UMBC student found dead in dorm room - The Retriever Weekly

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14 Arts EntertaInment > The IRC Fellows, Professor Eric Dyer, and Randall Woolf after their fi rst performance of the day. COURTESY HEIDI DYER Visual Arts students present winning piece in New York Gaby Arevalo Megan Zlock RETRIEVER STAFF UMBC’s Visual Arts Imaging Research Center Fellows participated in two performances with the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra this past Sunday. The visual arts students entered a competition in which they created a video that accompanied a fi ve-minute contemporary violin composition. The piece, entitled “Try to Believe,” was written by Randall Woolf and is a sprightly, surreal song. The video was screened during two performances by the Orchestra in New York City. For the fi rst month and a half of the project, starting at the beginning of this semester, the ten students worked tirelessly to create no less than thirty of these spinning sculptures, called “cinetropes.” Then, fi lming and editing had to be done before the deadline of March 7th. The contest was held over youtube.com and everyone watched and waited to see how the Fellows’ submission would fare against the nine other candidates for the competition. The winner was clear only days after submissions had closed since the Fellows’ “Try to Believe” had earned more views and a one star lead on any of the other contributors. On Friday, April 18, the offi cial results were announced with the UMBC IRC Fellows as the winners of the “Believe You Can Win” contest. The IRC students created more than 28 paper, foam core, and mixed media sculptures that they then used in the video, resulting in “live” animation. The animation was infl uenced by the concept of the zoetrope, a pre-cinema optical toy. The animation shows a girl, a modern-day “Alice,” walking down a street, and this is juxtaposed with high-paced kaleidoscopic images. The bright colors and quick changes result in a video that is erratic and jarring, perfectly exemplifying the music. “The IRC Fellows ran with this project from the start and they poured an enormous amount of smart creativity and enthusiasm into it,” said Professor Eric Dyer, who taught the IRC Fellows Program this semester. “The public presentation of their video in New York City is a well-deserved award.” During the presentation on Sunday, a representative of the Philharmonic then enthusiastically introduced the Fellows, saying “our winners are actually here from Baltimore,” emphasizing “Baltimore” as if it were surprising, but then followed that by saying that their work had “surpassed any of the our [the Philharmonic’s and Randall Woolf’s] expectations” for the contest. The Fellows rose and were recognized before violinist Jennifer Choi took the stage to perform the violin solo to accompany the prerecorded digital track. Following the performance, the Fellows were asked to stand again to great applause from the small crowd at the Brooklyn Museum. The IRC Fellows Program is a seminar-style course that brings together art majors who display exceptional talent in their fi rst two years as undergraduates. The small class works on projects and focuses on emerging technologies and media criticism. The IRC Fellows will perform the animations live on May 13 at the Baltimore Creative Alliance. They will be accompanied by violinist Martin Shultz of the Peabody Conservatory. Gaby Arevalo is the Assistant Arts and Entertainment Editor of The Retriever Weekly and can be reached for comment at Arevalo2@umbc.edu. arts@retrieverweekly.com She Stoops conquers hearts Asmara Qamar STAFF WRITER The theater department’s production of Oliver Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer proved to be a hilarious, fl ashy frolic, involving highly fashionable gentlemen, mistaken identities, an overbearing mother, alternating shyness and lechery, an inheritance, and of course, lots of love and a happy ending. Young Charles Marlow (Kevin James) is meant to pick a wife in Kate Hardcastle (Daphne Gardner), but is cripplingly shy around women of a higher class, though very forward among women he perceives to be of a lower class. Tony Lumpkin (Michael Houk) plays a trick on Marlow and his friend, George Hastings (Travis Hudson), by directing them to Hardcastle’s manor while calling it an inn. At the “inn,” Marlow meets Kate, and although he is mortifi ed with shyness during the meeting, she is enamored with him. In order to get through Marlow’s shy exterior, Kate pretends to be the inn’s barmaid around Marlow, and is thoroughly fl irted with. The sub-plot is about love between the foppish Hastings and Miss Neville (Barbara Madison Hauck), who is Kate’s cousin. Tony Lumpkin’s pranks and mischief tie it all together, while Mrs. Hardcastle’s (Kelly Cavanaugh) efforts create more and more obstructions. Finally, the benevolent fathers, Mr. Hardcastle (Alexander Scally) and Sir Marlow (Mikey Cafarelli), create a happy ending. The acting was solid; James’s shyanguish and fl irtation drew endearment and laughs, and so did Gardner’s quickness, Scally’s objections (including at being ordered to fetch some warm punch for the gentlemen), and Cavanaugh’s rage as she crawled upon the stage, dress torn. Houk owns his big pink wig and makeup, reeling and staggering while delivering antic after antic. The Hastings-Neville affair drew plenty of laughs and “awws” through Hudson and Hauck’s great performances; he showed his love-longing and even sang away his desire for a quick elopement, but she couldn’t leave behind her inheritance, and dragged her lover back in time for everything to fall orderly into place. The maids and servants, played by Samantha Nelson, Nik Diener, Partick Letterii and Kevin Driscoll, did a great job as well, from depicting a proper militia stance, to passing out drunk. Rather than choose the very familiar Ye-Olde-18th-century-England details, the production gave a new fl are by showing exaggerated, striking costumes: ruffl es and spheres of silk and taffeta, generous amounts of makeup, high heels, and glittering jewels adorned the main characters, more the men than the women. The female characters wore dresses that were spherical below the waist, kept round by hoops, and narrowed around the feet in a small circle. When they had to walk they would skip about in quick, giggleinducing, mini-steps. The stage cleverly used lifting discs to switch from manor, to tavern, to nighttime garden. However, the disc, once erected, remained somewhat slanted, which kept making me think that it was going to fall and crush the actors. Fortunately, nothing of the sort happened. If you missed it--well, then, sir, or madam, you missed a jolly “toroddle, toroddle, toroll,” some tiff-taff-taffety cream, the little star on Hudson’s painted cheek, and a fortune (of a play) chiefl y consisting of jewels: for shame, pshaw, pshaw! Asmara Qamar is a Staff Writer for The Retriever Weekly and can be reached for comment at asq1@umbc.edu. MARIA SATYSHUR — TRW > Daphne Gardner and Kevin James fl irted their way to success in She Stoops to Conquer.
The RetrIever Weekly 04.29.08 ARTS 15 Bartleby awards honor creative achievement Liz Omberg SENIOR STAFF WRITER The program to the Bartleby release event sums up the experience in which it titles itself, “a celebration of writing an art” and labels itself, “a unique collaboration between authors and artists.” This event was a merge of the creative arts journal along with the English and Visual Arts departments at UMBC and was sponsored by The Friends of the Library & Gallery. Writers read their poetry, fi ction, and creative nonfi ction while the visual art students designed posters that were their interpretation of the words. The mesh of art forms was a huge success and having the posters really brought another dimension to the stories, demonstrating how all art is related and that there are many ways to express oneself — either through ink or through paint or charcoal or graphic design. The Library Gallery was shockingly full for an event like this. One of my gripes with UMBC is the lack of arts on campus. Have you seen the Fine Arts building? However, the house was packed and ready to hear and see some of the best art that UMBC has to offer. The fi rst performance, Jessica Dotson’s poem, “Mechanics of a Man,” was stunning and written Art Student of the Week: Andre Cawley A guy with natural talent and a need to achieve. These are just two ways to describe this week’s UMBC Art Student of the Week. Having met many art students over the past year, I would have to say that this one is the humblest of them all. He has a real gift, and yet has no desire to show it off. The art student I am referring to is none other than Andre Cawley. Andre is a 20 year old junior here at UMBC. He is majoring in Graphic Design in the Visual Arts department. Andre has not always lived here in Maryland, nor has he attended UMBC his whole academic career. He was originally from San Diego, California. From there he spent some time in Sicily, Italy before moving to Baltimore in the mid ‘90s. You may be wondering why someone would move so much when he was growing up. Maybe it has to do with the fact that his father is in the Navy. While you may think that having a Navy father would be hard because of the constant orders and strict house rules, Andre says that his father was the person he looked up to the most. He said he loves the way his father is very persistent and yet extremely loving and accepting of everyone. Andre also mentioned how his entire family has been supportive of his decision to be a Graphic Design major. But this has not been done entirely here at UMBC. Andre is a transfer student who used to attend a school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This is his second year here at UMBC and he has no regrets. After Andre is fi nished at UMBC, he is scheduled to graduate in the spring of 2009, and he has full intentions of remaining here in Baltimore for a little while longer. However, don’t think about the seemingly diffi cult subject of a mechanic but managed to give the mechanic a gentle side. She is an English and Visual Arts student, so she was given the task of designing her own poster, on which she did a great job of. My favorite writer of the night was Mariana Rivera Rodriguez who read > Andre Cawley is humble about his talents in graphic design. that he will try to stay home forever. His ultimate goal and aspiration is to move somewhere on the west coast and hopefully work for some high paying music magazine. Short of that, he would settle for moving to the west coast and working for any magazine. He did mention that if he had never taken graphic design, he would have probably tried to work in the public relations arena. Surprisingly enough, Andre never took art in high school; it was always just a hobby of his. Maybe it is because of this fact that he has no outside infl uences on his work. He likes to invent his work as he sees things that give him ideas. In this sense, he can be viewed as a true original. Not that he doesn’t respect or admire what people did in the past, but just like them, he wants to be his own individual and different. her fi ction story, “Moffi ts in A Shoebox,” which won the fi ction award for the new Bartleby publication. This eerie story was about a family > Jessica Dotson, a Visual Arts and English major, discusses her work with her mother. on Christmas morning, but rather than opening presents, they were lying dead on their bed. The language and descriptions in the story caused an immediate connection to the As with most things in life, if you love to do it, you will probably be very good at doing it. In Andre’s case, he loves print media the best out of every form of art. Perhaps that is why he has his art work displayed so much these days. From what I could see, his art work was very precise and professional. He takes great pride in what he does and takes it very seriously, which is what will undoubtedly allow him to make it in the real world. Some of his art work is featured on the newly designed Visual Arts website. He even said that it took him a whole month to plan, prepare, and create one of his pieces of art (the large piece in the picture). While here at UMBC, Andre said that his favorite class was Graphic Design with Guenet Abraham. This was because he was able to apply what he had learned from other fundamen- characters and when I realized that the story did not have a happy ending I felt that I actually lost people that I had personally known. This LAUREN KASMIR — TRW story was accompanied by three posters, designed by Dominique Chirinciuc, that were mostly done in muted grays and whites with a few red words printed on them. The by Matthew Jones MATTHEW JONES — TRW tal graphic design classes into actual work that he will be using later on. When asked about his favorite teacher, he said that he had two: Guenet Abraham and Peggy Re. He said that they are both very encouraging and friendly, but also helpful because they try to push him to be better, yet be practical in everything that he does. Also while being here at UMBC, Andre said that his least favorite class was French 201 because he just found it hard to grasp. Whenever Andre has free time, which is not too often, he likes to go out with friends, usually to DC or downtown Baltimore. He sometimes likes to go to local clubs and party every once in a while as well. Andre said that one crazy fact about him that most people probably don’t know is that when he was in high school, he participated in the Future Farmers posters really added to the shocking and downcast aspects of the story. There is a common misconception that poetry can mean whatever you want it to mean. As a poet, I know that this is false and that there are different aspects of the poem that different people can relate to and take away from the poem. However, when writers craft their poems, they do have a concrete idea in their mind and do not write in abstracts to relate to everyone. Having the art with the writing illustrates that the meaning behind the art was the same as the meaning behind the words, but the artist picked up on one specifi c aspect of the writing and crafted a poster around that. It was really interesting to see someone else’s take on a piece of writing and to see them create something from that. Brandon Dottin presented his poem “Hyacinth Lost” and said he got the inspiration from a painting. This event had the same circle, art inspiring art, and it worked perfectly. The new issue of Bartleby came out last week so make sure to pick up your copy anywhere around campus and get reading! Liz Omberg is a Senior Staff Writer for The Retriever Weekly and can be reached for comment at eomberg1@umbc.edu. of America (FFA) program. Here they went to reservations and did various experiments and testing on the land. He said that while most people don’t understand it, he had a lot of fun doing it, even though he is thought of as an urban guy. Before the end of the interview, Andre wanted to make it clear to everyone that he doesn’t like it when people assume that he took the easy road in college by being an art student. He said that art is in no way “the easy way out. It is hard to do and it takes time and talent. Just because I am not memorizing data or information for an exam doesn’t mean I am not working just as hard as someone who is.” He also wanted to give some advice to people who are new to college. “Don’t be afraid to do something new. Step out of your comfort zone and experience different things in life. That is what college is all about.” On behalf of the staff at The Retriever Weekly and the Visual Arts Department, we would like to congratulate Andre Cawley for being this week’s UMBC Art Student of the Week. I have no doubt that Andre will be able to accomplish anything that he sets his mind to. He has the talent, skill, and drive to be great in everything that encompasses graphic design. So remember, if you happen to see Andre walking around campus, don’t forget to congratulate him, and don’t forget to ask about his latest piece of art work! Matthew Jones is a Staff Writer for The Retriever Weekly and can be reached for comment at joma1@umbc.edu.
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UMBC student found dead in dorm room - The Retriever Weekly

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