipulation of the tools. I feel like the way I think through things is much more set than these younger students who are just beginning to study higher math, they can more easily adapt the way they learn to the subject at hand.” Danielle shares. When asked about the most rewarding part of her Senior
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Project, Danielle lights up, “It was amazing to see how invested in the projects the girls became. I had students calling me on the weekends to talk about a particular challenge she was facing designing or programming her robot. I also had the mother of one of my students relate to me that her daughter was now asking for more advanced robotics kits for Christmas and what would I advise her to buy. It was incredibly fulfilling and cemented for me that in whatever field I go into in the future I want education to be a part of it. Whether I am the spokesperson for an engineering firm or the public relations person for a big robotics corporation, sharing my knowledge with others is something that I have learned also feeds my soul. It calls upon all the skills I have learned through my theater and arts experiences and provides many of the same collegial rewards.” After two capstone fieldtrips, one to the MUSC Robotics lab and one to a local First Lego League robotics competition, Danielle’s class ended, but not her commitment to the program. Seeing the great success of this class and her students’ enthusiasm she wanted to ensure that future girls at Ashley Hall have the same opportunity to experience engineering in this way, so she came up with a budget and a goal. She knew she needed funding to: 1.Partner with the College of Charleston to provide additional resources for future instructors and build a network of contacts in the community for students, 2.To purchase additional Lego robotics kits, and 3.Create and support an Ashley Hall team to participate in the First Lego League competition. With the assistance of the Institutional Office of Advancement at Ashley Hall she found a donor to fund the program for next year and is incredibly grateful and exhilarated to see her work continue. The future for Danielle is a wide open sea. The opportunities presented to her because of her unique skill set, her boundless enthusiasm, and her commitment to continually challenging herself are virtually endless. Perhaps she will become the first thespian to build a robot onstage or the first engineer to produce a robotic singing virtuoso. Whatever she does, in the world she will bring joy to those she meets and be inspirational for all the Ashley Hall girls who come after her.
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About Spoleto Study Abroad
B
efore her tenure as Ashley Hall’s Head of School, Jill Muti and her husband Lorenzo, with the support of seven independent schools and private funding from both the United States and Italy, created Spoleto Study Abroad, a non-profit educational organization. Its initial purpose, to enrich professional development opportunities for teachers, school administrators and interested adults through exposure to the historical, architectural, and cultural riches of the Italian arts and humanities, quickly evolved to include a hands-on immersion program in the arts and humanities for students ages 15-19. Over the last 17 years, the two distinct programs have enjoyed continued success and have grown significantly. A new program has been established for consortium schools to develop or expand their international programs to a european city. The number of independent schools in the consortium has more than doubled from seven to seventeen. A Board of Directors, comprised of Heads of School or designated delegates from their schools, governs the organization. The student program offers focused study in vocal music, visual arts, photography, drama, and creative writing. Admission to the program is selective and open only to students who are serious about art, humanities and gaining a worldly perspective. Once accepted, students are offered a unique opportunity to work closely with talented faculty and motivated peers from around the world. Students participate in structured courses to enhance their area of expertise and must regularly present their work in progress to their peers. They are asked to explain their inspirations, concepts, techniques and any challenges they face, thus fostering each student’s capacity to reach new artistic and intellectual heights. All of this intensive work culminates with formal presentations of student work in an art show, drama
performances, literary readings and chamber and choral concerts. In addition to developing their artistic talent, students take twice-weekly day trips to cities throughout Umbria, Lazio, and Tuscany. Living and studying in an environment rich with history, art and natural beauty can be profoundly transformative for a student of the arts. Since Ashley Hall joined the consortium schools of Spoleto Study Abroad in 2005, 17 Ashley Hall students have been accepted to the program. For more information on Spoleto Study Abroad visit www.spoletostudyabroad.com Consortium Schools Ashley Hall, Charleston, SC, | Charlotte Latin, Charlotte, NC | Convent of the Visitation School, Mendota Heights, MN | Detroit Country Day School, Beverly Hills, MI | Hammond School, Columbia, SC | Heathwood Hall, Columbia, SC | The Culver Academies, Culver, IN | The Lovett School, Atlanta, GA |Marist School, Atlanta, GA | Park Tudor School, Indianapolis, IN | Porter-Gaud School, Charleston, SC | Ravenscroft School, Raleigh, NC | Saint Mary’s School, Raleigh, NC | Stevenson School, Pebble Beach, CA | Virginia Episcopal School, Lynchburg, VA | Castilleja School, Palo Alto, CA | Hutchison School, Memphis, TN
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P
urposeful
Meet Rebecca Stone-Danahy
How appropriate that an artist whose work is focused on the
history of time and place has come to Charleston to excitedly step into the very big shoes left by Meyriel Edge’s retirement. Rebecca Stone-Danahy is a multi-media artist whose work explores the history of place and the changes that time brings to it. Her most recent work explores her family’s long history as tobacco farmers on an area in Pennsylvania that is now mini malls and suburban sprawl. If history is what fascinates her, she will surely feel right at home bringing her 20 years of experience as an arts educator to the Holy City. Raised in a rural town, Rebecca did not have the advantage of a strong arts program in her local school system, often finding her creative outlets through her participation in 4H programs sewing and creating furniture. She did, however, have an incredibly dedicated and talented art teacher who, without the benefit of a sizeable arts budget, inspired and mentored her love of the arts. Combine this with parents who were both teachers, and her time teaching swimming lessons and being a camp counselor, and Rebecca knew from her first day attending Miami University in Ohio that her calling was to be an art teacher. Rebecca’s teaching philosophy was shaped during her years at Miami University as she was instructed by professors who studied under Viktor Lowenfeld, the renowned philosopher who helped to define and develop the field of art education in the United States. Rebecca’s pedagogy views arts instruction as a student driven process using the base skill level of each student to define a unique curricular path that will incrementally improve their specific skill set. “Arts instruction begins with process, “says Rebecca. “I assess my students’ level of mastery early and develop lessons designed to refine their skill set, moving them towards
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creating their final best work. Theoretically I work with my students for four years. I start at their level in the first year and push them as hard as they will let me to improve their skill level. This prepares the girls who want to build a career around the arts for the challenging college experience and for the expanding world of career choices that will require their skills. Career opportunities for artistically minded graduates are exploding. Opportunities in architecture, industrial design, animation, technology and so many more require creative thinkers who are problem solvers. Exactly what the arts teaches. Additionally, I have built a large network of contacts across the US through my involvement in NAEA that I am able to utilize to help my students find and enter the career path that is right for them.” Her experience with the National Association of Arts Educators (NAEA) is another benefit Rebecca brings to Ashley Hall. Her participation with the group began while she was in college and has continued throughout her career. She has worked with the NAEA to bring the importance of the arts in education back to the forefront of national dialogue and with the NAEA president to influence national policy. Her experience with the organization led her to found a national issue group for independent school arts teachers to discuss and shape potential resolution for the unique challenges they face. She is also the editor for the NAEA’s publication The Advisor which focuses on interpreting new neurological research through the lens of the K-12 arts educator. Rebecca will begin her tenure at Ashley Hall in 2012, and the school, its students, and its arts program welcome this seasoned educator with excitement.
W
ORL D LY
Meet Todd Christopher His voice gives him away. The minute
Todd Christopher greets you, you immediately recognize one of the great gifts that he is bringing to the students of Ashley Hall. Sonorous and strong, his voice is the embodiment of the conviction he exudes as he discusses his passion for teaching and performing and his enthusiasm for his new position as Coordinator of the Performing Arts as Ashley Hall. Todd Christopher grew up in a small community in Ohio, received his BA in Music Education at The Ohio State University and his Masters in Vocal Performance at Northern Arizona University. He credits his love of music and singing to a much venerated Mrs. Grey, his elementary school music teacher, whose name comes up often in his conversations. “If you become a good singer, you know who your elementary school teacher was,” Todd laughs. However it was not and is not all about music for him. He is a gifted and versatile athlete, a diehard Buckeye fan, a classically trained opera singer, a math lover, a dedicated teacher, and much, much more. “Growing up, I was that kid that was into every sport. I played basketball, golf, and made the state finals in baseball one year. I would come home from practice, eat dinner, and then dive into a choral practice. Music and art are simply a part of me. I grew up in that world. Besides being an educator, my father was a wonderful tap dancer, and my mother would take me to the ballet and theatrical performances. Today I recognize that performance feeds my soul, and as great as hitting that perfect golf shot or the game clinching homerun, there is something, for me, that is profoundly more satisfying in singing or performing for people. Performance engages the audience in a different way than athletics, and it is what I want to share with my students.” For the last ten years Todd has spent nine months of the year teaching at Wapakoneta High School, a large public school in Wapakoneta, Ohio. There he directed 5 choirs, a musical theater/ acting class, and Singsation, a competition Showchoir. He also directed the school’s theatrical productions that have included Les Miserables, Aida, Phantom of the Opera, and West Side Story, to name a few. The other three months he dedicates to teaching at the Wyoming Seminary Performing Arts Institute, an intensive immersive arts program for the most dedicated students where, within just six weeks, he and his students work together to put on a culminating major theatrical performance which have included Cabaret, Oliver and Kiss Me Kate. Simply put, Todd lives to teach and to share his passion for making every theatrical performance the very best it can be, and his teaching philosophy
mirrors Ashley Hall’s dedication to nurturing critical thinking, perseverance, and collaboration in all its students. “In every class I believe you have to stretch and push your students to not only be the very best they can be, but to also look at things in a new way, and to take their perceptions and draw conclusions that will shed new light on a subject for their classmates and their teacher. Of course it is clear that the cross curricular reach of arts in education benefits the students, but the arts also require students to always bring their best to a class, to not compromise on their performance. Whether it is in an AP Calculus class or a Choral performance, you cannot have success without doing your very best. The rewards for a fine performance in the arts are usually instant, a roaring crowd or a standing ovation, I wish you could have these things when you ace your Calculus exam,” Todd shares with a big laugh. This philosophy is what initially made Ashley Hall so appealing to Todd, then after meeting his potential colleagues and accessing what he calls “an already incredible arts program that can only get better,” his decision was cemented. “Meeting Jill and connecting with her vision for the potential of the arts program, and then getting to spend time with the talented and dedicated faculty already in place, Maida (Maida Libkin, Director of Theater) Robin (Robin Garner, Director of the Red Choir) and all the others, made moving 700 miles from an area I had known my entire life an easy decision. Oh and that Ashley Hall happened to be in Charleston just sweetened the deal.” Todd starts his new position as Coordinator of Performing Arts in the fall semester at Ashley Hall. He will be teaching a theater course to the 6th grade and managing the master arts calendar for all theatrical and choral performances and for the Applied Lessons program. He will also be aiding and assisting the entire performing arts faculty in whatever ways he can to make their performances the best they can be. With Steel Magnolias and the childrens’ opera, Chip and His Dog, coming up in the fall and a performance of Fiddler on the Roof at Memminger Auditorium in which the entire Ashley Hall community will be offered a chance to participate in the spring, he has his worked laid out for him. However this scope of work has only fanned the flames of his enthusiasm for the potential he sees for Ashley Hall’s performing arts program. “Just wait,” he grins. “I am going to get some Ashley Hall Dad’s with power tools to help us build incredible sets to support Maida’s performances, I want to bring an elegance mixed with Panther pride to Davies auditorium, and then, maybe, some day, I hope to be a part of building a worldclass performance venue for this inspiring program.”
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K at h y V a n s a n t B at e s ’65
What does creativity mean to me? It’s a chance to get so lost in a subject that you exist beyond self, place and time. You give yourself over to the paint flowing onto paper, words gathering into sentences and paragraphs. You emerge exhausted but elated. And you have to go back for more. That drive for creativity has fueled my entire career—first as a writer and editor, then as a painter of watercolors. My first foray into writing came at Ashley Hall, when I wrote a first-person essay describing the sensation of competing in a swimming race. Competitive swimming had been my passion before coming here as a boarding student in 1963. To my surprise, the essay was published in Cerberus (our literary magazine) and was awarded a prize at the end of the year. Little did I know how telling that essay would be. After all, I wanted to be a teacher, not a writer. And teach I did for one memorable year at Ashley Hall. In the classroom I tried to impart the solid grammatical and analytical footing taught me by the
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A show featuring Kathy’s paintings is opening March 1 at Spencer Art Gallery ll, 57 Broad Street.
legendary Elizabeth Keith. But I also encouraged the students to think outside the box—to express their own distinctive viewpoints when commenting on the literature. When I went to graduate school and found that people with doctorates in English were likely to be unemployed in the 1970s, I dropped out of the graduate program and began working in the public relations office of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. How fascinating! As a scientific neophyte, I wrote articles about medical research and translated the doctors’ arcane language into understandable prose. If they could explain it to me, then I could explain it to everyone else. While in Chapel Hill I also edited the medical school’s alumni
C magazine and books for the UNC Press. Later I wrote for Centre College and created an alumni magazine for the University of Louisville. Putting words on paper and editing the words of others led me to explore many fields. It was ever intriguing. Interest in publishing began when I attended the Publishing Procedures Course at Radcliffe College right after college graduation. We spent six weeks studying all aspects of magazine and book publishing—as taught by professionals in the field. That led to the writing and editing. Then came painting. When my son was a toddler, he opened his first set of children’s watercolors and said, “Mommy, come paint with me.” So I sat down on the kitchen floor and had a blast! The art was a delightful surprise. And it remains so today. When we moved to New Jersey in 1991, I took my first class in watercolor and never looked back. I was captivated by the paint spilling from brush to paper and blending into new and unexpected forms. As a student at the Ridgewood Art Institute for 15 years, I learned the fine points of creating a form, depicting light falling on the subject and mixing colors. My instructor, Joel Popadics, blessed me with sound technique and a prismatic palette—a palette containing only the primary colors (red, blue and yellow). From those three colors he taught us how to create any color we needed. Watercolor’s very unpredictability fascinates and challenges me. Regardless of how well I plan, the pigment-filled brush often makes its own way once it hits the paper. I try to communicate that freedom in every painting so that you will see, not only an arresting subject, but a painting that conveys the particularly evanescent, glowing quality that informs transparent watercolor. In each painting I hope to translate the play of light and form into a distinctive connection—an emotional attachment, a favorite memory, or an aspiration—that will tie you to the work. Every subject has its own rhythm, its own demands. If I can capture that rhythm, then I can convey the emotional core of the subject. I find it endlessly enthralling to watch the colors flow together as I try to reach that essence of the painting. In every case the subject determines my approach. Sometimes I wet the paper and charge the colors onto the glistening surface. Once that is dry, I create the light effect by painting the shadows and leaving some edges lost. At other times I start with dry paper and carefully describe the form by painting the lightest lights followed by increasing values of shadow until the contrast is both apparent and dramatic.
RE A T I V E
Lately, I’ve been integrating writing and painting by identifying a phrase—a theme—that I want to convey. Then I try to determine what I will need to do to communicate that theme. I constantly ask myself, “What do I want to say? How can I say it?” If I can answer that question well, I have a good chance of painting a decent painting. It’s been an enthralling journey—one that invites others to come along. Creativity exists apart from artistic endeavors. In fact, dictionary.com defines creativity as “the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.” Each of us has the ability to see the world in a unique fashion—a creative fashion. What captures your imagination? What would you really like to do if only you had the time? All of us lead very busy lives, but I think it essential that we all carve out some time—be it 10 minutes a day or 30 minutes a week—to pursue something that lifts us up the way nothing else can. It’s essential to keeping the rest of those demanding voices and activities in their proper perspective. If you feel overwhelmed by career, family and other obligations, then step back and, as Joseph Campbell often said, “Follow your bliss.” You never know where that will lead.
Follow your bliss.
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Ashley Hall Loyalty Fund
Did you know that the Ashley Hall Classes of 2011 and 2012 were offered over $6.3 million in merit based scholarships to attend their colleges of choice? They were recruited by top, nationally recognized colleges and universities and able to attend the universities of their dreams because of the foundation that was laid during their years at Ashley Hall. This is the crowning achievement of an Ashley Hall education. Developing the full potential of every student at Ashley Hall is possible because of the continued financial support of the entire school community. This year our goal is $725,000. Please consider making a gift today.
It all starts with you. Make your gift today.
Mail your check to Ashley Hall in the provided envelope or make a gift online at www.ashleyhall.org Please contact Sarah Evans, Director of the Loyalty Fund and Donor Relations at evanss@ashleyhall.org or 843-965-8547 with questions.
Please welcome Ashley Hall’s new Director of Annual Giving and Donor Relations, Sarah Evans.
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“And now MY journey begins. As I step into the next phase of my development, it is evident that my preparation throughout my high school years at Ashley Hall has equipped me with the necessary tools that will allow me to be successful at Spelman College. The unique exposure of attending an all girls’ school will continue throughout my college years while I pursue a Chemistry degree at Spelman, an all-girls college.” Princess Iheanetu ’12, Spelman College
Congratulations and PQV to the Ashley Hall Class of 2012 The University of Alabama Alaska Pacific University Auburn University Bates College Belmont Abbey College Boston College Boston University Case Western Reserve University College of Charleston Clemson University Clemson University (Honors) University of Colorado at Boulder Davidson College DePaul University Drexel University Duke University Eckerd College Emory University Fordham University Furman University Georgetown University University of Georgia Hampton University Hobart and William Smith Colleges Howard University University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Johns Hopkins University Lander University Lehigh University Loyola University Chicago Loyola University New Orleans McGill University Mercer University
Miami University, Oxford University of Mississippi The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University of North Carolina at Wilmington The Ohio State University Pennsylvania State University, Princeton University Purdue University Queens University of Charlotte Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute University of Rhode Island Rhodes College University of Richmond University of Rochester Roger Williams University University of San Francisco Savannah College of Art and Design Sewanee: The University of the South Skidmore College Smith College Trinity College University of South Carolina, Beaufort University of South Carolina University of South Carolina (Honors) University of Southern California Southern Methodist University Spelman College University of St. Andrews (Scotland) Syracuse University Texas Christian University Tufts University Tulane University Vanderbilt University
Villanova University University of Virginia Wake Forest University Washington and Lee University Washington College Washington University in St. Louis University of Washington College of William and Mary University of Wisconsin, Madison Wofford College
“Ashley Hall has given me so much more than just an academic education. It has given me a foundation of morals to build upon as I set off from home and the confidence to thrive in a completely different learning environment. I couldn’t feel more prepared for this new chapter in my life.” Caroline Lowery ’12, University of North Carolina
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C
reate our Future The Endowment Campaign for Ashley Hall
Thank you!
T
our
$11,000,000 $10,000,000 $9,000,000 $8,000,000 $7,000,000 $6,000,000 $5,000,000 $4,000,000 $3,000,000 $2,000,000 $1,000,000
Create
GOAL
$12,000,000
Future
he alumnae, parents, faculty and friends that comprise the Ashley Hall community have demonstrated their conviction that the continued fulfillment of Ashley Hall’s founding mission is both necessary and meritorious through their generous donations to the Centennial Endowment Campaign. Gifts and pledges totaling more than $11.75 million have tripled the school’s original endowment and will have direct and lasting impact on all facets of Ashley Hall’s educational programs. Recent donations attest to this.
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Students The family of Candace S. Orvin Palmer ’65 is funding a $50,000 scholarship in memory of Candace S. Orvin Palmer ’65. The Candace S. Orvin Palmer ’65 Memorial Scholarship will provide funding for students who bring academic excellence to the student body and meet the guidelines for financial aid, allowing Ashley Hall to continue to recruit and retain the very brightest students no matter the fiscal resources available to the student’s family. The scholarship is offered to students in 9th, 10th, and 11th grade and is renewable each year provided the student continues to exceed Ashley Hall’s academic and moral standards. Program The Countess Alicia Spaulding Paolozzi Foundation made a $100,000 challenge gift to be matched by the Ashley Hall community to establish the Countess Alicia Spaulding Paolozzi Leadership Endowment at Ashley Hall. This endowment will enable Ashley Hall to develop new and sustain existing leadership programs. Examples of programs that will benefit from this grant include: Senior Projects that forge partnerships with community organizations and summer leadership enrichment opportunities like the National Coalition of Girls Schools Forum on Service and Leadership. These examples along with community action initiatives and school-wide service efforts reach out to the community to inform discussion and encourage participation in activities which enhance the role of women in addressing crucial social and environmental issues affecting women both locally, nationally, and globally. Faculty The Patricia T. Kirkland Endowment for the Humanities was established with an initial contribution of $50,000 from the Elizabeth K. and John T. Cahill Fund of the Coastal Community Foundation. The Patricia T. Kirkland Endowment for the Humanities will provide resources for a variety of initiatives under the rubric of the humanities. These might include a Critical Thinking Institute for faculty professional development, expansion of the Harkness Method throughout all Upper School academic disciplines, and a program to bring to the Ashley Hall campus nationally or internationally recognized scholars and artists. Sustainability Ashley Hall parents Jeanne and Ken Harrell are funding a $50,000 unrestricted endowment for the school. Unrestricted endowment gifts allow the school to grow its endowment without restricting how the endowment can be used, therefore, providing opportunities for innovations and the resources to address unforeseen needs. The school depends on the continued growth of unrestricted endowment funds to endure that the highest quality girls’ education is always offered to Ashley Hall students.
Alumnae Weekend April 13-14 2012 Jubilee Society Reception The Jubilee Society reception and induction of the Class of 1962 was held on Friday afternoon of Alumnae Weekend in the MacDonald Drawing Room in the McBee House. Jill Muti recognized each member of the class with a special Jubilee Society pin. Head of School Jill Muti (far left), and Alumnae Association Board President Margie Davis Barham ’86 (far right) induct the newest class of ’62 members into the Jubilee Society. Left to right: Class of ’62 members, Amanda Meriwether Roberts Dame, Libbie Durst Majeski, Lane Sisk Irick, and Mary Ball Graham
Marion Goodstein Goodman ’54 and Kathy Vansant Bates ’65
Carol Schall Ragsdale ’46, Jill Muti, Sally Schall Van Allen ‘38
Silent Auction and Party Friday evening of Alumnae Weekend was filled with laughter and fun as alumnae from around the globe gathered for a silent auction and party hosted by the Alumnae Association Board on the Dining Commons terrace. Vitre Ravenel Stephens ’95, auction chair, and Marion Thomas Gilchrist ’83, party chair, and their respective committees worked tirelessly on the fabulous event that raised more money than ever before at an Alumnae Weekend fundraiser! The auction raised over $9,000 and a portion will be used to establish an alumnae scholarship.
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Vicky Agnew ’84, Cornelia Jones Graham ’87, Kelli O’Malley Shively ’88, Rose Greeley ’84
Elizabeth Felder McDermott ’84, Margie Davis Barham ‘86
Lindsey P. Wilzbach ‘07, Sylvia A. Lee ’07, Arianne E. Wolfe ‘07
Danielle B. Hershon ’02, Molly B. Waring ’02, Rachel C. Burriss ’02
Sharon Pearce Wilson ‘72, Mariana Ramsay Hay ‘77, Julia Foxworth ‘77, Marilyn M. Buist ‘77 34 | The magazine of Ashley Hall
Anne Orvin Yarborough ’51, Libby Van Benschoten Buckley ’52
Bloody Mary and Mimosa Reception Saturday morning of Alumnae Weekend continued with the tradition of hosting a Bloody Mary and Mimosa reception on the lawn in front of McBee House. Classmates enjoyed a light breakfast and cocktails as they mingled with one another and perused old yearbooks, purchased Ashley Hall merchandise, and reminisced of their days spent at Ashley Hall.
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Awards Luncheon The Alumnae Weekend Luncheon and Awards Ceremony was held in the Dining Commons and was catered by Ashley Hall’s own, Chef Stephen Boyle. The beautiful flower centerpieces were created by Alumnae Association Board
member Mary LeMacks Scarborough ’77. Margie Davis Barham ’86 welcomed the standing room only crowd, followed by the Ashley Hall blessing sung by Ann Hill ’12. Remarks were given by Jill Muti and Ann Hill ’12. The Loyalty Fund Alumnae Chair, Amy E. Jenkins ’82, recognized the reunion classes and their giving totals. The culmination of the luncheon was
when Alumnae Association Board Vice President, Kathy Vansant Bates ’65, gave a heartfelt presentation of the awards. This year’s luncheon was a memorable occasion for all who attended. (A special thank you to Kathy Vansant Bates ‘65 for contributing the award recipient biographies)
Fern Karesh Hurst ‘64 Community Volunteer Award
Crandall Close Bowles ‘65 Professional Achievement Award
Honors an alumna who exhibits outstanding volunteer and community service. In addition to serving as an Ashley Hall trustee, Ms. Hurst has served on the Goucher College Board of Trustees, the National Jewish Center for Leadership and Learning Board and the University of Pennsylvania Board of Overseers for the Graduate School of Fine Arts. She is also a past president of the Jewish Woman’s Foundation of New York.
Honors an alumna who has achieved significant accomplishments in her profession. Mrs. Bowles is the Chief Executive Officer of Springs Industries, one of South Carolina’s most prominent businesses and the second-largest Fortune 500 company in the state. Mrs. Bowles’ leadership skills helped propel her from her initial position at Springs Industries as a financial analyst to her current position as CEO.
2012 Award Recipient:
2012 Award Recipient:
Jane Lucas Thornhill ‘43
Caroline Ragsdale ‘70
Jane Lucas Thornhill has worked tirelessly to preserve and protect the Charleston we all know and love. In 1971, she and the late Elizabeth Jenkins Young famously stopped bulldozers from destroying the precious quadrangle at the College of Charleston. In 2009, she went to the John Rutledge House to help prevent the destruction of its distinctive marble and black granite sidewalk. As the city’s second licensed tour guide, she has recounted Charleston’s rich past to countless visitors. As a past president of the Preservation Society of Charleston, Jane was honored in 2003 with the group’s prestigious Susan Pringle Frost Award in recognition of her “long-term, voluntary, dedicated, and unqualified devotion” to historic preservation.” Jane has served on the Winthrop College Board of Visitors. She has also been active with the Historic Charleston Foundation, the Junior League of Charleston, the Charleston County Association for the Blind, the College of Charleston Alumni Association, and the National Society of Colonial Dames in the State of South Carolina.
The Southern tradition of good food lies at the heart of Caroline’s Cakes (www. carolinescakes.com), founded by Caroline Ragsdale. Caroline has parlayed a cherished family recipe for a seven-layer cake into a nationally recognized corporation that offers at least a dozen varieties of baked confections. Along the way, she has expanded her menu to include gifts, and she has even opened a deli. The business originally moved from Caroline’s home kitchen to her commercial bakery. And she grew with it by honing her marketing skills and creating innovative ways to make the business succeed. Most recently, she has moved her operation from Annapolis, Maryland to Spartanburg, South Carolina. Combine a delicious concept with an uncanny talent for marketing and you indeed have a winner!
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Martha Rivers Ingram ‘53 Excellence in the Arts Award
Dewar Gordon Holmes ‘26 Distinguished Alumna Award
Honors an alumna who has been recognized by her peers for outstanding work in the performing or visual arts. Mrs. Ingram has spent much of her life devoted to the arts and is well known for her support for and contributions to the arts community. The guiding force behind the creation of the Tennessee Performing Arts Center, Mrs. Ingram has also served on the boards of renowned arts organizations such as the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C. and Spoleto Festival, USA.
Honors an alumna who has demonstrated dedicated volunteer service to Ashley Hall. Mrs. Holmes was known for her high standard of service and played a pivotal role in the organization of the Ashley Hall Foundation upon the retirement of Miss McBee. Mrs. Holmes served as secretary of Ashley Hall’s Board of Trustees for over thirty years and gave countless hours to the School in her roles as faculty member, alumna, mother and grandmother. 2012 Award Recipient:
2012 Award Recipient:
Nancy Ricker Rhett ‘60 Nancy “Pickle” Ricker Rhett ’60, an accomplished artist whose watercolors portray the spirit of the Lowcountry, has painted watercolors since she was four years old. By the time she came to Ashley Hall from tiny Gardens Corner, SC, she was sketching and painting almost nonstop. Nancy has cited Ashley Hall as a major influence – from the night watchman who let her paint the campus at dawn to her beloved teacher and mentor, E. deMay Smith, with whom she shared a passion for watercolor. Nancy has had a working studio/ gallery since 1964 in Beaufort, SC. For the past 31 years, she and her family have owned the Rhett Gallery, which has perennially been cited as Beaufort’s best. The author and illustrator of a gorgeous book, Beaufort and the Lowcountry, Nancy has contributed art to about 20 other books. In addition to being the heart and soul of the business, Nancy has given her talent generously to local causes.
Anne Frances Bleecker ‘76 Attorney Anne Frances Bleecker holds a law degree from the University of South Carolina. In her third year of law school, Anne Frances was honored to receive the I.M. Goldberg Scholarship from the South Carolina Bar Foundation and the American Jurisprudence Award for Excellence in Administrative Law. After law school, Anne Frances worked as an Associate with Nelson, Mullins, Riley, and Scarborough in Columbia. She opened the Bleecker Law Firm, LLC, in 1997. In 2000, she received The Compleat Lawyer Award, a medal given by the University of South Carolina Law School to Alumni in recognition of civic and professional accomplishments. Anne Frances served two terms on Charleston City Council. During her service, she created the Mayor’s Office on Aging, chaired the City’s Human Resources Committee, and spearheaded management of growth and development on the rural islands around Charleston. She has received many awards for leadership during her tenure. Lastly, Anne Frances is a tireless volunteer for the Ashley Hall community.
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Class of 1962 celebrating 50th reunion Amanda Meriwether Roberts Dame, Libbie Durst Majeski, Lane Sisk Irick, and Mary Ball Graham
Class of 1967 celebrating 45th reunion Front row: Anna Wright Smith, Nancy Hawk Hadley, Sarah Robinson Graham, Josie Eager Beadle Back row: Ellen T. Willingham, Mela Thompson Haklisch, Annie Bailes Brown, Sissy Hope Hewitt, Nancy Hawk Hadley and Shaye P. Hester
Class of 1972 celebrating 40th reunion Front row: Betsy Stone Richardson, Lura M. Williams, Anne Seifart Lander, Nancy Coggins Seymour Back row: Roslyn C. Fretwell, Sally Green, Sharon Pearce Wilson, Betsy Bamberg, Barb Condit Vick, Martha Smith, Jessie Moorefield Spencer 34 | The magazine of Ashley Hall 38
Class of 1977 celebrating 35th reunion Front row: Margaret Jenkins Donaldson, Tricia Jenkins Barrett, Betsy Walker Grimball Back row: Mariana Ramsay Hay, Betsy Ball Dasburg, Marilyn M. Buist, Mary Gordon Baker, Julia Foxworth, Mary LeMacks Scarborough, Lavinia Grimball Howell, Clare Hutchinson Cochran
Class of 1982 celebrating 30th reunion Front row: Amy E. Jenkins, Heidi E. Weddendorf, Christy Hanckel McKenzie, Leslie Bird Torre Back row: Alison Riopel Cayton, Dolly Lockwood Lipman, Caroline Ragsdale, Evelyn W. Richards, Sonja McMillan Goold, J. Lizzie Brackett
Class of 1987 celebrating 25th reunion Anna O’Quinn, Lynn W. Crymes, Cornelia Jones Graham, Leda McIntosh Jackson
Class of 1992 celebrating 20th reunion Front row: Caroline M. Loop, LaRonda Peterson, Lauren Crimes Tierney, Tracee Coaxum Coleman Back row: Dorothy George Thaxton, Elizabeth Currie Marchant, Elizabeth Stelling Allen, Amy Bates Winfield, Julie A. Winchester
Class of 1997 Celebrating 15th reunion Alison Durgee Watkins, Gaby Brown Andrews, Cashion Drolet
Class of 2002 celebrating 10th reunion Tricia Cole Ard, Molly B. Waring
Class of 2007 celebrating 5th reunion Front row: Lindsey P. Wilzbach, Samantha L. Keane, Hannah O. Weatherford Back row: Arianne E. Wolfe, Bess P. Rosen, Julie Slonecki, Sylvia A. Lee
JUBILEE SOCIETY Purposeful | Responsible | Intelligent
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Ashley Hall alumnae Class Notes ‘48 Sara Devine Townsend has moved across the river to a house in The Highlands, a retirement community. ‘49 Judy Warfield La Marque and her husband went on a lovely cruise in February to the lesser Antilles aboard the Sea Cloud with a Smith College group. Her oldest grandchild graduated from college in May. ‘54 Bobbie Gail Brown Rothschild says, “Any of my classmates who have not visited the campus to see our new buildings are missing a real treat. Come soon! “ ‘55 Mary Batten Auville, since retirement, has written four books under the name “Maggie Auville.” The title of one is Music from the South, and deals with a family living in Charleston. Along with her husband, Gene, Mary traveled to Europe in 2011. It was fun to try out her fifty-year-old French learned through classes at Ashley Hall with Madame Odette Lalanne. She thinks it is wonderful reading about the learning opportunities for Ashley Hall students in 2012. ‘57 Frances Hargrave McPhee shares that “The Frances Hargrave Mango”, which originated in Frances’ yard in the early ‘70’s, made the Curator’s Choice list for Fairchild Tropical Garden’s 2012 International Mango Festival! ‘58 Marshall Jupp Moore is elated that her grandson, Stephen Marshall Miles Hawkins, just finished his residency at Children’s Hospital in Denver, and was voted best resident of the year for 2012. He will continue with a fellowship at the same hospital in Pediatric Specialties. He reminds her of his Great Grandfather, Commodore Jupp. Some of the Ashley Hall Class of 1958 may remember him. ‘59 Alston Osgood Wolf enjoys seeing her grandchildren who live in Asheville, North
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we want to hear from you!
Carolina. The family holidays there with her son who lives in Denver, Colorado. ‘61 Diane Cooper Byers is retired and still living in Weaverville, North Carolina (near Asheville). She is the proud grandmother of 10 and great-grandmother of 2! ‘65 Kathy Vansant Bates had her watercolors featured in the March issue of American Art Collector. The issue focused on florals and botanicals. One of her paintings was in the editorial section, and the other was in the accompanying ad from Spencer Art Gallery in Charleston. ‘72 Betsy Bamberg reports that her two children, Lawrence and Katie, are doing great. Katie is married to Marcus Carter and they have 2 children, Jackson, 4, and Elizabeth, 21 months. Emily D. Friedman had her 40th reunion in April, and many boarders flew in to celebrate! Lura M. Williams shares that her son, Christian Von Denes, is in the Air Force stationed at Hurlbut Field at Ft. Walton Beach Florida. He is a Crew Chief for an Osprey Aircraft. Her daughter, Alice Von Denes, is a freshman in college at Lander University in Greenwood, SC. Lura recently merged her shipping business, Williams International, with a large national firm Western Overseas Corp. She assisted Christy Holliday with her customs clearance of the hundreds of gifts she bought while on vacation shopping in Vietnam! ‘73 Renee Greene enjoyed being with 15 classmates for lunch to see Beth Wier in Charleston. Looking forward to their 40th reunion to see more classmates. Jane E. Hirsch is pleased that a couple hundred dogs had one final romp through Magnolia Plantation last January. It was the last run for Rafter’s Trot for Canine Can-
Please send updates, announcements and news notes to tecklenburgs@ashleyhall.org or online at ashleyhall. org/alumnae.php Stephanie Tecklenburg is the Director of Constituent Relations. She manages the Parents Association Board, the Alumnae Association Board, and is the contact for all parent and alumnae relations, fundraisers, and special events. Her direct line is 843.965.8454.
cer Research. Jane, of Mount Pleasant, started it in 2005 after her dog Rafter got cancer. This year’s event brought the overall total raised for cancer research to $115,000, and it was time to end the event, she said. At least 350 people turned out, the most of any year so far. Temperatures were in the low 70s with sunny skies, a pleasant relief from some of the chilly days at previous events. Hirsch led the walk with her therapy dog named Will pulling a smaller dog named Genie in a little wagon. They were followed by scores of dogs of all shapes and sizes. Her passion for dogs and dog related activities continues to drive her everyday life and she was recently elected to the office of President of Therapy Dogs Incorporated, (www. therapydogs.com) a national registry for therapy dogs. Jane and her current Australian Shepherd, Will, visit MUSC’s day program for children with severe behavioral issues. Katherine Salmons (Kacky Salmons ‘71) takes her therapy dog, Snap, with them on these visits.
alumnae HIGHLIGHT
Art Is a Powerful Language Willard Hirsch: The Man, The Artist
‘73 Annie Smith De Bauche is on the verge of publishing her debut book of poetry, Water People. She is grateful to Miss Helms, her 9th grade English teacher, for encouraging her to write. She lives in Tampa, Florida with her husband, David, and their 14 year old daughter, Savannah. Debbie J. Lee is working as a business consultant for Washington state businesses that wish to increase their exports. Washington state now has something in common with South Carolina - Boeing! Both states are fortunate to have this world class employer. ‘74 Nanette H. Cagney is an attorney with the U.S. District Court, Western District of Louisiana and is serving as the pastor of St. Andrew Presbyterian Church, Lake Charles, Louisiana.
Compiled by Jane Elizabeth Hirsch | Photography by Douglas M. Pinkerton | Edited by Amy Fluet
Art Is a Powerful Language: Willard Hirsch: The Man, the Artist, compiled by Jane Elizabeth Hirsch ’73, will be published in September 2012, by Home House Press of Charleston to coincide with an exhibition of Hirsch’s sculpture at the Gibbes Museum of Art. Willard Hirsch (1905-1982) was Charleston’s premier sculptor of the twentieth century. He was remarkably versatile, working on a wide range of subjects, from Biblical themes to whimsy, and in such varied media as wood, terra-cotta, bronze, fiberglass, and steel. Today, his sculptures can be found throughout the country, but especially in his native South Carolina. This volume, compiled by his daughter Jane Elizabeth Hirsch ‘73, presents an inside view of the man and his art. Essays by noted art historian Martha R. Severens, family members, friends, and students show Willard Hirsch’s humor, his firm standards, and his enormous creativity. His artwork is widely known. Now the man, too, can take his place among South Carolina’s most admired artists. Preparing this book and the accompanying exhibition has been a labor of love for Jane Elizabeth Hirsch, one of Willard Hirsch’s two children. She has solicited the articles, including the one by Martha R. Severens, former curator at the Gibbes and the Greenville County Museum of Art and one of the state’s most noted art historians. Jane has written the longest piece of the book, a personal appreciation of the man and his art. She says, “I am fortunate to have many memories of my father, both tangible in the sculptures he created and intangible in the loving memories I hold in my heart.” And she has worked closely with the staff at the Gibbes to gather a selection of his pieces for the exhibition, which will travel to Brookgreen Gardens in Murrells Inlet. Ashley Hall alumnae will, of course, be familiar with his many pieces of work on campus, most especially Joy of Motherhood in the Fine Arts Building.
‘80 Frances Rhett Steel is continuing at U.S. Army Contracting Command - Redstone Arsenal, AL,. She was recently selected to be the Managing Contracting Officer for Black Hawk helicopter engine and airframe services contracts. ‘84 Caroline C. Sinkler took on her first full Ironman Triathlon in July!
alumnae HIGHLIGHT
Local members of THE CLASS OF 1980 gather for dinner in Charleston.
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‘87 LaClaire Williams Stewart and her husband have recently moved to Spartanburg from North Carolina for her husband to take a job at Converse College. She will start working at Greenville Children’s Hospital in the Travelers Rest Clinic helping supervise pediatric residents during their Advocacy and Adolescent rotations. ‘92 Meg Dacey Federico and her husband, Chris, live in Alpharetta, Georgia and have identical twin boys. After 14 years working at WXIA - TV in Atlanta, she is now a stay at home mom. Amy Bates Winfield is still living in Hickory, North Carolina and is proudly employed by the Winfield boys. Henry (10), Bennett (7), and Robert (3). If any alumnae are in the area, she would love to visit! ‘93 Elizabeth Majeski Stroud returned to Charleston last summer with her husband, Jason, and two daughters, Jessica (5) and Grace (3). She is currently an Allergist with Allergy Partners of Charleston. Beth Reines Wheeler will be celebrating her 15th year with Enterprise Holdings in Oregon. She is the current President (2nd year term as President) of the Oregon Business Travel Association, sits on the committee for Tourism and Electric Vehicles in Oregon and has implemented one of the first community car sharing programs for WeCar. Her invovlement in these programs has resulted in recent media interviews and lending her expertise on 2 industry panels. When not working, she is part of the Salsa Dance Company, Aquita de Coco, who will perform in Seattle at the Salsa
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Congress in November. She also participates in many community efforts and is committed with United Way.
alumnae HIGHLIGHT
‘97 Margaret Anne Siachos completed two films last fall and was also seen on an episode of the television show 30 Rock. Her film, The Mighty Macs was released on DVD in February, 2012. Kelsey K. Lipscomb recently joined the Lipscomb Law Firm PA as its newest associate attorney. She will be working alongside her husband, John, and her mother-in-law, Susan Lipscomb, who are also lawyers. In addition to her new job, Kelsey is also on the mend! Kelsey has overcome her battle with ulcerative colitis which had her in and out of the emergency room over the last year and a half. After having an emergency ileostomy in August 2011 and second surgery in October 2011, Kelsey had numerous complications but is finally recovering and even attended her Ashley Hall class reunion in April! Alison Durgee Watkins and Erica Smith (also class of 1997) visited her throughout her illness and kept her from going stir crazy! ‘99 Kelley Lahr Waldrop is a licensed architect in South Carolina. She currently works for Lord, Aeck, & Sargent Architecture in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. ‘00 Jessica C. Rothenberg claims that her life has a lot to do with books! She is now a fulltime writer who has recently published her first young-adult novel called The Catastrophic History of You and Me, a tale about a 15-year-old girl suffering from a broken heart. Jes-
Alumnae Vitre Ravenel Stephens ‘95 and Harriet Settle Hansen ‘95 are pictured as they show their support for Elizabeth West Johnson ‘95 (right) who participated in the 2012 Dragon Boat race. sica began her literary career after graduating from Ashley Hall and Vassar College (in 2004) when she landed a job as editorial assistant to the editor- in-chief at Penguin Books. She remained at Penguin for six years, climbing through the editorial ranks and moving to the children’s division. She remembers her experience at Ashley Hall fondly and speaks highly of her English teachers, Mary Schweers, Dana Mobley and Libby Russler. ‘01 Mary K. Lang graduated from law school several years ago and is working at Motley Rice, LLC. ‘02 Ann E. Rice Ervin and her husband, R. Tucker Ervin, returned to the Charleston area earlier this year after 3 years in NYC. Ann E. completed her Master of Arts, Bioethics from NYU in January and is now practicing law at Motley Rice, LLC as well
as serving as a Community Representative on the Ethics Committee at MUSC. ‘02 Lynn Geronimo Cruz has a daughter, Lana, who is 2 years old. ‘03 Caroline T. Owen was sworn in as an attorney in 2010 in Boston and works for the Department of Justice. ‘04 Elizabeth F. Gouldon and her boyfriend, Sean Money, work as a creative photography team under the name Sean Money + Elizabeth Fay. Sean also happens to be the graphic designer responsible for the Ashley Hall Centennial Exhibition that was held at the Visitor Center! They photograph weddings as well as fashion, portraiture, architecture, etc. They have photographed the weddings of a few Ashley Hall alumnae - Blake Devereux
DuTremble, Olivia Andrews de Zavala, Beth Wilkerson Merrill, and Hyla DeWitt Wooldridge. They even traveled down to San Miguel de Allende in Mexico for Olivia’s wedding! Their portfolio may be found at: seanmoney-elizabethfay.com. For more details about their services, they may be contacted at: info@seanmoney-elizabethfay.com.
education, she spent one semester abroad in Barcelona, Spain, and had the chance to travel to Portugal, Morocco, Germany, Greece and Croatia. She also spent a semester at the Clemson Architecture Center in Charleston. The last three summers she has been employed by DukeTIP at Texas A&M University teaching architecture to gifted high school students.
‘06 Elissa G. Bostain graduated with a Masters of Architecture degree from Clemson University in May. During her graduate
‘08 Ashley E. Jackson has been busy hiking 100 miles across England and Spain, having an engineering internship for the past two
alumnae HIGHLIGHT
Alex Lombard ’89 recently starred in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. She played Gabrielle, the girlfriend to Henry Sturges, played by Dominic Cooper. Her future projects include the film Man Without A Head, and as for dream roles, “I would love to work on True Blood,” she said. “I’m a huge fan of Alan Ball, always have been.” Her other favorites include shows like Damages, Dexter and Game of Thrones, and another recent big-screen release, Prometheus.
summers, and participating in a delegation in China. Ashley graduated with honors from Rose-Hulman with a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering and minor in Art. She moved to New Orleans this summer to pursue a Master’s in Architecture at Tulane University.
She will go to England this summer and then to France, not to return until Christmas. She has 3 weeks in between and will follow in her mother’s footsteps working at an English Country House of family friends, Deans Court, home of Sir William and Lady Hanham. She will be helping them with odds and ends.
‘10 Olivia B. Hipp was accepted to study at Oxford as an intern this summer and next and to study in Aix en Provence in the fall. She received a coveted scholarship for France from Rhodes.
alumnae HIGHLIGHT
Lauren Smith ’10, a member of the Belmont Abbey College Women’s Track Team, competed in her first outdoor meet of the season last spring and came within .2 of a second of her school’s record in both the 100m and 200m dashes. She was timed in 13.19 in the 100m prelims where she finished 27th of 36 sprinters. In the 200m dash finals, she placed 38th of 55 with a time of 27.09. Lauren achieved this time less than a week after a six-week medical leave due to a concussion. She is ranked the #1 woman on the team, and #3 overall, men and women. Purposeful | Responsible | Intelligent
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alumnae HIGHLIGHT
Birth Announcements ‘91 Lisa Rosenblum Strauss and her husband, Brandon, welcomed their first child on January 22, 2011, Frederica Sylvie Strauss, “Freddie”. Freddie is also the first grandchild of Mickey Kronsberg Rosenblum ‘63. Lisa is a partner at the law firm of Bondurant, Mixson & Elmore, LLP, where she practices commercial litigation. She and her husband are also partners in an Atlanta wine store, Cellar 13. In 2011, Lisa was elected a trustee of the Atlanta Girls School. ‘95 Vitre Ravenel Stephens and her husband, Cal, welcomed their first child, Charles Albert Stephens Jr., “Chase”, May 8, 2012. Hunter McEaddy Dawson and her husband, Will, are thrilled to announce the birth of their daughter, Elizabeth Gerhard McEaddy Dawson. Bee was born on June 13, 2012 and joins big brother, Hunter, (4) and big sister, Gretchen (2), in filling the house with love, laughter and chaos! They are still living in Charleston where Will is an attorney with Womble, Carlyle, Sandridge and Rice and Hunter works part time at the architecture firm VDL Assoicates, LLC. ’96 Jacqueliln Bennett Lynn and her husband welcomed their daughter, Kathleen Bouldin Lynn, “Kathleen,” on May 15, 2012.
Isabelle Luzuriaga ’12, a rising freshman at Georgetown University, was recently featured in The Huffington Post with a blog entry she wrote about her Ashley Hall senior project and paper – an exploration of the AIDS epidemic globally (in Uganda) and locally (in Charleston, South Carolina). To read the full entry, you can visit http://www.huffingtonpost. com/isabelle-luzuriaga/. She will continue to blog regularly on the Huffington Post site updating her HIV/AIDS work. In July, Isabelle served as Accordia’s youth advocate at the D.C. YouthForce, the youth pre-conference held before the International AIDS Conference. She was selected to attend based on an application process and joined 100 youths from all over the world. It was a program to bring youths together who have advanced the HIV/AIDS awareness programs in their respective communities.
44 | The magazine of Ashley Hall
‘98 Sarah Knott Aldrich and her husband, Burton, welcomed their first child, Linley Miller Aldrich, July 3, 2012. Jane H. Izard and her husband, Stephen Mead, announced the birth of their son, Stephen Drummond Mead, on June 27, 2011.
Wedding Announcements ‘79 Lynda Elizabeth Evans got married on Dec. 10, 2011 in Lakeside, California to Andy S. Woerner. They have eight children and four grandchildren between them. ‘02 Lauren Dumas married Tim Schryver on March 10, 2012 at Lowndes Grove Plantation. Lauren is the sports and aquatics director at the Jewish Community Center, and Tim owns Cold Hardy Palms and Bamboo, a local palm tree company. They reside in West Ashley. Kendall Williams Hoak got married in August, 2011 and is still living in Southampton, New York. She hopes to move south very soon!
‘05 Emily C. Hollings of Charleston, SC and Paul Edward Carley of Darien, CT were married on June 23, 2012 at St. Mary of the Annunciation. A reception followed at Hibernian Hall. Emily earned a BS from Rice University in Biochemistry & Cell Biology and is doing cardiovascular research at the University of Texas in Houston. Emily will be attending dental school at Midwestern University in Downers Grove, IL., in the fall. ‘07 Andraya Elyse Zavakos and Daniel Lee Northrup were married on March 24, 2012 in First Baptist Church, in Charleston. She is employed as the business development director with The Wedding Row and Smitten Magazine.
Death Announcements Mary Alice Hackett West ‘32 January 10, 2012. Kay Johnson Hall ‘38 July 4, 2012. Ella Heyward Palmer ‘39 June 12, 2012. Anne Koster Donato ‘40 October 19, 2011. Sally Barton Willse ‘40 December 24, 2011. Sassy Simons ‘45 March 16, 2012. Lisa Paul Menefee ‘46 February 8, 2012. May Hollis Robinson ‘46 July 9, 2012. Terry Busby Lougheed ‘49 March 12, 2012. Charlotte Simmons McQueeney ‘49 June 9, 2012. Margie R. Canty ‘53 July 31, 2011. Mrs. Harriet E. Stimson ’53 February 8, 2012. Liz Hackburn Bari ‘56 April 16, 2012. Linda Strickland De Loache ‘58 July 4, 2012. Gene E. Burges ‘64 May 5, 2012. Polly Hay Baird ‘73 January 31, 2012
Performing Artist in Residence Series Introducing Ashley Hall’s new
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his new signature series, made possible by the generosity of a philanthropic alumna, will feature internationally-renown chamber artists performing for the community in the intimate setting of the Sottile-Thompson Recital Hall. Ashley Hall students will also have the opportunity to work with these world-class artists. The first concert will be held on November 1, and feature Jeewon Park on piano, Kyung Sun Lee on violin and Edward Arron on cello. More information about this event will be forthcoming. Accolades Edward Arron: “Edward Arron is not only one of New York’s most exciting young cellists but also an inventive impresario.” The New Yorker Jeewon Park: “Unbridled, infectious exuberance” The New York Times • “Precise and velvety…” The Seattle Times
November 1, Concert Program Johan Halvorsen | Variations on a Passacaglia by Handel Dvorak | Piano Trio in e minor, Opus 90 “Dumky” ..
Arvo Part | Spiegel im Spiegel for Cello and Piano (1978)
Kyung Sun Lee: “Her playing is fluid as quicksilver, charged with electric energy…rich in sound and deeply felt.” The Strad
Ravel | Piano Trio in a minor
Figuratively Speaking... You may have noticed the small, copper-wire figures scattered throughout this Perspectives. They were created by Claudia Mauldin ‘14 in her Honors Art course, as a site specific installation in the courtyard outside of the sculpture studio. The figures scaled the wall of the Ingram Arts Building with varying “movements or gestures.” The figures are clearly visible against the white wall, yet sublime enough to be easily unnoticed by passers by as they scurry down the path. Those who are sitting in the courtyard and will see them. Small children seem to notice them quickly. Upon being discovered, people often bring others to see them. It is both a study in human behavior, and a revelation about the power of the understated in art.
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Observation drawing of upside-down jellyfish -Ryder Bishop, 5 years, 11 months
Charleston, SC Permit No. 1309