One of these individuals is Assistant Director for Career Readiness Vilmarie Perez, who is of Puerto Rican descent. In her year at Oberlin, Perez has devoted her time to finding ways to be involved with BIPOC students on campus. Perez connects with BIPOC students not only through her office hours, but also with the events she coordinates.

“My main motivation is to serve BIPOC students, Latinx students, and students with disabilities,” Perez said. “I believe that representation matters. I think that I’ve been privileged to be able to facilitate a safe space for BIPOC and Latinx students.”

Perez coordinated the Latinx Women in NASA Career Panel on Sept. 21, which received glowing praise. In this event, three Puerto Rican women who work at the NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland spoke about their successes and hardships in the realm of STEM.

“On [Sept. 21], we switched from ‘the sky’s the limit’ to space,” Perez said.

This panel served as motivation and empowerment for many Latines interested in STEM. As a Puerto Rican heading into STEM who is possibly interested in a career at NASA, this panel made me feel heard. More people like Perez are needed at primarily white institutions in order to provide culturally relevant support for students.

Aside from events, Oberlin holds space for BIPOC students in a room on the second floor of Wilder Hall known as the Multicultural Resource Commons. This organization works to create a safe space for many BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and first-generation students, making the MRC Lounge very popular among students in these communities.

“We have tough conversations just [by] being people of color already,” BIPOC Community Fellow Seven Nicole said. “I want to provide a space where we can just celebrate, celebrate, celebrate, and different communities can come together and enjoy one another and get connected.”

Celebrating diversity and witnessing the vast representation of different communities is something that is really needed at Oberlin. Maya Fahrer, College fourth-year and acting historian for the Asian American Alliance, echoes the need for community on campus, particularly in a politically-oriented organization that has been around since the 1970s, making it one of the oldest affinity groups on campus.

“A really big part of [finding community] is just pushing yourself as an individual to engage and reach out to people in the community,” Fahrer said. “But it’s hard.”

Bold and unapologetic, Fahrer is the embodiment of taking a leap of faith and venturing out to find a safe, welcoming community on a campus where that may be initially challenging. The chance that community at Oberlin won’t feel identical to community at home makes the initial act of reaching out intimidating, but stepping forward and out of a comfort zone is part of the journey that can lead to a community that has your back, whether it’s student-led organizations or supportive faculty members.

Although Oberlin is predominately white, third-year Ezra Pruitt, co-chair of ABUSUA, finds beauty in being able to form deep community connections on a small campus. As a BIPOC student, students don’t necessarily have to be involved in an identity organization to form a sense of community. Even attending events within a community can really change experience at Oberlin.

Pruitt emphasizes the importance of student involvement, especially because of how much organizations can do for the Oberlin community. Before COVID-19, many organizations focused on highlighting their specific community members, but now there’s more collaboration. Different identity organizations are working together for the sole purpose of connecting with each other and building community, hosting events like the Oct. 8 Bochinche night, a collaboration between La Alianza Latinx and ABUSUA.

“Personally, I would say that these organizations have really helped me transform into the leader that I want to be,” Pruitt said. “That has really helped me grow a lot more as an individual in different fields. I was the treasurer [of ABUSUA] at one point last year, and so I think the different roles have really helped cultivate my different strengths, and I think that that has been beautiful.”

Sometimes, being connected to your community might look like keeping up with cultural traditions and not necessarily being involved in the nitty-gritty of an identity-based student organization.

Z Gutierrez is a second-year Latinx Heritage House resident. He has been able to foster a sense of community through his efforts in keeping up with a traditional holiday, Día de los Muertos, which is celebrated in some Latin American countries, primarily Mexico. Día de los Muertos is a very cherished holiday among many Latin Americans because it is time taken to celebrate loved ones who are no longer with us. This was celebrated in Latinx Heritage House Nov. 1, and La Alianza Latinx, an affinity group for Latinx students, provided traditional food eaten on Día de los Muertos — conchas, pan de muerto, and hot chocolate.

“When I came here last year, I was in [Barnard House] and I didn’t really have room to make an ofrenda in my room, so I felt kind of sad, especially since last year, I lost a few people in my family,” Gutierrez said. “Since I can’t be there with my family physically, I need to be with them spiritually. … So, I made [an ofrenda] in the lounge there, which was really nice because people asked me about it and I was happy to share. This year, I wanted to continue that, especially since I’m in Latinx Heritage House — I [knew] other people [would] also want the space, so I made it.”

Gutierrez worked alongside other residents of Latinx Heritage House and La Alianza Latinx to build the ofrenda. Through collaboration of the Latinx community, they created a very beautiful event where many were able to honor their family members while also building community in a shared space.

“It was super fun,” Gutierrez said. “I’m so happy [with] how it came out. [It was] very colorful and bigger and grander than I had imagined. That’s always great, when it exceeds your imagination. I’m so glad so many people participated and used the space.”

There are safe spaces on campus such as the Latinx Heritage House, other identity-based housing, and the MRC, but people within the community such as Perez make connecting with one’s community all the more meaningful.

“Nobody can take this learning experience from you,” Perez said. “Make sure that all of you know that I’m here for you. My door is always open.”

Zola Haber, OC ’23 and former Bike Co-op president, recognizes the DIY, eclectic energy within the Keep Cottage basement. While involved with the Bike Co-op — pre- and post-COVID-19 lockdown — Haber experienced the co-op as a space for not only bikes, but for a campy, evocative, and chaotic artistic scene.

“As soon as you go into the Bike Co-op, it’s covered in murals and random bits of art and cobbled-together pieces of bicycles,” Haber said. “It definitely feels like one of the few spaces the College hasn’t made beautiful and perfect and pretty. Even within co-op spaces, we can’t really do anything permanent. I think it’s very sad because, if you look back at historic pictures of co-ops, you see huge murals in Harkness [House], but that’s not something we can have in other spaces because the College is not as pro-art as it used to be. So, going into the Bike Co-op, it feels so good to see how ridiculous the whole space is.”

In February 2022, the Co-op hosted Hotspur Johnny, an Obie band, which was a notable experience for Haber, to say the least.

“We did have a situation where it was kind of a fire hazard with the Hotspur Johnny show,” Haber said. “When they agreed to play for us, it was super great, … and we didn’t predict how many people would be excited to see them. People flooded in and it was totally packed. … Everyone was like sardines in the back of the Bike Co-op.”

The show this Saturday, Oct. 7 — now indefinitely postponed due to a “hard ‘No’” from the Oberlin fire chief based on College regulations on how the Co-op space should be used — was going to have a $2 cover charge intended to mitigate overcrowding and, more importantly, begin to develop the Bike Co-op into a music venue cooperative.

College third-year Liam Kozel has been a driving force for music within the Bike Co-op this semester, having organized the
now-cancelled show alongside fellow College third-year Olivia Brash, as well as having larger conversations with Oberlin musicians and Bike Co-opers.

“I’ve been super interested in music venue cooperatives ever since this summer [when] I worked at one — it was really, really cool and powerful,” Kozel said. “I think they have a lot to offer in this day and age. If all goes well, this could be a really cool thing for the Oberlin music scene. … It provides a really cool opportunity for artists to get paid if people are willing to pay them, and it’s hopefully a way we can use the space sustainably. … It’s an Oberlin tradition to add ‘co-op’ to the end of whatever you’re doing. I think it comes from a good place of realizing a lot of the systems through which things that make money exist are incredibly unethical for both the people that they’re serving and especially for the people that work there.”

Kozel’s primary hope for the future of the Bike Co-op is to use it as a space for education.

“[Co-ops at Oberlin] allow for the people that work there to learn skills that they’re able to bring out into the world that also serve their community in a helpful way,” Kozel said. “This [was] going to hopefully do the same thing and teach people how to run a venue from the inside — how to run sound, how to charge people at doors, how to be a bouncer, how to write contracts — stuff that you wouldn’t be able to learn outside of a venue space. Hopefully it can serve as a sort of a ladder that is harder and harder to find nowadays in the music industry.”

For College third-year Ania Ocasio, who runs the bike rental program along with some social media management and secretarial liaison duties, the emphasis on collaboration and education marks the Bike Co-op as particularly unique.

The Bike Co-op, though, is an organic entity, one without any sort of organized set of files laying out its history and protocol. Rather, there’s a Tumblr page with a vague assortment of images and a brief page of Q&As.

“You hear the words ‘institutional memory’ thrown around a lot, especially now,” Ocasio said. “It’s a lot of people coming in
and taking over spaces that they don’t really know the background history of that were just left in a rush. It’s really interesting having to pick up all of the little clues here and there, and trying to get back in contact with alumni. The big thing with Bike Co-op in general is that it’s been a really big process to get back in touch with the roots. People just left, so [we’re] finding little artifacts here and there and trying to maintain what little routine that we know. Like, the whole thing with bike rentals — we really don’t have any framework for doing it. … We’ve so far been operating from what makes sense, and I feel like that’s not really the best way to go about retaining the essence of what we’re about.”

Like the drum kit in the back, the front room holds its own collection of these artifacts reminiscent of what the Bike Co-op used to be.

“There are all these pictures in the front room that are all these alumni who were [here],” Ocasio said. “We were so big at one point, and now, those faces have no names connected to them. … There’s so much art and stuff on the walls, and it’s always been a space for whatever — it’s an innovation space; I don’t want to sound generic, but that’s really what it is. There aren’t any wrong answers, I would say, with what to build here.”

Kozel and Ocasio had intended to bring back the Bike Co-op as a creative space, with music as an extension of that. For them, it was a means of rejuvenation that is, at this point, left to be determined.

“The folks that I left Bike Co-op with are very passionate people,” Haber said. “These people f—cking love bikes and are going to do a really good job. … My hope is that more shows like this will spark more of a fun DIY scene in Oberlin … because I know how excited people got about playing in the Bike Co-op. A lot of people, when they hear about them, go to the shows and learn that, ‘Oh, [the Bike Co-op] is still open, it does still exist,’ because for a while people were like, ‘Oh, the Bike Co-op, isn’t that shut down?’ … Our dingy basement space is special and I love it so much.”

The ExCo is led this year by Conservatory fourth-year Marley Howard, and its description in the fall ’23 ExCo course catalog reads, “This ExCo is a beginner course for BIPOC identifying students who want to learn the basics of pottery in a safe space. As the Pottery Co-op is a majority white space, having a safe space for BIPOC students will create a more comfortable and accessible space to learn and grow as potters.”

“I think [the Pottery Co-op] had started talking about doing another class because [I am] one of maybe, I would say, five — like I can name them all on one hand — [BIPOC] who regularly use the co-op,” Howard said. “I’m usually the only person of color in any of my art classes, and that’s a hard thing to deal with. I make a lot of art about my identity, and so being the only person who will bring up those topics is always difficult.”

When Howard took the ExCo last year to familiarize herself with the art of throwing, she discovered a passion so meaningful that she decided to teach the ExCo this year. Howard’s experience teaching pottery skills to her peers extends beyond the co-op: College fourth-year Olive Badrinath’s love for pottery developed alongside her friendship with Howard, and Badrinath is now a co-president of the Pottery Co-op.

“I had always wanted to get into pottery — it seemed like a thing I would like — and one day I was like, ‘Will you teach me?’” Badrinath said. “For me, it was also a way to spend time with Marley, so I think it’s a really meaningful thing within our friendship as well, and then I got obsessed. We just started throwing together, and it’s great.”

In artistic spaces, Howard and Badrinath often feel an expectation to speak about and create art centered around their identities. External pressures aside, fostering BIPOC community within the ExCo and the co-op itself is a priority for the two.

“There’s a need for [BIPOC] space because people want it, so we’re here to serve the people who want to learn and teach them as best as possible — and not even teach them how to do pottery, but teach them how to continue doing it,” Badrinath said. “I think that’s what’s really important. It’s not just like, ‘Here’s how you make a bowl,’ it’s also like, ‘Here’s how you enjoy doing it, and enjoy failing and loving what you make — or even not loving it, but just appreciating what you make despite it.’”

As ExCo instructor, Howard selected seven students from a pool of nearly 50 applicants.

“With the class, I just really want to create a space where people are comfortable being and art-making,” Howard said. “I just think the practice of art-making is such an important thing in my entire life, and it’s helped me through so many things, and I just want other people to have that same experience.”

When Howard and Badrinath are firing, they often eliminate distractions like phones and find themselves so engrossed in the process that even conversation is inhibited. For Howard, the commitment of energy that pottery calls for is proportional to the reward.

“One thing that people don’t realize when they first get into pottery is that it’s one of those things where you have to go back three times a week, four times a week, even if you’re just casually [doing it],” Howard said. “I think if you stay committed to this art form, you can build community or center your life around having to go, like, five times a week, or else your stuff is unusable and [you] have to start completely over.”

Badrinath experiences a similar irresistible captivation that keeps her coming back to the pottery wheel.

“You completely make a fool out of yourself every single time,” she said. “You get sucked in. … I was under the impression, when I first started, that you make a bowl and then it would be done, or then it would just magically pop out pink or whatever — first, I learned that there’s no pink glaze. Second of all, the more you make, the more you have to trim, the more you have to glaze, and then the more you make again. … It’s great.”

While registration for the ExCo is closed for the semester, Howard and Badrinath both hold office hours — BIPOC-only and open to all — for fellow students to get involved, learn the craft, and fall in love with pottery.

Oberlin, for many, signifies music and art as it intertwines with academia. It invites a unique collective of individuals into one space and creates a recognizable “Obie identity” that’s almost contradictory in its attributes of shared individualism.

The class of 2027 has been on campus for just over a week now, guided from orientation activities to Connect Cleveland, only to be thrown right into the first week of classes. For College first-year Mattias RowenBale, orientation — a blip in the entirety of his academic career — created a dynamic experience of constant activities and streams of socialization from 9 a.m. to late in the night.

RowenBale’s life is characterized by the arts. He brings his unique artistic experiences to this community: for around 540 days now, RowenBale has written a poem each day. He assembled the poems, written from last July to this July, into a collection representing his experience of being 17. His life isn’t just defined by poetry, though — there’s also circus arts.

When he visited for All Roads Lead to Oberlin, OCircus was immediately on his radar, as someone who loves to do aerials, juggle, and unicycle.

“One of the people who was showing me around practice [during All Roads] was like, ‘Oh, we actually need someone who unicycles,’” RowenBale said. “Coming here has been really fun because I do so many different things and I’m so involved in all sorts of activities and extracurriculars that I’m really hoping to continue to be involved in. [It was] wonderful in OCircus to just show up and on my first day teach three people how to unicycle.”

RowenBale’s sentiment of craving involvement is far from unusual, as every new Obie brings something distinct to the table that fills them with a sense of passion unlike any other. College first-year Mae Glickman has noticed an almost complete lack of what she phrased as “casual interest in hobbies.”

“People are really focused and really committed, whether it’s their side hobbies or what they’re studying, and I can’t quite describe it yet, but there’s something really cohesive about the way everyone works together,” Glickman said. “I think it’s an interesting experience coming to a place where everyone is super focused and passionate and interested, and feeling like, ‘Yes, I belong and these are the people I want to be around,’ and feeling slightly intimidated by how intense everyone is in a good way. … I like being a [first-year] and being small and vulnerable and new and stupid and making mistakes. The stakes are so low in the best way possible.”

Glickman shares RowenBale’s, and many other first-years’, intrinsic curiosity and even naivety that comes with arrival into a space so new and imbued with a beautiful and unique intensity.

“[I’m] looking forward to exploring areas of my interests or skills I’ve either put aside or haven’t explored yet,” Glickman said. “I was a dancer pretty seriously until I was 13, and I quit, but not totally. … I’m excited to get back into that here and do it for fun and to move my body and for that to influence other areas. I never learned how to ride a bike, so I’m excited to learn how to. … I just registered for sound painting, which I’ve never heard of before, and it’s kind of scary because I think I’ll be the most beginner in that class, but I still want to do it and push myself out of my comfort zone.”

Like Glickman, double-degree first-year Moss Seymour anticipates utilizing the vast array of resources that Oberlin has to offer, for it would be a waste not to. Seymour’s situation coming into Oberlin is particularly unique; they took a gap year
abroad after dropping out of a university in England.

Their year abroad consisted of painting school, two weeks as a construction worker, and an artist’s residency in Colombia. These experiences have caused Seymour to take greater consideration in their own life and find an illustration style particular to them. At Oberlin, they hope to create a graphic novel which would be illustrated and narrated by them, corresponding to an album they created — the perfect intersection of their interests as a TIMARA and Studio Art major.

“I’m just in a point of awe about how many things there are to create here and to use in the process of creation,” Seymour said. “Here, there’s a lot of people who are doing really cool shit all the time but you only find out after having talked to them [for] like the fourth time. … There’s just a lot of really humble people. A culture of kindness, as cheesy as that sounds, is really relevant here.”

RowenBale and Glickman both echoed this idea of a culture of kindness, noting a focus on self in artistic creation rather than competition, where discovering new ways to create is not only normal, but encouraged. For example, College first-year Lucy Burton discovered contact improv, a renowned staple of Oberlin, in this last week.

“It was the most mind-blowing [and mind-]boggling thing I’ve ever done and it was so good for my mental health,” Burton said. “I’d never done anything with dance ever, but it connected all the things that I like to do — I literally can’t function if I don’t move my body. … I love connecting with people and being present. … I wasn’t talking and I was still able to connect which was so interesting.”

Outside of the silence of contact improv, Burton has cherished the conversation she has had in this first week.

“I feel like I’ve found that a lot of people are similar to myself in that they are down to have a very intense conversation but also totally okay with goofing off,” Burton said. “Everyone is very present … everyone is like sitting in a circle and just being with each other … and that’s what I was really looking forward to in a college experience.”

With the semester now just starting, there are many more experiences to be had for the class of 2027. There are more artforms to explore and spaces for their artistic and individual identities to deepen.

“Everyone told me before I came here [that] it’s a bubble,” Seymour said. “But it’s a nice kind of bubble where, for this portion of time, we get to exist in a space where I feel like a lot of judgment doesn’t exist. … I haven’t been in the same place for a month straight for a year, and this for me, settling down in one place and looking around and being like, ‘Not only am I going to be here for probably five years, but I get the privilege to be in this space for five years.’”

Flanked by buildings saturated with the history of both the College and the City of Oberlin, it’s fitting that this public green space is cherished by both students and townspeople and used for all kinds of springtime gatherings. From tossing a frisbee or sunbathing on particularly nice days, to simply meeting friends at the corner before heading to Slow Train Café, few days go by without a jaunt through — or at least a glance over at — Tappan Square.

Perhaps one of the most interesting trees in the square is the pin oak planted in 1882, which is adjacent to the painted message rock. Both reside to the right of the Memorial Arch. The rock, when placed, was meant to indicate permanence, while the oak signifies development. The two together, however, change as the seasons shift: new leaves sprout after falling months prior, just as we paint our rock to represent things that are important to us.

There are a handful of other trees worth mentioning, although some are not quite as towering as the pin oak. Near the Memorial Arch stands a small ginkgo tree planted Oct. 4, 2017, courtesy of the Oberlin Luce Initiative on Asian Studies and the Environment in tandem with Green Legacy Hiroshima, an organization that aims to share messages of peace and environmental awareness. The sapling planted grew from the seeds of trees that survived the atomic bomb at Hiroshima.

I met with fourth-year Biology and Geosciences double major Peter Zimmermann one afternoon while writing this piece. We talked at the bandstand while two children ran up and down the ramp, before the two of us walked around the square as he showed me some trees.

“[Tappan] is probably my favorite place to spend time, other than the Arb[oretum], and that’s because of the diversity of trees here,” Zimmermann said. “It’s not just an open, grassy lawn, and you can tell that there was thought put into what was planted here, so it provides a space for community and gathering and specifically a place where both College and townspeople can gather and feel welcome.”

We stopped at one grove of beautiful, flowering dogwoods and redbuds near West Lorain Street. The dogwoods are particularly interesting, as the big white “flowers” that adorn their branches are more accurately described as bracts, or modified leaf-like structures. The true flowers of the dogwood are actually in a central cluster within the bracts.

“Every year, I feel like it’s really cool to remember the progression of things in springtime,” Zimmermann said. “In April,
trees really haven’t leafed out yet, but there are still some woodland wildflowers, and as you get into May, I find that’s my favorite time. Everything is just green, and when it rains that makes it all really nice. … Something about the lighting is just really magical when it rains during this time in mid-spring.”

Spring is frequently referenced as a time of personal change, a notion that is applied to ourselves as well as to plants. Zimmermann, though, points out that we’re mostly gone during the periods of springtime exuberance.

“Most of the time we’re here, the [deciduous] trees are dormant,” Zimmermann said. “Most of the growth that happens
is while we’re away, in the summer, while most of the growth that happens for us students — or maybe not — occurs during the semesters. I think that’s an interesting thing to recognize, that there’s so much change that happens while we’re gone. But we still catch the tail ends of that, in the spring and in the fall.”

So now, as our year comes to a close and so many of us return home after spending most of our year at an institution that has been here since 1833, it’s important to consider the saplings we came from. This academic year has been full of conversations about institutional memory and the preservation of ideas and traditions, so also think of what the trees may hold.

Take a moment, whether or not you will be returning to campus in the fall, and look at the trees. Reflect on their history and all they have withstood. As you leave them behind, remember that they will always have their roots here.

This section, “Wise and Otherwise,” seems to provide tidbits of wisdom on the front page of the paper. Wendell Phillips, an abolitionist and Native rights advocate, is mentioned in the article, which reads, “no reform, moral or intellectual, ever came down from the upper classes of society. ‘Each and all,’ says [Phillips], ‘come up from the protest of martyr and victim.’”

To the right of the masthead, this 1933 edition of the Review reads: “Attend Rally at 9:30 Tonight,” likely indicating one against the Nazi regime given the context of another front page article titled “Cosmopolitans Review Hitler’s German Rule.”

April 11, 1935, The Oberlin Review — United Campus Protests Against War Tomorrow and Student Speakers Will Denounce Strife Following Parade

Sept. 25, 1941, Oberlin News-Tribune — Farmers Organize Wheat Quota Protest

By 1941, Ohio had formed a statewide Wheat Quota Protest Association in response to the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938, which set regulations on the wheat market. State chairman of the WQPA Russell Kiko was set to speak to Lorain County farmers.

March 23, 1965, The Oberlin Review — Students Join NAACP Pickets To Protest Segregated Union

June 12, 1965, The Oberlin Review — Peace, Pease Spark Political Activism Vietnam War Protests, Fast

1965 Hi-o-hi — End U.S. Aggression in Vietnam protest sign

1965 signified was the halfway point of the Vietnam War. Protests in Oberlin echoed those around the country with words against violence and in support of the NAACP. 1965 was also the year the Voting Rights Act was passed.

April 12, 1968, The Oberlin Review — Troops To Protect Enlistment Officers

May 7, 1976, The Oberlin Review — Student workers strike; noon rally attracts 400

Nov. 19, 1976, The Oberlin Review — 300 attend Wilder rally against cuts, tuition hikes

Nov. 23, 1976, The Oberlin Review — 90 hold Mudd vigil While trustees meet

The 1970s saw the rise of an intense nationwide labor movement. Once again, Obies
joined in, supporting local farmers as well as their fellow student and faculty workers.

March 18, 1985, The Oberlin Review — Festive mood at protest

May 2, 1986, The Oberlin Review — Shantytown, Oberlin Students seek confrontation

Dec. 12, 1986, The Oberlin Review — Trustees, students clash on divestment Protesters disrupt Board, challenge OC investments

With pieces about everything from the Cold War and anti-Reagan sentiments
to South Africa, coverage in the ’80s seems to highlight that protests of Oberlin were at their peak.

April 20, 1990, The Oberlin Review — Protesters and Police Clash Friday march ends in violence.

April 3, 1992, The Oberlin Review — Students rally and petition support custodial concerns … Trustees confronted with voices of dissent

At this point, it’s hard not to see threads in subjects of protest and activism at Oberlin, which of course mimic those of fellow progressive U.S. activists. By and large, though, the ’90s were characterized by racial protests and movement.

Sept. 27, 2002, The Oberlin Review — Students Will Protest Bush and
Students Plan to Protest War Rankled Obies in D.C. Today, Plan Resistance in NYC

March 7, 2003, The Oberlin Review — Bombs to drop, students to walk

In the early 2000s, a special issue on American perspectives of war, primarily concerning American interference in the Middle East, was published.

Nov. 11, 2016, The Oberlin Review — Students Call for Gibson’s Bakery Boycott

At Oberlin, the end of this decade was dominated by coverage of Gibson’s Bakery. Students and faculty alike boycotted and protested against the bakery, accusing the owners of racism, which mirrored an April 27, 1990 headline: “Protesters accuse Gibson of racism.”

Oct. 7, 2022, The Oberlin Review — Faculty, Students Organize Teach-In, Protest Ahead of Board Bylaw Vote

More recently, there have been fewer such headlines. The Review invites its readers to consider this in the context of Oberlin’s collective journalistic history.

The opening night of the exhibition coincided with Good Friday — important to Watwood due to their Christian upbringing — as well as with Passover and Ramadan. The night was also under the influence of the full moon in Libra, hence the small detail of the full moon in the print, which Watwood admitted they added last-minute once they knew the anticipated date of the show.

Watwood grew up eating dinner around a table with his parents, a tradition he holds dear. The food displayed on the table — honey, pomegranates, dates, clementines, oranges, and unrisen bread — referenced the “Song of Songs,” a love poem from the Old Testament. In their research, Watwood learned that, fittingly, this is a text also read during Passover.

“There was something so special and universal about the act of gathering around a table to share food and to share conversation,” Watwood said. “I wanted to christen the table into its life in that way. … One of the things my mother really taught me how to do, that she learned from her mother, was the act of hosting. I wanted to carry that forward and consider the act of hosting an art in and of itself.”

“Hylas and The Nymphs: Redux’’ was mounted on the wall across from the table. The piece is a culmination of Watwood’s journey making creative works, at Oberlin as well as in their personal artistic endeavors. Framed as a reinterpretation of John William Waterhouse’s late-19th century oil painting, “Hylas and the Nymphs,” Watwood’s refreshed version of the Greek and Roman tragedy is “imbued with unapologetic, sensual subjectification,” as described in their artist statement.

“I’ve been thinking about making that piece actually for about two years,” Watwood said. “I have a sketch of it from when I was living at home during the pandemic. I even had one of my ex-lovers model for it, which was a really tender moment.”

The scenes within the print offer varied and complex depictions of queer and trans pleasure, love, and sensuality.

“The male gaze in the art world, especially in Western art, is such an inescapable influence,” Watwood said. “It’s part of this reckoning within me for the fact that so many of the artists who I grew up influenced by and who have made an irreversible impact on my aesthetics are these white men who painted so many primarily naked white women.”

Watwood said he has always felt drawn to this style of art. He grew up visiting the original painting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with his mother, an artist with a background in figurative realist oil painting. In planning the piece, he used photographs and sketches that he had drawn of Waterhouse’s painting and other sexually charged works by European artists from the Met.

“It’s not just about sex for me,” Watwood said. “It’s also about physical and emotional intimacy that goes beyond a specific category of touch, and that is queerness to me. … I’m interested in the figure, and especially in queer and trans figures, because I want to capture this experience of embodiment that’s so ephemeral and so ever-changing. The idea of capturing a body in a moment to evoke the image of that sexual, physical experience is really important to me, and I want to create space in the [artistic] canon.”

In the bottom left section of Watwood’s print, you’ll find the original figures from Waterhouse’s painting. In including these figures, Watwood decided to pay homage to the original work, though their first draft from two years ago was a looser depiction of the composition.

“On a technical level, [the piece] is demonstrating how far I’ve come and what I’ve come from, in my understanding of art in a classical, museum sense,” Watwood said. “With European art history, and how inadvertently and heavily that has influenced my practices, … [I wanted] to try to revisit and reconstruct some of that imagery and those narratives to make sense to me based on my lived experience as a queer person, as a radical person, as someone who wants to not just expand the canon, but deconstruct the need for a canon.”

For the screen print itself, they began by creating a mock-up using the digital painting software Procreate. From there, they started making the stencils, which for the screen print were in black and white. The process was characterized by frequent alternating between stencils, which constituted different layers of the print.

“It’s kind of impossible to know exactly how it’s going to look in the final product as you’re making the stencils, because you can’t actually see the colors as they are,” Watwood said. “That’s kind of exciting and adds this opportunity of chance that I think is really nerve-wracking to me, to release that level of control, but that’s also one of the really beautiful things of printmaking as a craft — that the medium inserts itself into the image as an artifact of the process of making it.”

The 27-by-40-inch screenprint, marked by its simple yet evocative hues of cyan, magenta, and yellow has an otherworldly feel. Each of the ten prints Watwood created is slightly different from the last. In one of the iterations they showed me in their studio, a printing error gave one of the figures on the left-hand side a faint mustache, who Watwood, consequently, interpreted as a trans man.