Rachel Simmons ’97 Assistant Professor of Art
Rachel Simmons ’97
“It was a leap of faith, but we made the tough decision a few years ago to give the students more flexibility and to allow them to fulfill their elective requirements using a spectrum of courses,” said Simmons, who has returned to Rollins as assistant professor of art. Despite a fear that some classes might be left empty in the process, the new flexibility works. Students who plan to pursue art careers may specialize, perhaps in printmaking or photography. Students who will not be professional artists may choose to do a bit of everything, perhaps a little Baroque art history, mixed with figurative work and a bit of lithography. Options exist throughout the department. In addition to charcoal, metal, and acrylic, digital tools have been integrated, with courses like Digital and Mixed Media Printmaking. Art history remains crucial, but new courses have been added to explore contemporary art. Studio time is as essential as ever, but service learning has entered the department too, with students getting practical experience—painting murals, for instance, at a home for children with special needs. Another valuable change is the addition of new instructors, who provide a “generational mix” of ideas. “There are faculty members here now who are fresher from their master’s degrees in fine arts, which is good because we’re closer to the trends in contemporary art,” Simmons said. With experienced professors as mentors and freshly minted MFAs in the mix, the art department is creating a nicely balanced composition.
Coming Full Circle—In 1997, Rachel Simmons, an art major at Rollins, stood at her easel in Painting II while her professor critiqued her latest brushstrokes. Three years later, Simmons stood at the same easel, this time as the professor—a déjà vu Simmons described as “weird. It took me a couple of years to stop having these student flashbacks.” Still, after receiving her MFA in painting and drawing from Louisiana State University, Simmons’ return to her alma mater “felt like coming home. It was comforting to be in the same classroom where I had spent endless nights as a student, seeing professors I had been close to then as colleagues now. They were extraordinarily enthusiastic to have me here as a faculty member.” Sharing their enthusiasm is Dean of the Faculty Roger Casey, who also came to Rollins in 2000. In fact, Simmons was his first hire. “Rachel has proven to be an excellent standard by which to measure a new generation of now more than 60 faculty who have arrived at Rollins in the new millennium,” he said. “Focused on students, interdisciplinary-minded, creatively prolific. Her classes are models of collaborative learning.” Collaborating comes naturally to Simmons. In graduate school, she often worked with a poet or other artists on projects. “The act of creating while you’re also being social forms a bond between you and the other person—you develop this awareness of your own biases and tendencies. You get to know other people, but you also get to know yourself.” She recently team-taught a class with Peg O’Keef, herself a Rollins alumna (’81), that explored how artists in various fields reveal themselves through their work. Even in her individual artwork, she crosses disciplines, drawing from multiple sources. In her most recent series, Simmons uses digital printmaking techniques, multiple media, and images of microorganisms. Incorporating text that seeps in and out of richly colored, transparent layers, her highly evocative work “depicts the dichotomy of interdependence and isolation in the natural and human worlds.” Her work has been exhibited in museums and galleries in Florida, New York, and Italy, most recently at the prestigious 2005 Florence Biennale, an invitation-only international exhibition. In addition to her own creative bounty, Simmons has been actively involved in courses that incorporate collaboration and community engagement. In her second year at Rollins, Simmons’ class was asked to paint artwork on the walls of a playroom in a residential facility for children with emotional and behavioral disorders. The art needed to evoke calm and security, boundaries the students found both challenging and rewarding. “The students thought, Wow! Art can serve not only an aesthetic function, but a practical, therapeutic one as well,” Simmons said. “And because the students were working in teams, they were learning about other students’ processes at the same time they were learning about their own.” Since that experience, Simmons frequently takes her students out of the studio and into the community. “To me, that’s the ideal experience. Collaborate with the community, collaborate with each other, and the art serves a larger purpose.” This year, Simmons is a candidate for promotion to associate professor and tenure at her alma mater, a milestone that brings her full circle. Reflecting on her history at Rollins and the longtime faculty she so admired as a student, Simmons said, “Now I have a complete view of them as educators with a lifelong goal to make Rollins a better place. Now I really get it. I don’t want to go anywhere else. Why would I? I’ve got a sweet gig.”—Robyn Allers
SPRING 2006 13