Thirteen Hamilton students have been awarded Smallen Creativity Grants to support their art projects and independent studies.

The grants support projects that display originality, expressiveness, and imagination. Former Vice President for Libraries and Information Technology David Smallen and his wife Ann established the fund in 1993 in memory of their son Steven.

The students awarded Smallen Grants include: Dehao Tu ’20, Charlotte “Charlie” Guterman ’22 and collaborator Zach Jones ’22, Hilary Ortega ’21, Kayla Beardslee ’21, Sunny Chen ’20, Emma Fighera ’20, Teddy Golden ’20, Elias Griffin ’20, Claire Lincoln ’20, Satchel McLaughlin ’22, Corinne Russell ’20, Nanaka Suzuki ’20, and Matt Tom ’20.

This year’s grants were awarded to a group with a diverse range of interests and projects; collectively, the recipients shared a common drive towards creativity.

Dehau Tu ’20 is using his grant to support his senior project that will “explore VR technology as a digital art medium and investigate its potential for helping people to empathize with each other,” according to an interview for the College website. The grant has expanded the potential scope of his project, and as Tu explains, it will allow him to “purchase digital assets to create 3D graphics in the virtual space and building materials to make an engaging environment in real life.”

Charlotte “Charlie” Guterman ’22 and collaborator Zach Jones ’22 were awarded the grant for their project to explore the intersections of art and physics through the lens of light.

In an interview for the College website, Guterman spoke to how the grant has helped the duo’s project saying, “The Smallen grant gives our project, ‘Interference,’ a platform specifically geared toward interdisciplinary work, as well as generous funding to support our materials.”

Guterman added, “The Smallen gives us generous funding to purchase necessary materials for our project as well as a platform to engage in interdisciplinary thought.”

For her project, Hilary Ortega ’21 will deconstruct the popularized term campesino/a (peasant farmer) by photographing the experiences of these workers in the Dominican Republic.

Kayla Beardslee ’21 will explore the intersection of the various characteristics of music and poetry in her project called LP1. “It’s a book of poetry based around poems inspired by songs,” she said. Beardslee added that the grant she received helped her project because, “The Smallen grant gives me funding to actually print and publish the poetry book when it’s done, and to host a reading at the end of next semester to share some of what I’ve written.”

Sunny Chen ’20’s project looks at the relationship between a mother and child through painting.

Emma Fighera ’20 will showcase the surreal in her photography by using digital manipulation to bring both fact and fiction together on the same frame. Speaking to the goal of her project for an interview with the College, she said, “By creating something intentionally deceitful or misleading I aim to provoke the question: how do I know that what I know … is true?”

Teddy Golden’s ’20 sculpture project aims to “illustrate the concept of viewing oneself through the eyes of others, showing that the individual experiences that make up our lives … create something beautiful and unique when viewed as a whole,” according to an interview for the College website.

In describing his project in an interview with the College, Elias Griffin ’20 said, “Using the sculptural figure as a launching point, relevant in its immediacy to the viewer and situation in art history, I want to find the point where the body, object desire, and the flow of information intersect in the contemporary experience.”

Claire Lincoln’s ’20 project is a music video. In an interview with the College, Lincoln said the project is inspired by the experience of “growing up [with] ADHD, taking medication, and how these things can affect an individual’s life.” Anthony Reyes ’20 is composing an original score for the video, and the video itself will combine animation and live-action film.

Satchel McLaughlin ’22 said, “For my project, I will be experimenting with different forms of printmaking: linoleum printing, woodblock printing and hopefully silkscreening. I will be using pictures that I have taken as inspiration and break them down into compositions that emphasize pattern, color, and shape,” according to an interview for the College website.

Corinne Russell’s ’20 is creating a booklet that will feature interviews with women from Hamilton’s campus about their experiences reading fiction.

Nanaka Suzuki’s ’20 will use the grant for her senior art thesis project, which will include “paintings on silk that draw inspiration from traditional Japanese kimono iconographies,” according to an interview for the College website.

Matt Tom ’20 will be using this funding to complete his senior thesis in visual art. His thesis involves building four large canvases upon which he will paint family portraits.