Richard Lenz, CC ’12, just won $200 for crafting 12 German Expressionism-inspired woodcut prints illustrating the fifth story of the fourth day of “The Decameron” by Giovanni Boccaccio.
Lenz and three other Columbia College students are the winners of the first annual Core Scholars contest, the brainchild of Literature Humanities chair Christia Mercer that seeks to encourage students to make connections between different Core classes by submitting creative projects and interpretations of subject matter.
Amir Safavi, CC ’14, Dominique Nieves, CC ’12, and Ben Kaplan, CC ’14, also won for their out-of-the box submissions.
Lenz said he was inspired to illustrate the story of Lisabetta, who places the head of her murdered lover Lorenzo in a pot of basil and mourns his death, after he read the lurid text in his Literature Humanities class. He said he was inspired by woodcut prints done by German Expressionist artists like Emil Nolde.
“I chose to emulate their style in my woodcuts for their graphic and emotional power,” Lenz wrote via email from Berlin, where he is studying abroad this semester. “Some of the more interesting parts of the process included making charcoal drawings for the prints between stops on the New Jersey Turnpike on the bus to Baltimore at Thanksgiving break, and carrying two 3 by 4 foot sheets of bookboard on my back on a bicycle ride into strong winds from Canal Street to campus.”
Kaplan was told about the Core Scholars contest by his professor and said that he immediately wanted to enter. “I thought this was just going to be a little project I did to show my Lit Hum class,” Kaplan said.
He ended up penning a song that related Frontiers of Science and Literature Humanities. “I’ve always been an artist, so my first instinct was to draw something for my entry. But ever since I joined Uptown Vocal [Columbia’s jazz-pop a cappella group] ... I’ve been singing more and more,” he said.
The song will be posted, along with the other winning entries, on Columbia’s Core website. “I think that’s the part that’s most important to me, actually—the fact that my song is actually going to be shared with the greater Columbia community. For me, so much of the Core’s power comes from its ability to foster community in Columbia,” Kaplan said, adding that when he applied he “seriously had no idea cash was involved.”
For his submission, Safavi, a violinist, decided to use music to interpret Euripides’ “Medea” from the Literature Humanities syllabus.
“Medea, as a character, is both tremendously vulnerable and yet a force of unbridled rage,” Safavi said, adding that he spent a great deal of time thinking about whether her actions in the book could be justified. “At the same time, I was aware that her society marginalized her because of gender and her status as a foreigner. I had written some rough sketches before I heard about the contest. I thought I’d enter so I’d make myself finish the piece before I forgot about it,” he said.
Safavi said he felt that the solitary nature of Medea’s struggle could be best conveyed by a work for solo violin. “The solo violin literature has shown a great capacity for showing the spectrum of emotion on a small scale,” he said.
“I still love some parts of it [the Core] and still am not a huge fan of other parts ... the beauty of the Core is that it exposes you to so many ideas and primary texts, creating an environment for you to wrestle with them and, ultimately, accept or discard them as you feel like,” Safavi said.
Safavi said he plans to use his winnings to maintenance his instrument.
“I look forward to purchasing a new set of Evah Pirazzi violin strings ... and rehairing my bow,” he said.
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