Catlin Gabel Caller, Summer 2011: Creative Thinkers

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creative thinkers

Catlin Gabel seeks to form bold learners who become insightful questioners, responsible thinkers, and inspired action takers for life. Catlin Gabel is an independent, non-sectarian, progressive coeducational day school serving 730 students from preschool through twelfth grade. Its roots go back to the Portland Academy, founded in 1859. The school occupies 54 acres on Barnes Road, five miles west of downtown Portland.

nadine Fiedler Editor [email protected]

karen L. katz ’74 Communications Director

chris MichelDesign

Lark P. PalmaHead of School

Miranda Wellman ’91Director of Advancement

Lauren Dully hubbard ’91Alumni & Community Relations Program Director

Catlin Gabel School8825 SW Barnes RoadPortland OR 97225503-297-1894www.catlin.edu

o n t h e c o v e r

Background: mannie Greenberg ’11 playing drums in the us Jazz Band. Inset, L to r: 8th graders working on make-up for mikado; kindergarteners painting in the Beehive; photo by maya rait ’14

s u m m e r t a B L e o f c o n t e n t s

3 A New Creative Arts Center—Now is the Time by Lark P. Palma, Ph.D.

4 A Campaign for Arts and Minds

8 Arts at the Core

10 Our Amazing and Creative Alumni

22 What Do Employers Look For?

25 Catlin Gabel News

26 Alumni News

28 Class Notes

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Come join the conversation at Catlin Gabel’s Facebook page, or visit us at www.catlin.edu

6th graders composing music together

OOur alumni will tell you: Catlin Gabel taught them habits of thinking and new ways to question their world—and new ways to practice and develop their innate creativity. These skills of thinking and creating serve them well as the basis for fulfilling careers and satisfying lives. And in fact these days, as the world quickly changes, creativity is fast becoming the skill that colleges, graduate schools, and employers look for first. In a time of rapid change, those who adapt and flourish best are those flexible thinkers who are not afraid of innovation.

There is no discipline better than the arts to encourage and develop creativity. Our classes in music, theater, visual art, media art, and woodshop call upon our students to stretch themselves, take enormous leaps, and learn to express themselves through mediums that are often unfamiliar, and scary at times. A blank canvas, a role in a play, an assignment to make a music video, an instrument they’ve never played before—all demand courage and a connection between brain, hand, and heart.

We’ve done amazingly well at Catlin Gabel over the years in providing places for creativity to take hold. But we can do better. You’ll read in this issue about our plans to build a new creative arts center. And I couldn’t be more thrilled to present these plans to you. I believe that this is what Catlin Gabel needs most right now, and I hope that my conviction and enthusiasm for this project will grab you, too.

As you walk our campus, you see students of all ages benefiting from the facilities we’ve built, such as our light-filled Miller Library, our Warren Middle School with its wonderful gathering space, the well-loved Lower School Art Barn, and Upper School science labs where authentic, original research is taking place. But our Middle and Upper School arts programs sorely lack the facilities they need to best help our students expand their creative skills.

We all gladly do what we can with what we have on campus. But it makes my heart sink to see our Middle Schoolers performing in the tiny, dilapidated Chipmunk Hollow, or watch Upper School students painting, printmaking, and drawing in a room that can’t accommodate a large work of art. It’s time for us to provide something more in keeping with our ambitions for our students.

By providing a center for creativity, we will send our students out in the world prepared to navigate a new landscape. Last year Newsweek published a feature story about the creativity crisis, noting that the U.S. is losing its status as the nation of ideas that others imitate. Fortune 500 companies must know it, because many now administer creativity tests to future employees. Colleges and universities realize this: among others, Princeton, Brown, Pomona, and Stanford are also building creative arts centers. Important discoveries in science, exceptional business models, and successes of all kinds are born from the wellspring of creativity—the new, the great idea.

In our new creative arts center, the free flow of thought, creative energy, and mixture of all the arts in true collaboration will help forge the kinds of minds that generate big ideas. Our students will build on those habits of creativity and confidence to be poised for innovation—in fields that include science, math, technology, and engineering. We have to make sure that our children can create jobs for themselves that don’t even exist yet, and that they have the fire and drive, fueled by creative thinking, to make a difference in this world. Let’s give our students the creative boost they need to succeed.

a new creative arts center– now is the time by Lark P. Palma PhD, head of school

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In this issue you will meet some of our most creative and talented alumni, all of whom found their time at Catlin Gabel important to their

creative development. Creative freedom takes place in the science lab as much as it does in the painting and drawing studio. The way the robotics team comes together to map out their technical strategy for competition is akin to drama students coming together to write, cast, stage, and perform their annual one-act plays. And the thought process a student uses to troubleshoot a buggy line of code in computer science class involves the same set of synapses as when that same student tries to figure out why her timing is off in her original film score.

Exercising the creative mind is at the core of a Catlin Gabel education. We are currently in the leadership phase of a capital campaign to raise the necessary funds to elevate this commitment to our students and their education. Catlin Gabel’s Campaign for Arts and Minds has two

components: building our endowment, with special emphasis on financial aid, and building a new Creative Arts Center for the Middle and Upper Schools.

The campaign began quietly in the fall of 2007 and has picked up momentum during the past year. Our most loyal and engaged donors have stepped up to the challenge of investing in our students, their creative minds, and their bright futures.

THE ENDOWMENTAs the campaign continues, we will tell you more in future issues of the Caller about the enormous effect that our various endowed funds have on our community. With an emphasis on building endowed funds for financial aid and for general purposes, this campaign effort experienced strong growth over the past year with a lead gift from Phil and Penny Knight. As of June 30, all of our endowed funds were valued at $21,800,000.

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Untitled work by Kashi Tamang ’11

Photo of Qiddist Hammerly ’12 by Anaka Morris ’12

Creative Arts Center floor plans

Main level, leftLower level, right

&A Campaign for Arts Minds

THE CREATIVE ARTS CENTER

“The arts are a core of Catlin Gabel’s philosophy and are key to a well-rounded education. In no other discipline do critical thinking, problem-solving, predicting outcomes, analyzing, re-assessing, and creativity come together as they do in the arts.

“The intellectual challenges posed by visual art, music, and theater facilitate learning in all other disciplines. These vital pursuits help make our children more thoughtful, interesting, and well-rounded—and create a life of more profundity and beauty for all of us.” —Lark Palma, head of school

As you’ll discover in this issue, Catlin Gabel alumni have the creative bug. They credit their time on campus, their teachers, and their progressive education for influencing their ability to create and innovate in life and in work. If organizations should play to their strengths, then Catlin Gabel’s commitment to building a creative arts center for the Middle and Upper Schools is our way of demonstrating how fundamental creativity is to our educational philosophy.

Creative Arts Center facade

Creative Arts Center aerial view

Creative Arts Center foyer

MORE ROOM FOR CREATIVE ARTS

For US visual art, US choir, US media arts, MS drama, MS music, MS visual artCurrent Square Footage: 6,786Future Art Square Footage: 20,000

Creative Arts Center LayoutMain Level: n Gallery n Courtyard (outdoor) n Media Arts n Theater Control Room n MS Visual Arts n US Visual Arts n Shared print room n 3D Studio

Lower Level: n Black Box Theater (two levels) n Theater Tech Space n Drama Classroom n Instrumental Room n Choir Room n Music Laboratory n Practice Rooms n Instrument Storage Lockers

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CREATIVE ARTS CENTER HISTORYCatlin Gabel has dreamed about a creative arts center, one that consolidates the visual, music, and drama classrooms scattered around campus, for the last 20 years. In the late 1980s, then-headmaster Jim Scott spoke seriously about bringing all the arts under one roof. And ever since current head Lark Palma set foot on campus in 1995, it was abundantly clear to her, a veteran drama teacher, that the arts facilities needed updating.

And the need has continued to grow. During the past two decades, the school and our arts offerings have grown, but the square footage per student dedicated to the arts has decreased. The lack of adequate space for teaching the arts has been singled out as an important area for improvement in our last two accreditation reports by the Pacific Northwest Association of Independent Schools.

Finally, in 2007, Lark and the board of trustees, with input from the Catlin Gabel community, decided we could not put this off any longer. Planning for a new Creative Arts Center began in earnest that spring, led by a committee of staff, faculty, alumni, and trustees. The arts department faculty developed a set of needs and a vision for the art curriculum. Committee members visited peer schools up and down the West Coast and gathered data on best practices. All of this good work informed the original building design presented to the community in the fall of 2008 (see that issue of the Caller). Unfortunately, efforts fell short of the mark, and this initial Arts Center design did not fulfill all the programmatic and aesthetic requirements.

As the designs were being finalized, fundraising began in early 2008 just as winds from the looming “Great Recession” began to stir. The weak economic conditions of 2008 and 2009 exacerbated the tepid community response to the initial building design, forcing the school to make the hard yet courageous decision to pause the project so we could reevaluate and regroup.

In early 2010, with a year passed and time to reflect on the initial launch, the school brought the project out of hibernation. The recession had officially ended, and both enrollment and the Annual Fund were healthy. This renewed economic outlook served as a signal for the school to refocus on the project and explore new opportunities.

Rohan Jhunjhunwala ’11 and Max Semler ’11 in woodshop

Current Arts Facilities

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With a chance meeting between former trustee Jim John and world-renowned Portland architect Brad Cloepfil (see “Allied Works,” at right), a new phase to the project began. Brad had just finished high-profile arts projects in New York City, Montreal, and Dallas and was looking for a project back on his home turf. Jim, a seasoned developer and builder, thought that Brad would be just the person to reignite our Arts Center with a fresh and inspired design. We hope you’ll agree, when you see the design renderings, that Brad and his team delivered the right design at the right time.

GROUNDBREAKINGWe expect to break ground no later than the spring of 2012, and the project will take about 15 months to build. This timeline is dictated entirely by how quickly our community raises the funds for design and construction. The overall project budget is estimated at $6.9 million. Prudently, our board mandates that we raise 80% of projected costs in pledges in order to break ground. As of June 30 we are just shy of having raised half of this amount, with approximately $2.3 million to go. We will look toward leadership donors this summer and fall to get us there. Please contact development director Eileen Andersen, 503-297-1894 ext. 306 or [email protected], to to learn more about our fundraising efforts.

Catlin Gabel funds major capital projects entirely through contributions. The board and administration’s conservative fiscal management has positioned the school with zero outstanding debt after completing the major construction projects of the past 20 years. The Murphy Athletic Complex, Warren Middle School, the Beehive, and most of the Upper School buildings were built without incurring debt. While this is unusual in the sea of heavily financed cultural projects throughout the city and region, it’s a distinction that makes us proud and contributes to the school’s financial health.

A guitarist for the US Jazz Band

Print of deer by Jade Bath ’12

LAUNCH OF THE NEW PROJECTThe original project phase used a “design-build” strategy, where the school would contract with one firm that managed both the design and construction processes. This contractor, the Arts Center design committee, and the greater Catlin Gabel community vetted and chose the original designer after a thorough series of design proposals and presentations from a long list of architectural firms.

When this second phase of the project began in early 2010, all the criteria and specifications for the building established by the committee and arts faculty in 2007 could be transferred to the new architect. This streamlined the hiring of the current designer, Allied Works Architecture. More important, this allowed us to save on the normally high costs of the schematic design phase and significantly shorten the project timeline.

With the new project phase ready to launch, the school sought more project control and opted to engage both the contractor and architect directly, using separate contracts. The new arrangement encourages a healthy tension between our builder and architect by forcing both parties to balance the budget.

JAMES E. JOHN CONSTRUCTIONJames E. John Construction (JEJ), the project general contractor, is a subsidiary of C. E. John Company, Inc., a diversified real estate development and management firm founded in 1947. Although JEJ is known for its Class A office and retail projects, it became clear early in the process that the firm not only had the talent and the resources to build a Brad Cloepfil building, but a keen understanding of how the new classrooms and spaces fit the needs of students and teachers. Current parent and former trustee Jim John, the project principal, provides close and careful management.

ALLIED WORKSWe are privileged to have our building designed by a world-renowned museum and creative space architect. Brad Cloepfil and his Allied Works Architecture team developed what has been overwhelmingly received by our community as an inspired, practical, and beautiful design.

Portland native Brad Cloepfil studied architecture at the University of Oregon and earned an advanced degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture. In fact, his teacher and mentor at Oregon was Thomas Hacker, the principal architect and master planner for much of the Upper School you see today, including the Miller Library and Hillman Modern Languages buildings.

Since Brad founded Allied Works in 1994, he has won commissions for some of the highest-profile cultural projects across the country, from the Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis to the adaptive reuse of Manhattan’s Museum of Arts and Design on Columbus Circle. His West Coast projects include the renovated headquarters of Wieden + Kennedy in Portland’s Pearl District, the Seattle Art Museum, and a recently completed expansion of the Pixar Animation Studios headquarters in Emeryville, California. Allied Works’ art education facilities include the award-winning Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Dallas (alumnae include Nora Jones, Edie Brickell, and Erykah Badu), the University of Michigan Museum of Art, and the Caldera Arts Center in Sisters, Oregon.

“Catlin Gabel’s project for the new arts building means a tremendous amount to me,” says Brad. “To build on that beautiful campus, with the legacy of great architecture by John Storrs and Thomas Hacker, is a true gift. We have worked with faculty and students to create a building that will be a beautiful catalyst for creativity, not only in the visual and performing arts, but for the entire curriculum of the school. It truly is a laboratory, one that will encourage the students to develop new ideas and forms of expression.”


In these troubled times “arts are at the core” are fighting words. My morning commute

is peppered with reminders of the campaign to save the arts in schools. From the Campfire billboard offering to paste back what has been cut in schools, to my neighbor’s Subaru packed to the gills with supplies she’ll need to teach her son’s after-school art class, the evidence is clear: we are blessed to be at Catlin Gabel School.

Arts have been at the core of Catlin Gabel’s philosophical and pedagogical underpinnings since day one.

From Priscilla Gabel’s earliest writings: Let him daily tell or write or sing or dance or act or paint all that he has seen, heard, felt, smelled, and tasted. We aim to develop in each child an inquiring mind that wants to search out facts and truths about the world in which we live.

To Lark Palma’s current charge: We want to create conditions that support students to know the power of their own ideas, develop new-to-them ways of doing things, and be able to think inventively.

The arts are inherent to the culture of teaching and learning across this campus. The approach leaves an indelible signature on our alumni, many of whom may never set foot in a ceramics studio again, but when faced with a professional dilemma will conjure the memory of wrangling a shapeless mass of mud and water into a sleek vessel under Judy Teufel’s watchful eye. They will remember how the idea was so clear in their mind and slipped away so easily once the wheel began turning. The feel of the clay veering determinedly off course and then, with persistence and a steady hand, the sense of it righting itself as the circuit came to a close. They will not only remember the success, they

will remember the journey and the dividends its lessons paid.

For some alumni, their Catlin Gabel arts education sparks something more, a lifelong commitment to the creative process. In addition to those profiled in this Caller, notable alumni include filmmaker Gus Van Sant ’71, opera director Elizabeth Bachman ’74, painter Margot Voorhies Thompson ’66, Broadway lighting designer Carl Faber ’01, and Pixar animator Nathan Matsuda ’03. We send an increasing

number of students to colleges with exceptional (and competitive) arts programs: last year that list included the Rhode Island School of Design, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the California Institute for the Arts, the University of Southern California Schools of Music and of Cinematic Arts, and Cooper Union. Our faculty would never claim these achievements as personal trophies, but like any parent we can certainly feel pride in our ability to cultivate talent and act as stewards of the values that enable these kinds of minds to grow and thrive.

Our 15-member arts department attests: from preschool through 12th grade the arts are alive and well at Catlin Gabel. Following Priscilla Gabel’s directive, we weave creative habits of mind into the daily experiences of our student body. Students learn to know themselves and the power of their ideas through our various disciplines. We identify with our students and have the unique opportunity to collaborate with them.

Last February I had the pleasure of sitting with my colleagues and devoting two days to exploring our professional practice. Rob and Elizabeth Whittemore, professors and parents of CGS alumni, led us through a series of discussions and reflective writing activities to help tease out our core values. We asked ourselves the big questions:

What is the essence of what we do? How do we scaffold this individually and as a department? How do preschooolers with pipe cleaners and pine needles evolve into regional and national Scholastic Gold Key art award winners? How does the shy and awkward 6th grader leap on to center stage as a junior in The Fantasticks? In a program as rich and varied as ours, what are the universal truths behind our diverse methodologies and media?

THE CORE By Nance Leonhardt

Self-portrait by Kashi Tamang ’11

Upper School cast members in The Fantasticks

A R T S A R E A T

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CREATE, PERFORM, RESPONDCPR are three little letters that communicate our directive to revive the imagination day after day, year after year. Our program is about process, the cycle of inspiration leading to action leading to reflection. Like the wheel in the potter’s studio, ideas follow a circuit, and results emerge before our eyes. We guide students’ explorations of the tools and skills needed to perform, and we offer prompts from various sources (art history, current events, poetry, student-generated themes) to draw out their unique points of view as thinkers.

More specifically, we agreed that regardless of medium (instru-mental music, film production, oil painting, woodworking, lighting design) we shelter our students’ development under the following core values:

n Community building and trust n Creative problem solving n Collaboration n Risk taking and resiliency n Finding voicen Valuing process

How this plays out at the classroom level is as varied as our subject areas. In the Middle School, every student participates in a full complement of arts offerings annually, including instrumental music, fine art, theater, woodworking, and media and graphic arts. Our Upper School program offers more than 30 electives in the realms of drama, technical theater, narrative and documentary filmmaking, painting, printmaking, chamber choir, jazz band, photography, ceramics, and more.

Perhaps nothing espouses the value of community building and trust more than the Middle School theater program, developed by traditions of St. George and Gilbert and Sullivan, Middle Schoolers perform in more than 14 productions yearly. Deirdre Atkinson creates a safe, energetic envi-ronment that allows students to tackle everything from 20-minute renditions

of Shakespeare to developing their own plays through a method called devising. When devising, an anything-goes approach allows students the creative space to brainstorm theme, share ideas on visual and auditory components, and physically construct a representation of their thoughts on the chosen topic. Whether it’s a piece on immigration, cyber-bullying, or gender identity, the students proudly step forth in front of packed audiences to share their message and engage the community in a wider dialogue.

In the Upper School, students in Laurie Carlyon-Ward’s honors art seminar engage in a three-semester quest to produce a portfolio of work that reflects the development of their voice as an artist. Visitors to the gallery in the Cabell Center foyer in May see the culmination of this process with displays that include self-portraits, figure drawing, journals, and a personal statement. Whether it’s Mary Bishop 11’s use of line and color to depict her musings on women’s Western attire, or the fleshy graphite textures of Kashi Tamang ’11’s portrait subjects, their voices are etched in the gallery space as distinctly as fingerprints on glass.

THE SPACE TO COLLAbORATE AND CONNECTAs colleagues we deeply value the collaborative avenues opened by the artistic process. For the Middle and Upper Schools, physical proximity places limits on the depth and frequency of our and our students’ opportunity to mingle creatively. We have moments of incredible synergy—like when a student in Mark Pritchard’s music composition class works on a score for one of my student’s films or sound design for one of Deirdre’s plays. Collaboration is a core value, yet restrictions of time and distance push these moments to the periphery.

As education theorist Heidi Hayes Jacobs observes, the

most authentic integrations are those driven by the students themselves. Picture the student dance group working in conjunction with photographers to build a multimedia performance for the Diversity Conference, the painter developing a mural for the math building based on mathematical algorithms, a group designing sustainable furniture for community partners. Our students are already making these things happen—we’ve fostered that habit of mind in spite of limited physical space. The legacy of Priscilla Gabel is most alive in these moments.

Imagine the future where our core values move to the physical core of our campus—a space where the creative process can be witnessed by our community at large, where distinct voices of student artists and musicians meld into a dynamic cacophony of inspiration, and where collaboration and creative risk-taking can thrive, unbridled.

Nance Leonhardt teaches Upper School media arts.

Drawing and mixed media by Mary Bishop ’11

Students photographing in San Francisco for Winterim

&


Eric Edwards’71cameraman (aka director of photography, cinematographer)

The emotion of a film, the way a viewer is pulled in or made to feel a distance, has a lot to do with the way it looks. Imagine film noir in cheerful, gleaming light, or a feel-good movie done in dark, forbidding tones. The director of photography, working with the director’s vision, determines the look of a film. Eric Edwards ’71 is known for the skillful and creative way he interprets that vision, ranging from small indie films to big-budget studio features.

Eric loved photography and art while he was at Catlin Gabel. He and his good friend Gus Van Sant ’71—now a famed director—had the freedom to take over a room in the art department and produce screenprints together, including an eight-page centerfold for their yearbook. They did several short films together, including a 20-minute short for Winterim. Eric and Gus both went on to the Rhode Island School of Design, and after two years in photography Eric joined Gus in the film department. “My interest in film had something to do with my interest in cameras: I liked the mechanical as much as the aesthetic aspect,” says Eric. “And I remember Gus and me sitting in a cinema in Providence watching A Clockwork Orange and Mean Streets. In the early ’70s we watched lots of European films and cinema vérité and witnessed the greatest cinema you could look at. My attention to lighting and photography came from the Europeans.”

Eric returned to Portland and shot local indie films Property and Paydirt. A director named Eagle Pennell noticed his work at the 1982 Sundance Festival, and Eric shot two films for him that got a lot of press. Then Eric got an important break: he

was invited four years in a row to the Sundance Institute June laboratory in Utah for intense workshops in filmmaking with actors and directors. “It was a heady experience for me, like summer camp with a dream team of seasoned people you’ve admired in film,” he says. “I got to witness the process thoroughly and deeply. After that, I was ready to move on with my career.”

Eric’s career did bloom after Sundance. Gus asked him to shoot My Own Private Idaho in 1991. “People hired me because of My Own Private Idaho,” says Eric. “It was a seminal film. I used natural light and time-lapse photography, before a lot of other people used it, and extreme use of close-ups. My Own Private Idaho was Gus’s vision, but I responded to that. You’re only as good as your director and the people you’re with.”

Since that film Eric shot two more for Gus, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues and To Die For. Many of the films he shot brought critical attention, and his reputation began to grow. Eric has since become accepted by Hollywood studios and in the past five years has

shot enormous features such as The Break-Up and Judd Apatow’s Knocked Up, in addition to the small films he continues to enjoy. “In indie films you get to be original, stylistically explore different attitudes, and fail on a smaller level. But all my work is really creative,” he says.

“I’m driven by the directors I work with, and somewhat by the technical challenges. Every director speaks a

unique artistic language. They’ve all been amazing and interesting on every level. It’s all still fascinating to me.

“I’m relied on to make judgment calls all throughout the making of a film. Lighting is an aesthetic choice, but it’s also technical,” Eric says. “But art in itself is technical. Every artist works through some kind of technology. It’s all a gamble, even with the guy with a paintbrush.”

our amazing and creative alumniSpend some time with some of our many alumni who call upon creativity in their careers

Eric Edwards ’71

Eric Edwards ’71 on the set of The Change-Up, directed by David Dobkin. Photo: Bob Mahoney/Universal Pictures

catlin Gabel had a definite influence on what i do now. we learned a lot, especially from art teachers Kim Hartzell and susan Barr sowles.

By Nadine Fiedler

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JEnnifEr cHoi’92new music and classical violinist

As a young girl, Jennifer Choi ’92 diligently practiced classical music on her violin. But when she’d go to the symphony with her parents, the unique, contemporary works were the ones that got to her. At home she’d pick out odd, atonal music on the piano, and revel in its coolness. That unconventional ear of hers has set the pace for her career as one of the most skilled and adventurous performers on the international classical and new music scene.

Playing in student groups at Oberlin and Juilliard, Jennifer continued to savor the works of new composers such as John Corigliano and John Adams, and innovative figures such as John Zorn and Wadada Leo Smith, who sought her out to play their works and honor her with solo pieces. Working with living composers brought a freshness and depth to her performances: “Being able to work closely with a composer so that you understand the sound concept he or she has in mind, and its meaning, creates a special bond,” says Jennifer. “After understanding a work so closely, the performances become more meaningful and animated.”

Jennifer’s career and critical acclaim continue to grow as she performs worldwide, both solo and with ensembles. The works she plays often demand that she break the bounds of conventional technique,

often incorporating electronics and improvisation—the most exciting part for her. “Improvisation is the most creative thing a musician can do because it’s all about creating music in the moment and making it work.”

Jennifer is relieved that she finally acknowledged her natural gift for the avant-garde, after first struggling to embrace it, and glad to have avid listeners for the challenging music she plays. “Audiences have become much more open-minded and accustomed to multiple and cross genres, and as always appreciative of great art and great music,” she says.

our amazing and creative alumni

Jennifer Choi ’92

catlin Gabel had a big influence in my musical choices: any project i take on has to be musically rewarding and at the same time enrich my life.

Tom BussEy’87technical director of unique environments and events

Think big. Really big. Like Y2K New Year’s Eve in Manhattan, New York City’s September 11 “Prayer for America” memorial at Yankee Stadium, Disney’s international tour of Tarzan. These gigantic events have one thing in common: Tom Bussey ’87 was technical director for all of them.

As founder, principal, technical supervisor, creative facilitator, and producer for his company Production Glue, Tom and his crew’s work encompasses installations, live broadcasts, Broadway theater, corporate events, meetings, what they describe as “spectacles and extravaganzas,” and more. For all these Tom draws on his extensive background in theater—which started back in his days at Catlin Gabel.

Tom flourished doing lighting design at Catlin Gabel. He tried to escape theater at Pitzer College, but he realized it truly was his passion. He went on to graduate school at the

Yale School of Drama (where he has since taught as guest lecturer). The next step for Tom was working in Broadway theater.

From there Tom progressed into industrial or corporate theater. “It fueled my passion, and it helped us create our company,” he says. “In legitimate theater I had more responsibility on the technical side of realizing a vision. In the corporate world I have more vision and more input.

“What’s exciting about what we do is that we get to create unique experiences and environments. We take existing technology and elements such as lights and stages, and we put them together, from a technical standpoint, in new ways.”

The work is intensely creative and collaborative. “Depending on the project, either we bring our design side or work with the company’s designers,” says Tom. “We have input collectively to create the sets. There’s so much involved, including physics and math, and artistry. Every project is always different. Back to what Robert Medley always said, a good theater tech is a jack of all trades and a master of none.”

Tom Bussey ’87

catlin Gabel’s theater arts program and robert medley’s guidance gave me the foundation for my professional life. at cGs i learned the value of learning by doing. it’s a principle that still holds true for me.


franK BoydEn’60visual artist: ceramics, prints, sculpture, public art

The art of Frank Boyden ’60 derives its considerable soul from his powers of observation and thoughtful response to his environment. His particular environment happens to be spectacular—where the Salmon River flows into the Pacific Ocean in Otis, Oregon. The ocean-battered wood, the tracks of sea birds, the motions of fish, the gulls both alive and skeletal, the wind-swept trees and their gnarled roots all find their way into his huge body of work, from prints to ceramics, sculpture, and public art.

Frank’s works have earned him an international reputation as a ceramics master and an artist who conveys beauty, wit, and a keen sense of place. During his long career in the arts he has also garnered a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship and an Oregon Governor’s Art Award, and his work can be found in museum collections worldwide. He brought all that attention right back home when he founded the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology in the place he loves. Walks on these local beaches, marshes, and tidal flats inspire Frank and lead him to think about art and creativity, and how we teach our children.

“While I walk, I observe what’s around me and try to be continuously cognizant of color, pattern, the density of darks and lights, what I’m about to trip over. I never know what I might find that’s worth exploring. Young learners automatically have that kind of attention, which you must reinforce and reinforce,” says Frank.

“You have to ask young learners, ‘Why did you pick up that stone? Was it because it was spiky, or smooth, or translucent?’ It’s because something inherent in you says that these surfaces or colors are important to you in this moment in life. A good teacher asks a child, ‘How do you translate what you’re seeing and feeling into a statement that allows

you to speak about what you’re seeing and feeling about this object, or about the sky, or about the water?’

“A mature artist makes a sequence of work, one feeding into another, and another. Maybe we go and do something crazy that we haven’t done before. Maybe it’s an accident and we can see that it’s important for our work right now. That’s how we grow as artists. The work gets deeper and denser, so you can express ideas in a more encapsulated way, in a way that’s less complex, with a stronger statement.

“If you live someplace and want to creatively experience that place, you need to be as responsive as possible about it and highly observant. You

have to look at what’s going on, what the causes and effects are of the dynamics of that space, whether it’s a city, a valley, or a kitchen. I base a lot of my work on how these things I observe work together. How can I use my experience to say something about the relationships or the object or the space that is new?

“It’s like poetry. A great poet will take an idea and express it with a set of words we all know, but you don’t have any choice but to see the idea in a different light. That’s what artists do. By painting or drawing in a certain way you demand that people see an idea in a brand-new light. You made it look new because you tried hard to understand it. You’re broadening people’s abilities to perceive. That’s the mission of building an arts center. You’re teaching kids to widen other people’s perspective on the world.”

Frank Boyden ’60

Ceramic vase by Frank Boyden ’60

catlin Gabel exposes people to all sorts of possibilities. To be versed in math or science you have to know the rules, but in the arts you don’t necessarily have rules. what we do have are ways of granting permission to students to think outside of what’s normally expected of them.

&our amazing and creative alumni

summer 2011 13summer 2011 13

ValEriE day’77jazz singer

Underneath the recent rap song “Buzzin” by Mann and 50 Cent are a catchy bass line and vocals that you will never get out of your head. Although the music is new to some young folks, that sample of timeless dance-pop was lifted from a 1986 megahit, “I Can’t Wait,” which has taken on a life of its own. In 2009, according to Billboard, the song played somewhere on earth every 11 minutes. The group that recorded it was Nu Shooz, and the singer was Valerie Day ’77.

Valerie and her husband, John Smith, won quick fame and were thrust into its attendant whirl after “I Can’t Wait” exploded onto the European and American charts. They earned a Grammy nomination for best new artist in 1987. But fame doesn’t last, and it’s not pretty. “We worked really hard to get where we were, and fame turned out very different from what we had expected,” says Valerie. “It’s taken me a long time to sort it all out.”

What she figured out is that an artist has to evolve—and she’s never stopped refining her art and her skills. Valerie has evolved into a compelling and breathtaking singer and performer who has played solo, with bands, as a session musician, and with her latest project with John, the Nu Shooz Orchestra.

Along her path, Valerie has become a wise observer of her own and other people’s creative processes, a philosopher as well as a practitioner of the arts. “I’m a perfectionist by nature, so I’ve learned that you have to enjoy yourself and delight yourself. Being able to be flexible and be in the moment is important, even if you know it’s going to go away,” she says.

One of Valerie’s recent projects was “Brain Chemistry for Lovers,” a product of her curiosity and ability to connect disparate ideas and disciplines. She studied the neuroscience of different phases of love and presented it in a performance, interwoven with songs exemplifying the emotion of those phases, from steamy torch songs to melancholy breakup songs. “People think that creativity means the arts, but this project made me realize that scientists are just as creative as musicians. They have to look outside the box—or expand it completely.”

Although she’s worked in many musical genres, Valerie started out in jazz, and that’s her favorite place to be. “Jazz is satisfyingly complex,” she says. Right now she’s working with a team to create a vocal jazz degree program at Portland State University, and she’ll teach students to become contemporary vocalists.

Valerie is also a prominent activist for arts education in the schools: “There’s so much evidence about what a positive effect the arts have. I think everyone can be creative, but learning an artistic discipline in school teaches you to look at things in a different way throughout your life.”

As a longtime singing teacher, from beginning through professional, Valerie is particularly sensitive to what her instruction means to her students. “Learning to sing teaches you to be brave. Once you face your fears and do what you’re compelled to do, that leap of faith expands your world,” she says. “I teach professional singers how to value internal measurement in their lives—what they feel compelled to do, what they love, how they want to improve—not how people measure you externally. Music is not easy as a vocation, but it’s worth it.”

“Learning how to work with others successfully in music is a huge learning experience that can be applied to other vocations,” says Valerie. “Lots of doctors and scientists and business people use arts as a balance in their lives. Music and art can be a prescription, and there’s a different prescription for every person. The arts can help you find your voice and nourish you. It’s definitely medicine for the soul.”

Valerie Day ’77 in performanceValerie Day ’77

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catlin Gabel was a big part of my being creative. i was interested in telling a story through dance, music, and visual arts, and i got that all at catlin Gabel. i learned how to think and ask questions and not just go along with someone else’s program. you only have one life. To make the most of it is a creative act in itself.


Joan liVinGsTonE’66artist and art educator

“I understand the world through my body,” says artist Joan Livingstone ’66. Growing up in Portland, and going on camping trips with her family, she came to appreciate the Pacific Northwest’s rich, sensual landscape and the feeling of always knowing where she was in relation to the mountains and the ocean. Joan’s physical consciousness provides the underlying sensibility for her celebrated works of sculpture, which she creates mostly of felt and other tactile materials. Her compelling and complex works allude to skin, the body and its organs, and how we feel and experience time and place.

Becoming an adult in the turbulent 1960s, Joan appreciated how teachers at Catlin Gabel helped her become a rigorous thinker who could consider all sides of a question. She studied art at Catlin Gabel and worked at the Portland Art Museum during summers and on weekends. But it wasn’t until she was in college that she truly committed herself to becoming an artist.

Joan became involved in agit-prop theater in Portland with a group that performed Shakespeare as a protest against the war in Vietnam. She thought about how bodies relate to space and made huge woven or tie-dyed cloth hangings that provided a big, physical landscape for the actors to navigate. Joan’s theater work reinforced her sense of the physical, and she has continued throughout her career to refine and translate that sense. “I continued making bodyscapes, creating an experience for viewers as they move through the gallery. It’s about providing

forms with the qualities of skin, and privileging the sense of touch and the sense of the body being immersed in a space that is intimate,” she says.

Feminism was another powerful influencing force for Joan in its challenge to the visual art hierarchy. “When I was in graduate school at Cranbrook Academy, the language of the time in art was about minimalism and reduction. I challenged the status quo, which was about big, heavy metal works. My works were in a human scale rather than a monumental scale. I incorporated qualities of skin and hide and the physical body. It went against the grain,” she says.

“I moved to forming shapes that made you think of the body, that were shapes abstracted from the body,” says Joan. “I would suspend felt in an exoskeleton until a shape formed, and impregnate it with resin. It became a process of developing patterns cut from the felt that, when stitched under tension, would curve in space. This gave it the sensuous qualities of the

body. I would then sand the surface so the nubby, hairy texture of the felt emerged. From a distance the forms looked hard, but soft when viewed up close, which created a contradiction.”

Joan moved to New York in the early ’70s, allied herself with artists doing free-form fiber sculpture, and began exhibiting her works in galleries. She immersed herself in the art scene there and has done so in all the places she’s lived and worked since. “It’s important for an artist to develop a community of trusted artists around you. Isolation is a myth,” she says. “Art is a dialogue—a conversation—between artists that happens every day to share new ideas and propositions. Critiques are really important and will trigger your thinking. That’s why I like big cities: you’re exposed to many points of view.”

“And then I was seduced into teaching,” Joan says. After a stint as visiting artist at the Kansas City Art Institute, she was invited to return and take over the fiber department for a year. That stretched into four

Joan Livingstone ’66

Joan Livingstone, At Capacity, 1998–2001, felt, stain, epoxy, resin, rubber, pigment, metal

i am indebted to catlin Gabel. it was better than my college education. it was about learning to ask the right questions and not accepting preconceptions, finding areas of inquiry, and pressing on the status quo. it made all of us hungry to learn.


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years, and Joan found that she loved teaching. Her art also matured in Kansas City, thanks to cheap studio space to create large pieces and a steady income, as well as inspiration from a lively faculty and art community. After Joan’s time was up in Kansas, Cranbrook Academy in Detroit called her to chair its fiber arts department for two years and work with graduate students. When that position ended in 1982, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago recruited her as visiting artist. She continues there today as a tenured faculty member of the fiber and material studies department. “I couldn’t be in a better place,” she says. “With my colleagues we have developed one of the strongest fiber programs in the world, for both graduates and undergraduates. It’s extremely rewarding to find parallel intellectual stimulation with my studio practice.”

Joan has just finished her sixth and last year in SAIC as dean of undergraduate studies. She plans to take a sabbatical year and make her fifth visit to India, a place that has always fascinated her, to study, do a residency, and make art. “In India there’s an extensive history of textiles and a long trade in them. I’m interested in the way the people there pay attention to the gods on a daily basis, the rituals, the amazing spaces, the maximal decoration, the earthiness of the culture, and the ubiquitous presence of the body,” she says.

During her many years teaching, Joan continued to produce works in

her studio, show her work in galleries and museums, and earn significant awards and critical attention. As dean at SAIC she didn’t have much time to spend in her studio, and now she’s eager to get back to work and excited about the possibilities.

“So now I choose to return to the studio. I’m a little nervous about it. I need to do art daily. I live in an environment of art and have been drawing and making some prints,” says Joan. “I read enormously and voraciously. It’s a creative act for me. I write in my journal. Art is about responding and reflecting on the times in which we live. It’s about paying attention to who and where we are in the world. Paying attention is a fundamental part—not just in your studio but in your community and in the huge international world. Being able to absorb, internalize, and respond is what artists do. They show us the world in which we live.

“As I return to the studio full time, I’ll ask myself how to bring all this rich information back into it. I think I’ll take some risks and allow myself to play. It’s a huge risk to have no goal, to let the work evolve from the tip of my nose to the corners of my eyes. I’m not abandoning where I was. My new work will be an extension of where I’ve been. I’ll probably look at where I live and the skins of my neighborhood. But I’m also itching to make forms. I want to do casting, and I also want to engage other materials. I will continue to stay engaged with the body and the world.

“During my education and during the feminist movement I was deeply influenced by the notion that I could do work as a woman and as a woman in the world. I keep that close. But the phenomenological aspects of how we know the world—through senses, touching, and materials—is what’s critical. I’ve been an artist now for a long time. I know I’m not really afraid. Learning to trust myself and take risks is the most important part.”

For more about Joan, visit joanlivingstone.com

PETEr BromKa’00design researcher

As a human factors researcher at design firm IDEO, an award-winning global design firm, Peter Bromka ’00 thrives in an atmosphere where creativity is expected. IDEO’s mission is to help its clients innovate, from government agencies to consumer product manu-facturers to schools and more.

Peter’s work in human factors is a perfect fit for someone with a degree in anthropology. His understanding of human behavior, combined with

fluency in the arts, make Peter’s work greatly satisfying for him. “Human factors is about understanding how to make things that work well for people. It’s about how design impacts people’s lives,” says Peter. “How do they experience things in their day-to-day lives?”

Peter first thought advertising would be the right career for him—until he read about IDEO. But breaking into

Joan Livingstone, from Migrations installation, 2004, mixed media. Courtesy Laura Russo Gallery

Peter Bromka ’00

as a catlin Gabel lifer, i’ve done art forever and gotten great exposure to art and design. Good art teachers teach you not to reject art in your life, even if you’re not perfect at it.


the field turned out to be a challenge: IDEO rejected his first application. So he studied product design for a summer at the Rhode Island School of Design: “It showed that I wasn’t afraid to sketch, and that I could strategize. I redesigned an umbrella, and stitched it together by hand.” That class, plus years of experience at another firm, ultimately led him to land a job at IDEO.

“In my role here I conduct the research and strategy for projects,” says Peter. “I work to understand people’s behaviors and identify opportunities for design.” For instance, he recently worked with a bank in Brazil—a country dubious about online security—to bring its online banking and customer interface into the present and future.

“Doing what I do, I’ve come to appreciate how much things could be better, and how much design can improve these situations, but also just how complex these challenges really are—how many people it takes to get something done successfully,” Peter says. “It’s changed the way I look at the world.”

Bianca BosKEr’04technology editor, Huffington Post

When news breaks about technology—Google, Facebook, security breaches, killer apps, Twitter—Bianca Bosker ’04 reports on it, day or dead of night, for web-based news site Huffington Post. The

stories she loves best are the ones that haven’t been told before—the ones that tell people something they don’t know about the fast-moving and increasingly personal world of technology.

“People are faced with a lot of content on the web, and they can be choosy. I have to challenge myself to bring fresh information and a fresh perspective they didn’t have before,” she says. “I have to use language in

powerful and compelling ways, to grab the reader’s attention so my idea can reach its full potential.”

The Huffington Post is leanly staffed, and Bianca exercises enormous creative control over her stories: she comes up with an idea, writes the story, chooses the accompanying image, writes the headline, and figures out how to tweet it and post it on Facebook to attract readers. Her best stories, she

says, are about things that have made her wonder. That kind of curiosity, linked with good instincts and equally good writing skills, have made her a rising star in the media landscape.

Bianca was interested in writing and journalism from a young age. She co-wrote a book on the history of bowling when she was still at Catlin Gabel, and she’s written from Asia for the Wall St. Journal and the Far Eastern Economic Review. She’s working on yet another book, about the trend in China to create residential developments that are oddly inexact replicas of iconic cities around the world. And she loves her work. “I’m lucky to have a job where I want to keep teaching my readers something and keep learning myself,” she says.

Jason wEscHE’92digital artist for animated movies

A love of theater, film, and architecture led Jason Wesche ’92 to a career in the movies.

Jason’s interest in theater flourished at Catlin Gabel, and he thought he’d pursue a path as a performer or director. But the film world called to him, and after college he moved to Los Angeles to work in the film industry. He worked for a feature film director, and then in the writer’s office of a TV show. When the show ended, Jason pursued his interest in design by earning a graduate degree in architecture. He used that experience to get a job designing not buildings, but movies, working in previsualization first at Pixel Liberation Front (on Iron Man and others) and now at Dreamworks Animation on films such as Megamind and Madagascar 3.

As it turns out, architects—and people with design backgrounds—are just the ones to work in previsualization. Previz, as it’s called, is a part of filmmaking that brings spatial reality into the 3D computer environment to efficiently plan shots and special effects. It creates a sort of Bianca Bosker ’04

Bianca Bosker ’04 at work at the Huffington Post

catlin Gabel gave me the ability to write, one of the skills i’m most thankful for. i couldn’t do what i’m doing without art leo and Ginia King having been such supportive, honest critics of my writing.


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low-resolution version of the movie. It is an immensely creative phase

of movie-making, appealing to people with many different skills. “I like it better than doing the final product,” says Jason. “We start with a storyboard, or sometimes just a general concept that we brainstorm. We set it up in the computer, animate the shots, try different things, show it to the director, and fine-tune the sequence—we get to go down a lot of paths before it goes into final animation.”

“It really fits how my creative process works, I feel likes it’s the perfect convergence of all my skills and interests.” he says. “We love feeling that we’ve helped make the movie better. If we can stand back and look at a final scene and see even one moment or beat that we’ve added, we feel very proud.”

camillE KEEdy malmquisT’96pastry chef

When most people think of creative arts, they often overlook the culinary arts. It is a realm of unlimited imaginative (and edible!) possibilities. Camille Keedy Malmquist ’96 works in one of the most demanding of the culinary arts, pastry-making—and she does that in Paris, where the best pastries in the world are made, in one of the best pâtisseries in that city.

Camille first moved to France to teach English after college, but what she loved best was cooking and baking. Back in the States, she pursued training in culinary school in California, and worked in restaurants and bakeries in Dallas. She and her husband then moved to Paris, with no jobs in hand. Every bake shop wanted experience in France, but finally the family-owned Pâtisserie Couderc took a chance on Camille. There she’s honed her pastry-making skills, and now she’s learning the art of chocolate.

“The recipes in the traditional French pastry shop where I work are based on classic techniques, practiced over and over. I have developed some new flavors for the chocolates, but mostly my creative outlet is cooking at home and writing

my blog,” says Camille (read it at http://croquecamille.wordpress.com). “Creativity is very important in the pastry arts, though. Once you understand how the ingredients work and how they work together, you can start creating your own desserts with the flavors and textures you’re after.”

Camille doesn’t plan to live in Paris forever, and she’s contemplating opening an ice-cream or chocolate shop when she returns to the U.S. But for now, Camille enjoys the daily work in her corner of Paris, making food that makes people happy: “It

Jason Wesche ’92Camille Keedy Malmquist ’96

Camille Keedy Malmquist ’96 making pastries

catlin Gabel gave me space to explore and a foundation to build on. i can still trace a lot of my creative inclinations to my time there. my graduate school thesis grew out of interests i developed my freshman year in robert medley’s class.

my catlin Gabel teachers Josée overlie and marie letendre instilled in me a lifelong love of france and the french language. i went on to major in french literature in college, and my french language skills were a big part of the reason my husband and i decided to move to Paris.

18 catLIn GaBeL18 catLIn GaBeL caLLer

feels good to produce something tangible with my hands every day. I love starting the day with crates of eggs and cream and flour and sugar, and finishing it with enough cake to serve hundreds of people. People serve desserts to mark important events, and it’s nice to feel that in some way, I’m part of the celebration.”

ErniE lafKy’81game designer, avant-garde theater director

Ernie Lafky ’81 designs casino games. His lifelong passion is experimental and avant-garde theater. And he won Catlin Gabel’s science award in his senior year for his stellar work in physics. It really does all fit together, he says.

It’s all about having a cerebral, conceptual turn of mind. Ernie relishes the challenges, social commentary, and verbal play of the fringes of the theater world as much as the intense, mathematical world of physics. In his job he draws on these proclivities and experiences, creating engaging play for the gamer and earning patents for ingenious systems he’s developed.

Ernie stumbled into avant-garde theater at Catlin Gabel, influenced by teacher Alan Greiner, and was encouraged to read writers such as Eugene Ionesco. “In college and

graduate school I was up to my eyeballs in creative theater,” says Ernie. In Los Angeles he immersed himself in avant-garde theater with great artistic freedom—until he turned 30 and was tired of being broke.

As a tester in the new field of interactive multimedia CD-ROM games and programs—rife with bad stories, film, and acting—Ernie saw how he could improve them. After a spell working in theater with gay and Lesbian homeless youth, and doing Shakespeare with inner-city youth—experiences he cherishes—he realized it was time for a new career. It seemed clear that he could do well as a producer for interactive games. And he landed jobs with companies including Jim Henson and Mattel.

When a position came up at Wagerworks (now IGT) to produce and design casino games, he snagged the job. He loves video poker and Vegas, and his theater work helps him grasp how to keep a player

entertained. His science background helps him communicate with engineers, so the fit is perfect.

Ernie still works in theater whenever he can. “Casino gaming is one of my hobbies, which makes my job really fun. It’s like dessert,” he says. “But avant-garde theater nourishes my spirit. It’s a perfect balance.”

Hillary HursT’72drama therapist and middle school drama teacher

The ancient Greeks recognized that drama could provide catharsis, revitalization for actors and audiences. For Hillary Hurst ’72, drama has proven to be a powerful tool for changing lives. As a drama therapist, she works with psychiatric patients at SageView in Bend, Oregon, helping them recognize how they can better their lives.

Ernie Lafky ’81

Ernie Lafky ’81 (L) and Lisa Wymore in Remote by Sara Kraft and Ed Purver

Hillary Hurst ’72

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all that i do was planted as seeds at catlin Gabel—theater, science, English, history. i draw on all of it between my job and my art. my education has been so incredibly valuable to me. you can’t put a price on it.


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Hillary loved drama at Catlin Gabel, and thought that was her calling. She studied theater at Bard College, then decamped to New York and immersed herself in the heady days of experimental theater. She acted for many years, until she wanted something that would provide a better living. Drama therapy fascinated her, and she earned her degree at the California Institute of Integral Studies.

Her first jobs tested her mettle. Hillary worked in Oakland with at-risk youth and abused girls, learning how theater and therapy can work

together to restore self-worth for people who sorely need it. “The girls shared their daily life through scene work on difficult experiences. We talked about what they would do differently now, and how they now can stand up for themselves.” She’s brought those lessons to her therapy work at SageView with society’s most fragile people.

Hillary makes extensive use of metaphor: she asks her clients to think of their life as, say, a river, and imagine their journey—then asks what they’re missing. “People say things like, ‘I dropped my oars years ago in the water, and I allow life to drive me along.’ You let them know that they do have some say in their lives, that they are survivors.”

“My basic premise as a therapist and healer is that human beings want to be seen, heard, and loved,” says Hillary. “In people who have been through trauma and abuse, this triad is grossly neglected. The process in therapy involves seeing them, hearing them, and reflecting back love.”

JoHn ralsTon’74 architect

Architect John Ralston ’74 designs honest, inviting, livable, and beautiful buildings. They reveal their integrity in the use of natural materials, in details that point out the way the building holds together, and in their reflection of the site and the building’s use and users.

What these buildings also reflect is John’s personal warmth and humility—not to mention his charisma, technical expertise, and great senses of both humor and aesthetics. This winning combination has resulted in an impressive array of work that he’s done, in Oregon and

Hillary Hurst ’72 with some of her students at the Cascades Academy of Central Oregon

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John Ralston ’74

i was so blown away by theater at catlin Gabel. my being an actor was valued as much as being a scientist. catlin Gabel was a gift to me.

John Ralston ’73’s Kuni beach house

catlin Gabel made architecture school easy, because i had already learned to write and study.


Michael Hiestand ’75

i got a d in french my senior year. i told a french teacher, Jean-claude lachkar, that i was sort of challenged. at a basketball game, he came out on the court and said, ‘i found out that you’re not stupid!’ i said that was just a rumor.


elsewhere, for private homes as well as governmental and commercial facilities.

John had a penchant for art and architecture from his youth. He came to Catlin Gabel because of its superb art department. He spent a lot of time in the clay room, where he made his first houses out of clay. Those little clay houses from the clay room provided just the right touch in his architecture school interview to get him accepted.

Today John is a co-principal in a small firm in Bend, HSR Master Planning and Architecture. “To lead a firm, you need professional skills, and people skills. We’re not just making a building, we’re meeting the needs of the client,” he says. “That’s when architects are valuable. You can always get someone to design something good enough. The core thing is that your buildings will keep enhancing the lives of the people using them.”

So take a look at his projects. Look for the details: the waves of stone anchoring the house on the coast and its eyebrow dormer, the stream that runs under the house with a viewing window in the hall floor, the way a large house has the coziness of a small cabin, the way different tones of wood harmonize. They are the grace notes that mark the works of a creative talent in love with what he does.

micHaEl HiEsTand’75 sports media journalist

Michael Hiestand ’75 is crazy about writing. He could write well about anything, and pretty much has. But he invented his own niche in journalism: he’s been writing for 20 years about sports media and the business side of sports for USA Today. He’s created a strong presence, with a focused voice in print and a trenchant, funny persona on the air.

Sports wasn’t his first choice for his career topic. He wrote at Catlin Gabel, including book reviews for the 2nd grade librarian that were published by the Oregonian and “nutty stuff for the school newspaper,” wrote more at Stanford, did a publishing course at Harvard, then wrote book copy for Simon & Schuster in New York while he freelanced more writing.

“I’d write any article that popped into my head and send it off to magazines,” says Michael. “I got great practice making the most boring topic interesting reporting on business for Adweek—and that’s always the goal. I suggested writing about the business side of sports—which is everything besides the game—and they loved the idea. People thought that sports was not a part of capitalism, so I found my niche.”

Michael spent a memorable year in Sydney, Australia, covering preparations for the Olympics. “I thought up my own stories to do,

which were basically anything I could talk my way into. I would look for an exception to the norm, because that’s always more interesting. I loved Australia. I told them it did wonders for the U.S. self-esteem to break from Great Britain. I said I would stay and cover it if they had a revolution.”

“Now, with Facebook and other social media, people think everyone should be passionate or opinionated,” says Michael. “But when I write, I don’t have a dog in that fight. If you’re into sheer storytelling you can do it for a long time, adapting as you go.”

PaT carEw’93video producer and director

Among the many media that vie for our attention, video has become a familiar presence in all our lives. In his work with video, Pat Carew ’93 navigates a particular intersection of entertainment, education, and persuasive storytelling.

As video producer and director for CMD, a Portland advertising and marketing agency, Pat creates pieces that run the gamut from commercials, in-store videos, and trainings to online videos for a wide variety of clients. CMD is unusual in having its own small, dedicated video production team, and Pat enjoys the creative freedom of serving for various projects as producer, editor, writer, or director. In his producer role he guides the projects from

Interior of John Ralston ’73’s Crosswater Residence

summer 2011 21

beginning to end, working mostly with logistics (locations! schedules! budgets!). Directing is more creative, he says, setting the look, feel, and tone of the piece.

“In my work there’s a push and pull between the creative and practical aspects, and projects are always expanding and contracting. You dream up maybe 15 ideas, and then you pick one. You shoot way more than you need, with each scene shot from five different angles. And then you contract: you edit down to what you need. Every project is a

little different, so the work is always fresh. My favorite project is the one I’m working on,” he says.

Pat began doing video while he was attending Tufts University, and his first piece was a music video for a band he was in with Scott Fisher ’93. He continued work on music videos and short films, and then freelanced on independent films and in audio on location and in recording studios. With two small children, his work is now all for CMD, and he loves what he does: “My work is alive to me,” he says.

carolinE KuErscHnErmaclarEn’89land use and real estate attorney

Can the practice of law be a creative pursuit? We asked Portland attorney Carrie MacLaren ’89 to give it some thought.

“People come to me with a variety of issues: from development to conservation, and all points in between,” says Carrie, who works with Black Helterline LLP. “In many cases the due diligence, research and evaluation, is not creative. Once we know the particulars and evaluate how they affect the goal, then the creative thinking can come in. How do we resolve obstacles and find ways to reach the goals?”

Let’s say she has a client whose land-use project has come against a hurdle: a use that isn’t allowed or a development that is opposed by the planning staff or neighbors. She can try to change the zoning classification, which would be the analytical approach. But she can also talk with the client about finding ways to modify the proposal to fit within the existing zoning or address the neighbors’ concerns. “It’s about not going by the rote book and stepping back to look at the whole picture. It’s being able to look at the obstacles and ask if there’s a different way to conceptualize the project, if it’s too cumbersome

and problematic,” says Carrie.Carrie has also brought some

cutting-edge thinking to her practice: she taught a University of Oregon course on the legal aspects of green building, a new field that raises all kinds of questions for lawyers. She’s a veteran in her field of law, having spent many years as staff attorney for the land use protection group 1000 Friends of Oregon.

“When all is considered, critical thinking is definitely key in law, but creative thinking is a big part of it, says Carrie. “I always have to think on my feet.”

Pat Carew ’93

Carrie MacLaren ’89

soccer was not a big deal for me until i went to catlin Gabel for high school. i would love to make a feature film someday — a compelling soccer drama. That’s not been done before!

at catlin Gabel i took weaving, i was photographer for the yearbook, and i took the art survey class. Having that exposure, and enabling the brain to think in different ways, is useful in any field.


caPricE nEEly’85footwear design director

Caprice Neely, a true hands-on girl, loved art and woodshop when she attended Catlin Gabel’s Lower School. The skills she developed in making and building, combined with her aesthetic sense, formed the basis for her long career in footwear design.

Product design wasn’t something Caprice set out to do. But what got her far—so far that today she’s a lead designer in Nike’s blue-sky innovation team—was her absolute fearlessness and determination.

After working her way through college as an art major, Caprice landed a temp job in the Portland offices of Avia, a sports shoe company. Her curiosity led her to the design department, and she was

immediately hooked on footwear design. She hung out with designers and asked if she could help. That led to a job with Adidas painting shoe models—until she confidently stepped up and asked to create models herself. Then she asked if she could create her own designs. Soon she went to see the president of Adidas with her designs and prototypes, and he offered her a designer job on the spot.

After three years Caprice moved to Nike, and with the exception of one foray into another venture, she’s been there ever since. She helped envision and create the first Nike sportswear line, and today she works on a creative team with the freedom to design the next big thing.

Much of Caprice’s success lies

in her knack for designing great-looking shoes that function well. “You have to keep in touch with popular culture and fashion trends, even if you’re working on something as technical as the next track spike for the Olympics. Athletes tell us that if they look good, they’ll perform better,” she says.

Caprice would like more students to consider product design: “The ability to build and fix things incorporates different problem-solving skills. If you mix that with art, you have the potential for a career in product design and engineering.”

Nadine Fiedler is the editor of the Caller and Catlin Gabel’s publications and public relations director.

it’s amazing for me to think back to the foundation i received at catlin Gabel, especially in art. i was encouraged to do and try anything. it gave me the confidence in myself to know that i would succeed if i worked hard enough.

Caprice Neely ’85

Caprice Neely’s Cityknife shoe and sketches for Nike.


summer 2011 23

Carmen Heisinger Vali-Cave ’83

Mayor of Aliso Viejo, California, and community development director for the city of Menifee, California

Catlin Gabel taught me how to think—critically, analyti-cally, and creatively—and each teacher managed to foster that, each in his or her own way.

I have come to rely on my ability to think through issues. My current jobs do not reflect my college majors—community development director and volunteer mayor of my city in my “spare” time. Instead, my ability to think helped me get these jobs.

I have hired people in several different contexts, whether in government or nonprofit social service, or by participating on an interview panel. When I look at a candidate for a position, I look for a thinker. I want someone who is going to look at an issue from many different perspectives—not just follow what others have done before them. In social service, empathy is a major factor in client contact, and you have to be able to look at a challenge or problem from the client’s perspective. Even if a counselor has never personally been a single mother, a battered wife, or a foster child, the most successful counselor can imagine what it feels like to walk in these people’s shoes. Empathy takes the ability to imagine.

Innovation and improvement happen when we look for new or different ways to solve an old or ongoing problem, and we especially need fresh ideas in government. Sometimes mediating between the law and the wishes of a constituent takes creative problem solving. Maneuvering between the letter of the law and the intent of the law requires the ability to think quickly and formulate a new idea. Success in government often comes not from a fact-laden background, but from the openness, and the willingness, to express a new, creative idea.

Alex Sokol Blosser ’92

Co-president (with Alison Sokol Blosser ’97), Sokol Blosser Winery, Dundee, Oregon

I have a bunch of inspirational quotes pinned to my wall. My favorite is from legendary adman Tom McElligott, and it says “Imagination is one of the last remaining legal means of gaining unfair advantage over the competition.” Nothing could be closer to the truth. Having a creative thought process means that you’re able to use that background exactly to gain unfair advantage. The mighty don’t always win. Smarts and intelligence play into success.

In my work, I look for people who are curious and want to learn. That goes hand in hand with creative thinking. I value people who have a curious spirit.

When we interview people, we always ask why they went to college, and why they wanted to continue learning. When they say they love learning and love the subject they studied, that’s a great sign. We want people like that. If they want to learn, they’ll be great team members. If they’re know-it-alls, they’re not for us. Critical thinkers and curious learners are one and the same.

Education doesn’t make you smarter or wiser, but it allows you to become smarter or wiser more quickly than other people. You’ve learned enough to know where and how to get get help, or get information, so you can go to work and confidently address what the company should or shouldn’t do.

The creative process doesn’t come with a roadmap. When I was studying for my MBA, we were required to take an improv class, and it was great training.

Winemaking uses both analytical and subjective sides of the brain. The winemaker has to think about the smells and flavors he’s trying to achieve, like a chef, but there’s also a technical aspect. Our winemaker, Russ Rosner, has a degree in biology but is extremely creative. There can be creativity in almost anything you do.

What Do Employers Look For?Alumni from different fields discuss creativity and other desirable traits in their employees

Alex Sokol Blosser ’92

Carmen Heisinger Vali-Cave ’83 at a ribbon-cutting


Mark Bonyhadi ’72

Director of global business development for cell therapy, Life Technologies, Seattle

When I would interview people in my role as head of research, I first looked for people with a desire to solve problems. Creativity is a definite requirement for someone who works independently on a project. Two traits were predominant in people I wanted to work with:

Inquisitiveness: I look for people who want to know more about the subject and see it as more than just a job with a series of steps.

Thought process: If the path to success were simple, a lot more people would be successful.

I wanted to hire people that I could have a conversation with, people with career aspirations, who enjoyed their work, and were not afraid to fail. I looked for people who were curious, who had experience in the area, who attacked hurdles with perseverance. I hired one young woman who had been unable to prove her hypothesis, but I was impressed that she had aggressively addressed it using a broad array of experimental approaches. This is life in a creative venue. It’s like graphic media, or poetry, or music.

Once, when my son was in 5th grade, I went into his class to teach about viruses. Half the kids had to figure out how a virus could escape the immune system, and the other half had to figure out how the immune system could detect the virus. Some groups had crazy ideas—but two groups came up with hypothetical solutions that perfectly reflect our current state-of-the-art understanding of these processes. Their language was different, but the ideas were the same. These students were inquisitive, and they had the ability to conceive creative solutions.

This experience underscored, for me, the importance of problem solving with an open mind. Moreover, students should know that experience is very important in getting a job. They should do summer internships and volunteer work so that prospective employers know they have basic skills beyond simple book learning.

Cynthia Johnson Haruyama ’77

Executive director, Lan Su Chinese Garden, Portland

What kind of person makes a good employee in my line of work? I look for learners who can harness both the creative side of their souls and the analytical powers of their mind to solve problems. I’m a problem-solver by vocation. Problem-solving was my function as a lawyer and then as a turn-

around manager in the business and nonprofit sector. For the past 15 years, I’ve worked on transforming for-profit and nonprofit organizations to restore them to financial health and fulfill their missions. I love this kind of work! But transformation is hard work. It requires a blend of knowledge, creativity, experimentation, optimism, perseverance, patience, uncertainty, and rigorous analysis.

Let me give you an example. At Lan Su Chinese Garden, we’re trying to serve as a window into 5,000 years of Chinese culture. That’s a big subject area. The size of the window is the one-hour visit of a typical visitor who has rudimentary prior knowledge about China. So we come up with monthly themes to try to engage visitors in small increments of Chinese culture. This begins with knowledge of Chinese culture, but knowledge only gives us the germ of an idea. Execution requires creative problem-solving. My staff takes an idea such as “dragons” and has to figure out how to create participatory, fun, and educational activities. They translate “dragons” into borrowing a dragon boat to float on the lake, dragon coloring for children, finding dragon shadow puppet experts to conduct workshops, and recruiting a traditional dragon dancer troupe. They created these ideas out of thin air! Then they have to try the activities out. Some will turn out to be too much work or too expensive. Some will enchant visitors. Some will attract children when we thought they would attract adults and vice versa. Immediately after the dragon theme ends, they debrief about what worked and didn’t and start the creative juices for planning for next year. All the time, they’re learning through experience how to do their jobs better and in the process make Lan Su Chinese Garden fun for people of all ages.

Mark Bonyhadi ’72 Cynthia Johnson Haruyama ’77

What Do Employers Look For?

summer 2011 25summer 2011 25

Jim Skutt ’81

President, Skutt Ceramic Products, Portland

Is creative thinking important in the real world of jobs and careers? You bet it is. I can’t think of a single position in our company where creative thinking isn’t welcome. When I say creative thinking I use it synonymously with creativity and don’t limit it to the arts. Do you think a good engineer is creative? How about an accountant

(okay, maybe not for some aspects of accounting, but others require loads of resourcefulness)? Even jobs that we think typically don’t require creativity are definitely enhanced by the judicious application of originality.

In my day job I work with a group of talented people who build kilns and potter’s wheels. Since there are very few companies doing that in the world, and no others in Portland, we hire people who have no idea how to design, build, or sell kilns specifically. So as we bring people onto the team they have to learn and apply their unique skills to bear against the challenges facing them. In addition, the most important thing we look for in hiring is organizational fit: will they fit in with our company and customers? Do they have a willingness to serve; a can-do attitude, and the ability to interact positively with other people? In all ways, they will have to be creative.

Of course many of us will think about the arts first when we think of creativity, and for a good reason. Many of the things we learn while working in the arts foster mental development around creativity. We learn how to transform a blank canvas, block of wood, or hunk of clay into an object that expresses our intensions and thoughts. I believe this process is similar between all disciplines, from artist to engineer, actor to accountant. And the process is transferable. In my own experience I found Catlin Gabel to be a place that values this process as much, or maybe even more, than the final product.

Jane Zalutsky ’76

Principal at marketing firm JZworks, Seattle

First of all, I take the hiring process seriously. It’s the most important thing a leader can do for an organization. The next person you hire could become the next leader.

When I think of hiring, I think of hiring the whole person. A person is never just a skill set or a set of past job experiences. You hire someone to fit in with or lead a team, so this consideration is critical. Exposure to creative thinking is so critical. Everything moves so quickly these days that reassembling and rethinking is crucial.

In the visual or performing arts, you are constantly rethinking. In visual arts, you are always assessing shapes, composition, and colors, and how to express your ideas. Performance is a here and now situation, if you’re working on dance, or music, or with a band. It’s all about teamwork. Those aspects of creativity are fundamental to finding the right person to bring to an organization. The people I hire don’t have to be practicing artists, but it’s important to me that they do or have done something like play music or act in plays.

You can always teach a person to learn new skills or about how your organization works. I look for how they think, interact, and make the most of their skills. I look to see if they’re team players. I try to find the right combination.

So many people change jobs. If you hire people, they might be there after you leave. It’s your legacy. They may be the ones who do the next amazing thing for the company. Who you bring in is a major contribution to an organization or company.

Jim Skutt ’81

Jane Zalutsky ’76


KudOS tO CAtlin GABelCGS was awarded the Tualatin Valley Water District’s first Water Hero Award for significant water use reductions. . . Nonprofit community development corporation Bienestar honored CGS with its first Community Partner of the Year Award. Upper Schoolers tutor Hispanic students in the homework club at Reedville Apartments in Aloha, and the CGS Service Corps sponsored a book drive for Bienestar’s early reading efforts.

Student HOnOrS The mock trial team won two out of four of its trials at the national competition. Leah Thompson ’11 was named one of the competition’s top 10 best attorneys. . . . 8th

graders Matthew Bernstein and Larissa Banitt won 1st and 2nd place in the national poetry contest sponsored by the Manningham Trust. . . . . Four Middle Schoolers and eight Upper Schoolers placed in the top 10 in their category in the Grand Concours National French Contest. Five Middle Schoolers and four Upper Schoolers achieved that status in the national Spanish contest. . . . CGS’s first-ever team at the World Affairs Council’s state WorldQuest competition won 3rd place. . . . Rebecca Garner ’11 won the Gold Key in art, the highest regional award in the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards program, sponsored by New York’s Alliance for Young Artists & Writers.

StudentS exCel in SCienCe And MAtHVighnesh Shiv ’11 was named one of 15 finalists in the international Google Science Fair. His paper was accepted for publication and presentation at the international Sound and Music Computing Conference in July in Italy. . . . Eve Maquelin ’16 and Andrew Park ’15 won the “Write It, Do It” category of the National Science Olympiad middle school section. . . . Marina Dimitrov ’13, Mark Van Bergen ’13, and Sarah Ellis ’11 were state winners in the national Siemens We Can

Change the World Challenge with their project that converts excess pressure in the school’s water system to energy using a turbine. . . . Lawrence Sun ’14 was one of 270 students nationally who qualified to take the USAMO Math Olympics exam. . . . 8th grade robotics Team Delta—Max Armstrong ’15, Evan Chapman ’15, Sophie Paek ’15, and John Williamson ’15—competed in the XPrize Global Innovation competition with an amazing idea for making prosthetic devices cheaper and more accessible in developing countries.

StudentS rOCK tHe intel nW SCienCe exPOVighnesh Shiv ’11 won first place in the computer science category and the Intel Excellence in Computer Science Award. Rohan Jhunjhunwala ’11 won second place in the Engineering: Electrical and Mechanical category and the Outstanding Project award from the U.S. Air Force. Terrance Sun ’13 won third place in the Computer Science category.

GOOd SeASOn in AtHletiCSOur teams saw great success this spring. Boys tennis and girls track came in 2nd at state, girls tennis won 3rd at state, and girls golf was 5th at state. In addition, the girls 4 X 100 team—Mariah Morton ’12, Linnea Hurst ’11, Cammy Edwards ’12, and Eloise Miller ’11—were state champions, and Mariah was state champion at triple jump. Kate Rubenstein ’12 was state runner up in tennis. In addition, the boys basketball team made it to the state finals for the first time since 1982. Three coaches were named state coach of the year for leading their teams to state championships: John Hamilton for coaching boys golf and girls cross country, Hedy Jackson for boys tennis, and Lerry Baker for girls track and field.

newsGambol chair Tina Koehler (center) with auction patrons Carolyn and Morry Arntson

Dave Ill, Mariam Marx ’90, Rachel Cohen ’90, and Sharonann Lynch at the Gambol

Lily Ellenberg ’11 at Bienestar Homework Club

Coach John Hamilton

Rebecca Garner ’11, with the art, math, and botany mural she imagined and painted with classmates, who gave it to the school as the senior gift

Coach Hedy Jackson

OH, WHAt A niGHt it WAS!This year’s Gambol auction grossed $431,000—24 percent more than last year—for faculty professional development and the nearly 200 students on financial aid. The highlight of the April 2 auction was a moving speech by Rachel Cohen ’90. Thanks to Gambol chair Tina Koehler, coordinator Heather Gaudry Blackburn ’90, and all the bidders, donors, volunteers, and supporters who made the auction festive and fruitful.

summer 2011 27

life After CAtlin GABel

On a lively and enlightening evening in May, the alumni and college counseling programs hosted a panel of alumni and students who discussed their experiences at Catlin Gabel and how their education prepared them for what they are doing today.

“Life after Catlin Gabel: Alumni and Student Voices” grew out of discussions among people in all divisions of the school, as we considered the question of how to demonstrate the long-term value of a Catlin Gabel education. This was an opportunity to reflect where a Catlin Gabel education may lead and how the school and student experiences here set up our alumni to achieve the goal of being bold learners for a lifetime.

In response to the question about academic challenges faced here, and what is learned from that experience, Riley Gibson ’04 replied, “It’s okay not to have the answer, but you have a foundation to figure it out. Curiosity and unstructured thought gives you an amount of confidence to find the answer.”

Our alumni know how to plan, self-evaluate, solve complex problems, and nourish their curiosity—the skills needed to succeed in college and career. Our panelists and moderator beautifully personified Catlin Gabel’s mission.

We are inspired by the shared experiences of the panel participants and by the outstanding alumni profiled in this issue of the magazine. Wishing you a summer filled with marvelous memories. We’d love to hear your stories.

Lauren Dully Hubbard ’91alumni and community relations program director [email protected]

Markus Hutchins ’02alumni board [email protected]

P.S. Save the date for fall’s alumni events: Los Angeles alumni gathering on Thursday, September 15, and Homecoming on Friday, September 30!

Alumni Connects e-newsletter

Did you know that the alumni relations office sends out periodic e-newsletters with information regarding Catlin Gabel athletics, on-campus activities, and lectures? This is a quick and easy way for alumni to find out what is going on at Catlin Gabel! If you would like to receive these updates, please contact us at [email protected] and include your full name and class year with your email address.

Lauren Dully Hubbard ’91

Markus Hutchins ’02

alumni news

“Life After Catlin Gabel” panel. Back, L to R: Peter Bromka ’00, BA in anthropology from Tufts University, design researcher at IDEO, a global design firm, Riley Gibson ’04, BS in business management from Babson College, co-founder and CEO of Napkin Labs, Josh Langfus ’11; Henry Gordon ’11. Front, L to R: Rivfka Shenoy ’09, attending Washington University; moderator Rukaiyah Adams ’91, BA from Carleton College, JD and MBA from Stanford University, consultant for Plum District and Regence Blue Cross/Blue Shield; Rebecca Kropp ’11; Lauren Dully Hubbard ’91, BA from University of Washington and CGS alumni relations director; and Leslie Nelson ’10, attending Pitzer College.

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Catlin Gabel Caller, Summer 2011: Creative Thinkers

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