6
Profiles
the horizon
Week of Jan. 23, 2012
Printmaking student finds passion in plants By CLARE BOWYER Staff clbowyer@umail.iu.edu
Photo by Clare Bowyer
Wende Cudmore, fine arts senior, rolls ink onto her panel, one step of the printmaking process.
College is about developing skills and learning what passion and drives oneself has. Wende Cudmore, fine arts senior, has a passion for learning and has found a skill she is very good at — printmaking. Cudmore said she not only creates prints but puts them on the paper she has made herself out of a variety of vegetables and fruits. “I love the process ocess of printmaking,” Cudmore re said. “I like to layer my work ork to invoke people to wonder my pro-cess.” In the printmaking studio, Cudmore said she goes through the printmaking process, and the completed product ct is her own, originall print. She began experimentperimenting with fruits and vegetables to make scrap paper, and her experimenting turned into award-winning artwork. She has won the Chancellor’s Award at student art shows twice and received a Fellowship Award for her vegetable papyrus. The Fellowship Award was given to her, not only for her work, but how she gathered her supplies. The award was granted for her art skill and using America’s waste as her media. Cudmore made an agreement with two grocery stores. They would give her their old fruits and vegetables and she would make her artwork out of it. “I gather my inspirations from na-
ture, plants and the roots of plants,” Cudmore said. “I like to use materials that may not work together, or may not look like they go together but to make them work successfully.” Cudmore is from Buffalo, N.Y., and was convinced by her current fiancé in 2001 to move to Southern Indiana. She is 60 years old, keeping up a household and going to school fulltime. Cudmore has two children and five grandchildren. “I quit my job and became a fulltime student,” Cudmore said. “It was a very scary decision, but I needed to focus on school, on my art.” Brian Jones, proJo of ffessor fine arts, is Cudmore’s major menm tor to and said h he thought Wend Wende is a remarkable student. markab “As a non non-traditional student, Wende has a different e sense of motivation, and she realizes her priorities,” Jones said. “She is a year from graduating, and I don’t want to not have her in the studio.” Cudmore said she expressed the desire to teach and show others what she has learned. “We have done paper demonstrations in Louisville,” Cudmore said, “and I would love to do more papermaking classes.” Paper is not the only creation she makes with her fruits and vegetables. She has also made hats out of dried fruits and vegetables. “I thought it would be fun and a little weird,” Cudmore said. “I’m working on making a derby hat next.”
Choral director inspires growth in music education By ETHAN FLEMING Staff ethflemi@umail.iu.edu
Mariana Farah, director of choral activities, said she wanted to sing from the time she was a child. “When I was about five or six I told my parents that I wanted to sing,” Farah said. “My parents aren’t musicians, so it was kind of awkward for them to know what to do with me.” Farah is a Brazilian native and said public schools in Brazil do not offer music programs there, so her parents placed her into a conservatory of music. “I went back and forth pursuing a career as a singer and pursuing a career as a conductor,” Farah said. She said back then she knew she loved choral music. “I was taking voice lessons in college,” Farah said, “and, then, you know just as a college student, I was working, singing in bars. I was doing a lot of singing, but, for some reason, I knew opera wasn’t really my real passion.” After studying general music for nine years at the conservatory, Farah said she went on to study conducting in college. She moved to the United States in 2000 to continue her studies in graduate school. She received her master’s degree at the University of Iowa and her doctorate at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Finishing her education in 2008, she moved to New Albany to become director of choral activities at IU Southeast. Since arriving here, Farah said she has worked diligently to expand the music department. “I brought to campus a huge choral festival — the Southern Indiana Women’s Choral Festival,” Farah said. The festival is held annually at IU Southeast and has brought high school music students and directors to campus. “I think the goal is to continue bringing more people into our program,” Farah said. Farah said one tool for growth would be adopting a degree track for music education. As a board member of the Indiana Choral Direc-
Photo by Ethan Fleming
Mariana Farah, director of choral activities, stands behind the piano in the Recital Hall.
tor’s Association, Farah has been in contact with most of the local music educators in the area. “I know for a fact that there is a great need for us to have good music teachers out there in the community teaching,” Farah said. “Having a bachelor of music education would attract a lot of wonderful students who want to get a degree as music educators.” This sentiment does not stop with Farah. “There’s quite a bit of demand for qualified music
teachers in the state of Indiana,” Ken Atkins, office coordinator for the Theatre and Music Departments, said. Atkins said Farah has been working toward the goal of the education degree through community outreach, getting the choir out into the community and building relationships with the community. Aside from her work in expanding the Music Department, she conducts the IUS Community Chorus and the IUS Concert Choir.