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Unveiling the Inner Artist: InterArts Cabinet of Curiosity

Summer LoPriore

Summer LoPriore is a Connecticut-born artist and first-year student at Trinity College in Hartford. She works in both the visual and written arts, focusing especially on poetry, collage, and painting. Her artmaking is coupled with a passion of archiving, both pursuits involving the intricate capturing and preserving of story. She is Trinity Film Festival's Head Archivist, an effort which entails deep thought into how to encapsulate a point of view and a moment in time in a manner which builds a sense of experience both sensorial and true. Her art derives from a similar center of striving to render the fleeting worlds between moments and the vast landscapes of the mind. LoPriore is looking forward to continuing her study and exploration of the worlds inside of her and each of us in the coming years.

Find some of her artwork from the fall 2020 InterArts course in the gallery below.

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O Me! O Life!
By Summer LoPriore

O Me! O Life!
Walt Whitman
Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

                                       Answer.
That you are here—that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

I would like to submit to the cabinet the poem “O Me! O Life!” by Walt Whitman, one of the hundreds of poems included in his poetic collection Leaves of Grass, which he augmented and revised throughout his career. In general, Whitman is an extremely influential poet in the course and movements of poetic history. He is widely considered the father of free verse and a pioneer in bringing the self into prominence in poetry by speaking largely in the “I” voice. He is also deeply emblematic of America due to his works’ demonstrated archetypal patriotism. This symbolic identity comes partly from his collection, also greatly revered, entitled Drum Taps, created as a response to the Civil War and his observations from his hospital visits to wounded soldiers. He is known to, as also seen in his first-person writing, bring the American common man, or individuals, to the forefront. As such, he conveys the divine existence of the human body and soul, connected uniquely to one another and the universe, in an expressly Whitman manner—meaning his own and previously unexplored. American author William Sloane Kennedy postulated that “people will be celebrating the birth of Walt Whitman as they are now the birth of Christ” as he is so vital to the fabric of this country and so umbilical in the conversation of now accepted poetic conventions (Robertson).

The historic importance of Whitman is undeniable and greatly documented. “O Me! O Life!” specifically, however, ought to be preserved in our Cabinet of Wonders as naturally some of his poems get somewhat overshadowed by the famous epics, such as the preeminent poem “Song of Myself” or the renowned elegy “O Captain! My Captain!”. (Though “O Me! O Life!” was, however, featured in the Academy Award winning 1989 film Dead Poets Society, viewing it being the way that I first learned about Whitman and this poem). I believe that “O Me! O Life!” gets at the central themes which Whitman attempts to explore in much of his work distilled into a mere ten lines rather than, for example, “Song of Myself” ‘s 52 sections and some 1,300 lines. These overarching themes of Whitman’s works, present firmly in this compact poem, are an expression of celebration of the self as a powerful, singular being, yet tethered also to nature and to the universe, as well as a distinct, enduring hope for the future and in the world. Too, the poetic elements for which he is so venerated are present. For example, this poem is in free verse, and although his “I” statements do not appear in this poem, extremely intimate “you,” direct address statements are present. These statements impart the same impression of an individual writing to another individual as the first-person voice. Also indicated in “I” statements are the communication of the poet’s personality. This aspect is present in a different form in this poem by way of his clearly stated beliefs, his rambling ideas, his listing and anaphoric “of” at the beginning of most lines showing his particular style. Therefore, this poem captures the spirit of his honored “I” statements though they do not express themselves explicitly. Ultimately, I believe that this poem is a “O Me! O Life!” is a perfect, condensed microcosm of Whitman’s exalted ideas and poetic conventions.

Besides the poem’s encapsulation of Whitman’s style and subject matter, I believe also that this poem deserves a place in the Cabinet for its timeless theme. “O Me! O Life!” is about questions of life—what good exists in such a dreary landscape of “faithless,” “foolish,” “sordid” people, of the struggle and sadness which repeats itself continually. Even more than this, the question of how our own identity, inherently part of this world, fits in to it all. How does one confront their own faithlessness and foolishness? How does one confront how they are inextricably bound to “the useless years of rest,” no matter how much disdain they have for them? How, in all of this, can one find life and their place in it hopeful or beautiful or worthy of living? Ultimately, the poem is about the answers to these questions, which Whitman states concretely—that just being alive, being able to have identity, being a small part of this long train ride of humanity, is beautiful. The ride will persist no matter what, so one should feel blessed that they have the ability to forge their own mark on its path, even if only slightly. This poem moves me because it answers life’s rambling, so-human, timeless questions. All the complex spiraling, panic, and disappointment that Whitman experiences in the first stanza concludes with an incredibly simple answer stated as though it is fact, undeniable. It just says, simply, “That you are here” followed by a dash, forcing the reader to pause and allowing the readers a moment to absorb the gravity of that sentiment. After addressing the “O Me!” with the response, “That you are here,” he addresses the “O Life!” by answering “that life exists”. He then shows how the two realms combine with the end of the line, stating “and identity”. And, to amalgamate all the ideas concretely into action, “that the powerful play goes on…” (life) and “…and you may contribute a verse” (me).

Walt Whitman is a greatly celebrated, historically significant poet. For this reason alone, his poetry deserves a place in the Cabinet. Too, however, I believe that specifically the poem “O Me! O Life!” quintessentially captures the overarching themes and renowned conventions for which he is known. To augment this argument further, the themes are questions of our place in things, of keeping hope, ideas which have been brewing in the human soul for many centuries, as they will continue to do for many more. “O Me! O Life!” is a timeless work by a historically significant poet and thus worthy our Cabinet.
Bibliography
Robertson, Michael. “Michael Robertson: Reading Whitman Religiously.” History News Network, historynewsnetwork.org/article/49198.
I had a vision: A Poem
By Summer LoPriore
I had a vision
Of the sides of days
And of years,
Those lean edges resting softly
Among the muddied blue
Of everything that is.

It was there,
Only there,
In that collection of seconds dwindling to nothing,
The ones swept away and gone
By things more important,
That I saw the sun rise.

She yawned and roused and rose
In all her divinity overlooked,
And I was right there.
You have to understand—
I was right there
To witness it all unfold
In yellow ribbons cascading from the sky
Down onto my head,
And onto yours—
Did you feel it?
Did you notice?
Have you forgotten?

There are nests being laid here,
Eggs burrowed into the earth
By mothers
Who create a spiraling of sticks
And tears and a dream
Amalgamating into a microcosmic forest,
A world made just to harbor
The awaiting of a life beyond life,
On and on forever.

There is a breeze here—
A gentle touch on skin
In the light,
A whisper threading
Through the trees
Only heard in the quiet,
The perfect quiet.

And I believe,
Dear one,
That if you would just
Stand still,
In the thick of it all,
Chirping, and swirling,
And swimming around you,
Then maybe you could find this world
Beautiful again, too.

For my “Something Transformed” object for which we had to select something from Trinity’s Wakinson Library Archives, I chose a photo and wrote a poem in response. The photo, in the form of a lantern slide, depicts the nest of a Ruddy Duck with four pure white eggs burrowed in its safekeeping. This picture was taken by Herbert Keightley Job in Lower Manitoba, Canada in 1916. Job was a Boston-born author, pastor, lecturer, ornithologist, and a foundational bird photographer in the field during the late 19th to the early 20th centuries. He graduated from Harvard in the late 19th century in pursuit of becoming a pastor. After serving as one in both Massachusetts and Connecticut, Job worked as the State Ornithologist of Connecticut and as a staff member at the Connecticut Agricultural College from 1908 to 1914. He traveled around North America to photograph birds and promote their conservation. Importantly, he was greatly inspired by fellow ornithologist John James Audubon, who I know also has a presence in the Watkinson, as Chris’ project is in response to his work as it appears in Birds of America. Different from his predecessor, though, Job did not kill the birds to render them, but rather upheld the idea of their preservation in nature by instead taking photographs. He felt that “birds were creations of God and citizens had a ‘holy obligation’ to protect them” (“Herbert K. Job.”).

My poem is in relation to that closing sentiment which Job expressed. When I was sifting through the digital repository of the Watkinson, and then looking through Job’s slides, the photos of nests struck me especially. I know that Job was a nature, namely bird, photographer, and so it was his profession to capture scenes such as these. Still, though, I thought about what a beautiful thing it is to think a nest, so small, unassuming, quiet, a worthy subject of photography. And the fact that this slide of some duck’s nest has survived decades and been carefully preserved by the hands of a lineage of people who also care about things such as these was quite impactful. This photo specifically, among the many of nests, was powerful to me because it truly looked like these eggs were safe, nestled into the earth with an entire towering circle of sticks protecting them, carefully laid by their mother. The perspective of this shot, looking down upon the eggs, as if the observer were in a plane and the nest was far below added to the monumental feeling of their care. I thought about, then, what an egg is, what it means. It is a vision for the future, a dream so warmly tended to, a preservation of the next generation, and all that so follows. This idea of intentional conservation for the sake of the future, for a recognition of something’s value, is one that exists in the notion of eggs in a nest, in Job’s thoughts about the divinity of birds (that they are not things to be killed, but to be admired, not with a shotgun, but with a camera), and also in the concept of an archive in itself—such as the Watkinson which allowed me to see this photo decades later. In thinking especially about the idea of traditionally unappreciated things, like nests, holding so much value and poetry inside of them, I wrote my poem “I had a vision” in which I explore similar miracles embedded in the everyday. Besides this nest, I speak also of sunrises and gentle breezes. I really enjoyed writing this poem, having the photo on the other side of the screen the entire time, constantly looking back to it for inspiration. This is an idea that I come back to a lot—the inherent beauty of the world, the things so holy which we take for granted and overlook, occupied with other thoughts and tasks more immediate, louder, “more important.” I hope to continue using the Watkinson as a resource, especially as an artistic one, and I hope that soon I will be able to go in physically and explore it in a new way.
Bibliography
“Herbert K. Job.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 3 Dec. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Herbert_K._Job.

Herbert Keightley Job, Nest of Ruddy Duck, Lower Manitoba, Watkinson Library.
A Flower for Jenna
By Summer LoPriore
My gift for Jenna is a watercolor painting I created of a daffodil. Reflecting upon the associations I have when thinking about Jenna immediately conjured images of first arriving to campus. I arrived to campus about a month after everyone else as I was apprehensive during what was still the uncertain onset of the Coronavirus. When I decided to come in October, I was kept company by the warm reception of my quad mates, Jenna being one of them. I ate dinner every night with Jenna and her friends for a few weeks after first arriving at Trinity. I thought about this idea of lightness and hope at the beginnings of things (referring to the inception of my time at Trinity and Jenna supplying kindness and an excitement for the future) and wanted to make an object which reflected it as a sort of token of my gratitude in the form of a gift. Too, I have been greatly inspired in the recent weeks by the blossoming flowers peppered around campus, as well as the sun and warm weather which have accompanied them. These flowers, budding and growing in the springtime air, are another iteration of the concept of hope at the beginnings of things. After a long winter, spring brings a resurrection of the idea of growth, and the plants which flower all around us now are at the beginning of their lives. To evoke this idea of the flowers growing around campus, the setting which connects Jenna and I, I cut the watercolor from its background as if it was picked from the ground for her. I also attempted to create a concave shape by folding in the sides of each petal to attribute the flower a further sense of life.
When I created this object, I felt an internal release. I was playing loud music; my window was open, flooding my space and my lungs with spring-infused, fresh air, and I was painting for the first time in a long time. I do not feel entirely confident in my ability to paint outside of abstract painting often done to supplement collage. Due to this fact, coupled with the time and effort that it requires, I have, as I said, not painted in a long time. Further, even the more recent painting I have done has not come from a center of joy. Most of my collages are rather dark. However, this experience was truly one of light, happiness, and appreciation. Undergoing the known practice of painting in a newfound manner to me in this moment, I believe, really gets at the core of curiosity. It reminded me of the walk that I took and the way that, even marginally, I see the campus differently now as I traverse its paths every day. My paintbrushes and water jar are right on my desk, my watercolors in my drawer. Every day, all the materials to create something are within reach. It was a nice reminder of the capacity for reality to break from its monotony and forge something new even out of the same materials surrounding you all the time.
Seven Paper Flowers (From Nothing)
By Summer LoPriore
For this object, I created seven paper flowers. I thought about what this prompt means— “something out of nothing” as it pertains to capturing “something of you in this moment, in this place.” As my first year at Trinity comes to a close this week, I reflected upon my initial experience of college during a global pandemic, and all of its associated anguish. In life, it seems, especially during such troubling periods as these, we must continually make “something out of nothing.” We must find something beautiful in the monotony, reach for hope where there is none, deciding that sunlight on skin in the morning is enough to spur newfound courage and a renewed belief in anything divine. In all the years composed of months composed of days of our lives, we must make meaning of the material which lies dormant around us. Such is life, and this assertion has never been so palpable to me as it is now.

As such, in relaying something of myself in this moment, I decided to mirror this daily action of making “something out of nothing” by rendering flowers: innocent, divine, beautiful, out of the material which surrounded me in my lonely dorm room. One of the flowers, the all-white one, is created from left-over drawing paper of the InterArts class led by Caleb Nussear which I had lying at the bottom of my closet. I thought that this material choice was also a nice connection to the way that artmaking, represented by the notion of InterArts with which this paper is imbued, is an essential means of the ability to make “something out of nothing.” The others are created from the pages of a book I frequently tear out of for collage, another thing just lying around my room hardly ever opened.

An additional aspect of my making this object is that I wanted to try something new. Instead of writing a poem surrounding my idea, I wished to embody again the notion of curiosity in forging a new path for myself led only by my own drive to do so. I went on a YouTube exploration to try to figure out how to make paper flowers, as this is the first time that I have done this, and found a video which explained it well. I believe that this concept of curiosity which has rooted our class from its inciting moments is also infused in the idea of “something out of nothing” in life. We, as humans, discover topics, processes, endeavors previously personally unexplored purposely, literally “of nothing” as there exists no prior experience. And through the conduit of curiosity, we then render “something” new, either mentally or physically. For example, in my case, I now know how to make paper flowers and possess physical paper flowers. Symbolically, these flowers being made from found, virtually worthless material mirrors this notion as well. This is the same concept which I touched on when creating my painting for Jenna—there are materials all around us waiting to be discovered and transformed anew.
The Olive Tree: Gift for Summer
By Mateja Markovic
For my second contribution to the Inter Arts Cabinet of Curiosity, I opted to manufacture a gift for Summer. While I was initially going to handcraft a piece of jewelry, in my conversation with another member of the seminar, I decided to write a poem instead. From what I could gather, Summer enjoys reading poetry, and the gift would draw a great parallel to my songwriting skills.

The starting idea that I went into writing this poem with was that I knew some of us were having a hard time . Aside from our personal situations, the workload circulation at this time in the semester is a large source of stress . With multiple midterms happening in the same week, assignments that don’t seem to end and the constant pressure from some mentors who prioritize our results over our mental health, I thought that we could all use some words of encouragement. A poem that encourages, to be precise.

This morning in class, I found myself thinking just what I normally do: “Oh dear God, twenty more minutes, I wish it could be over right this instant.” From there, my mind raced on a tangent. How often we just want time to pass, but don’t think twice about the fact that we are never going to get it back again? Like, this very instance: You are never going back to it again. We, as human beings, should appreciate our minutes on this Earth more than we currently do.

By now, I had a very clear vision for the piece.

Now I was thinking how to connect it to Summer. I haven’t gotten acquainted with her on a deep and personal level yet, but I do have a very good idea of the kind of person that she is, from some of our interactions and mostly: Art projects. When you evaluate someone’s art, you get to know them in a specific way. You see a part of them- a very intimate one at that.

In my experience, I concluded, Summer is like an Olive Tree. A very calm, kind individual, who wishes nothing but good for the people around her. Never have I gotten even a spot of aggressive mojo coming from her. This kind of person is a very rare one to encounter, but I am personally very thankful that they exist, having befriended a few of them in my lifetime. Hence, the name of the poem was born. The Olive Tree is also known in the Eastern European culture as a symbol of peace and mutual understanding.

The main body of the following text just flowed out. I did very little editing between the first draft and the final version- mostly structural editing I would say. In a way, the poem was a synthesis between my personal experiences, the thoughts that I sometimes have, and the usual doubts of probably everybody. Most people will, at one point or another relate to this piece. I was initially going to keep writing, but have since decided to keep the poem the way it is now. It does a sufficient job of saying everything I wanted it to.

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Summer Headshot II