Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
WATERMARK
Dear Reader,
This is one of our most art-packed issues yet, and I'm thrilled to share
such stirring creative works with all of you. From deeply personal
reflections on gender (inspired by the upper-classmen's "Gender, Media,
and Technology" course) to abstract poetic musings and visual creations,
the products of self-expression contained in this issue are truly
representative of Watershed's unique and passionate student body.
Thank you for helping to build and share this creative space with me over
the past two years. I hope you enjoy this issue of The Watermark!
Sincerely,
Dani Cooke
Editor-in-Chief
EDITOR'S NOTE | 1
The Watermark | WSWATERMARK.WEEBLY.COM April 2019
SCHOOL NEWS
New Teacher Experiences at Watershed Theresa Dooley
TEACHER TRAINING PROCESS In August, before school starts for students, there are two days
dedicated to training new teachers. Before the spring semester, the teachers also have a planning
week without students where teachers can be introduced to the school. Along with these dedicated
slots of planning time, the teachers go on a retreat at the beginning of the year. It appears as though
the staff at Watershed strives to form a community within themselves in the same way that they
strive to form a community within the student body. Every new teacher who was interviewed for this
article expressed gratitude for the support that they received from their fellow teachers. The process
of getting to know the school seems to be very self-driven, but when the teacher reaches out, many
of their colleagues are very willing to help them through the process. Overall, the process of getting
to know Watershed seems fairly unstructured, but the staff are all very committed to providing the
best experience for each other and the students.
CLASS HEIRARCHY Expedition classes are the core of the Watershed curriculum. This means that a
fieldwork opportunity for an expedition class may lead to students missing their skills classes. The
existence of this system is not necessarily bad; however, a couple of skills teachers have expressed
that they wish that had been more directly informed about the number of classes that students
would be missing. It is very important for new teachers to expect the expedition classes to go on a
week-long trip each semester. It does not even have to be a specified number of classes, just the fact
that students will not attend every day that the schedule says there are skills classes.
Along with the impact that expedition has on skills classes, it is important to recognize the
prioritization within skills classes. Every student's schedule is formed around the time of their math
class. Again, the nature of this system makes complete sense, but teachers that are hired to instruct
Spanish or art should be aware that they may have students in their class who are not in the ideal
level for their abilities. Many students at Watershed have been placed in a Spanish class that is either
a level above or below where they should be because the ideal level is only offered during their math
class. Being in an improper level will always be a difficult situation to handle for both the student and
the teacher, but the best way to start is to make sure the teacher is aware that those students will
exist.
TEACHING FREEDOM Watershed teachers are not required to follow a strict lesson plan. This
means that they have a lot of freedom in deciding what and how they teach their class. The
opportunities that come with this freedom can be very exciting. It is great that the administration is
really open to new ideas. Teachers have expressed that they wish they had known about this freedom
sooner so that they could have taken advantage of the vast number of possibilities that come with
teaching a Watershed class.
STUDENT KNOWLEGE Given the freedom that teachers are given, there is not a very clear way to
SCHOOL NEWS | 3
The Watermark | WSWATERMARK.WEEBLY.COM April 2019
to know what students have learned in the past. Multiple teachers have said that they started their
classes very blindly, leading to the conclusion that there is not a clear system of recording the
content that is covered in Watershed classes. It could be very beneficial to create some sort of
standard of recording the topics that are taught, so that future teachers can read them and gain a
basic understanding of the knowledge that their students will have. It is clear that there is constant
collaboration among teachers at Watershed, which is wonderful. In the case of student knowledge,
however, a slightly more formal approach may be more successful. If each teacher were to make a
simple list of all of the topics that they cover in each class and a system is implemented so those lists
are readily available to new teachers, there would be a stronger basis for teachers to start their
classes on the right foot.
All of these topics are important to the values that Watershed possesses. Watershed provides a
wonderful learning environment for many students, and its success could be amplified if new
teachers were more directly guided towards understanding the little things that make the school
what it is. It can be difficult to pinpoint the nuances that define the community from the inside, but
class hierarchy, teaching freedom, student knowledge, and student-to-teacher relationships are
topics that have been pinpointed by the community's newest members as important components. If
new teachers are able to be informed about these components before they begin teaching,
integration into the Watershed community could be a smoother process for new teachers.
To view some of these incredible works, scan the QR code to the right or go
directly to the "Current Issue" page on wswatermark.weebly.com.
Note: Please be aware that, due to the personal and candid nature of these
pieces, some may contain sensitive or mature content.
but how many months passed and the river was dire desires of the iris:
still rolling, and how the wild orchids remained a smorgasbord of chores for our poor tortoise
just as full. to exist before the boring core of violence
for science not to be snored through by the oracle
It is cold, still, and the days stand short, frosted to be sortable in silence
over, preparing themselves to fill spring and i don’t want to be a crook
summer’s bodies of water
(& bodies, & water) guided by the shepherd's crook,
an idle highness tries to utilize her eye’s iris.
to feed a world of wildfires and wild women. high tides writhe in silence
and our slyly compliant tortoise,
Our mothers have left footprints along the atop its cities proudly beams the ever-scheming
riverbanks, have hands that hold harder, softer, oracle,
have been doing so for many years now. There is beneath its canopies hide eyes of sly violence.
something about the aspens,
Mother
how they have seen their parents crumble to ash, Allie Corradino
the first to appear after fire and flood, rooted,
linked from riverside to mountainside, Huddling, alone afraid for your kin
eyes meeting those of the girl in the glass
webbed below ground like the intricate series of Sit still and quiet in your ugly skin
rivers & streams & lakes which feed them.
Fragile fingers tracing you, thin
Intricate like the network of bodies we call home, Fabric ripped in a spur of rage
family, self, Huddling, alone afraid for your kin
like the time which causes glaciers to run and Surprised by the warm tears of your sin
become water, Waiting for daylight to make it a dream
and to then become ice, Sit still and quiet in your ugly skin
the uncomfortable and break off the hardened stone. I adventure higher into the air, twisting and
flowing like a stream unaffected by gravity, intertwining myself in the fabric.
Wrapping myself up in intricate movements feels instinctive. No matter how much I am
challenged, these movements fulfill something deep inside my body. Something that was once empty
and covered in dust, forgotten and denied, but is now filled with something better. Something it was
always meant to be but was pushed down and stuffed in a small box in the hassle of packing up,
preparing to leave in a bombardment of frantic emotions.
Even higher off the ground dry heat dances across my face as I twist through the air. Melting my
flesh, leaving me a cloud of shifting colors, moving between stiffness and fluidity. Intertwining my
body around pliable fabric. I feel no fear, no intrusive thoughts fogging my vision. All that remains is
clarity. Focusing on the movement through the air. Twisting and pulling, grabbing hold of only what's
necessary for the journey. Not noticing my breath as I venture through new terrain. Not noticing the
strain of my muscles holding me in place. Flowing with the fabric through the air, giving into
wherever it leads me, and accepting where I end up. I resist the pull of the earth, grasping on harder
as I’m pulled back down. Wrapping tighter and trying to stay where it’s safe. A place where I’ll always
be free. Up there I’m not just a body. I’m something more. Something that basks in brightness, able to
ignore the darkness that fills the forgotten corners of my mind. I hear the call of the ground, and I
know I must listen. The tasks of reality must be tended to. The momentarily forgotten emotions call
to have attention. I know my place has never been on the ground, but I now have a place to truly
exist, high off the ground, dancing amongst the fabric.
CENSORSHIP IN ART: THE RUNDOWN The discussion of censorship in art is multifaceted. It includes
political expression, often associated with places authoritarian governments and oppressive states,
exemplified by the art of Banksy and Ai Wei; it pushes against art that frustrates, art that infuriates, art that
brings up tension or makes people uncomfortable. (See the fascinating New York Times editorial by Roberta
Smith, “Should Art That Infuriates Be Removed?”, discussing specifically an art exhibit which commented on
racism and brought a great deal of protest to the Whitney Museum of American Art). And, of course, it
extends to concerns about nudity.
Just over a century ago, an exhibition of painting the well-known Amedeo Modigliani at the Berthe Weill
gallery in Paris was shut down “within hours of its opening” due to depictions of nudity (Nude Art and
Censorship Laid Bare, 30 November 2017, Jessica Lack for CNN). According to the author of the article, “The
police commissioner at the time had been offended by the depiction of pubic hair.” Further, according to
many, controversy surrounding nudity in art is rarely just about nudity. In the case of the censored
Modigliani exhibit:
“Modigliani was part of a radical group of Belle Époque artists, who wanted to subvert cultural
conventions, and what better way of doing this than forcing people to confront how they see themselves?
Some painters, like Modigliani did it by sticking closely to the facts, others, like Picasso, tore the body apart
and re-constructed it for the modern world. The nude had become a subject of challenge and contest. If
you subscribe to the aphorism that sex is really about power, Ireson suggests another reason to why
Modigliani's nudes were so shocking: ‘These women are overtly sexual and that really connects with the
way women were troubling society at the time. These pictures were made during the First World War,
when more women were working, more women were living independently ... there really is a social anxiety
about that’” (Jessica Lack, CNN).
Still, for the most part, the art world of the current day recognizes a difference between nudity
deserving of censorship and artistic portrayals of the human form. At least in the United States, Canada,
and Europe, the suppression of artwork depicting nudity rarely occurs in museums and fine art
establishments, occurring only occasionally in galleries and small exhibits.
Censorship of this kind is not in the past, however. It exists strongly in the policies of social media giants
like Facebook, which was protested just last year after blocking paintings by the Flemish master Peter Paul
Rubens. According to an analysis for ArtNet News, written by Tim Schneider, “art censorship is built into
Facebook’s DNA,” especially when it comes to nudity, despite what Facebook’s community standards may
say. These standards allow for “photographs of paintings, sculptures, and other art that depicts nude
figures,” prohibiting only graphic depictions of sexual behavior. However, due to errors made by both the
artificial intelligences and humans responsible for keeping the media platform clean, nudity in art is
recurrently flagged as inappropriate.
The erroneous mixing-up of art and pornography when it comes to social media is reflective of a larger
issue: the boundaries are vague. The judgments of both humans and AI are fallible, and—especially in the
age of digital photography and hyperrealism—art has no clear definition. More crucially, however, the
distinction between art and obscenity is ever-changing, ever-debated, and ever-ambiguous. This obscurity
is at the root of decisions like that to place certain artwork from the high school’s visual art class in the art
room rather than displaying them in the hallways with the rest of the student works.
CELEBRATING FORM: THE STUDENT PERSPECTIVE The administration’s decision not to display certain
student art in the hallways was met with equal parts understanding and frustration. Grace Kelly, a 12th-
grade student whose plaster sculpture was placed among the works deemed inappropriate, said, “A lot of
the reasoning that I saw was that it might be inappropriate for the younger students, like the middle
schoolers and their families, which I understand. But it’s also frustrating.”
Eloise Howell, another senior in Chris’s drawing class, expressed frustration arising from both feelings of
being censored, especially when it comes to restrictions put on the female form that may not have been
applied to depictions of the male body, as well as a lack of clarity around why her pieces weren’t being
displayed. “I was a little upset and confused as to why I wasn’t allowed to show [my piece],” she says.
For both Grace and Eloise, the intentions behind their artworks were far from pornographic. Grace built
her piece around appreciation for the natural female form, depicting “a celebration of the female body as
well as different forms of expressing femininity” through the symbolism of Mother Nature. Similarly, Eloise
had the intention of celebrating form and challenging male control over the depiction of female form. “I
think that female artists depicting women’s bodies gives a very different message than how males have
depicted women’s bodies in the past. Historically, [men have] been in control—they’ve been in charge of
curating art and of industries in general. I think it would have been a good decision and an empowering
decision to allow a female artist to display their interpretation of a woman’s body.”
MANAGING EXPECTATIONS On the other side, however, are a multitude of considerations which led to
the ultimate decision—one of which addresses the very issue of female form and celebration versus
objectification which lay at the heart of both Eloise and Grace’s works. I met with Chris Carithers,
Watershed’s art teacher, who explained the challenging responsibility of managing the different
expectations of artistic expression in museums as opposed to in a school environment.
“There are implicit expectations. If you go to a gallery or a museum, and you’re the parent of a child (or
just an individual), you have certain expectations of what you might see, versus coming to a school,” he
explains. “Ultimately, that was the decision here. [With certain art kept in a certain room, people choose to
come in, and there’s a sign that helps to manage those expectations.”
At odds with these organizational expectations, however, is the artist. Chris acknowledges this, asking:
“What considerations do we give to the artist? You made this, you’re proud of it—what does it do to you as
an artist to then say, ‘That’ll never see the light of day?’ It’s kind of intense.”
Further, he describes the tensions that exist solely within figure drawing as an art form, which address
the very issues of objectification and female empowerment expressed within Grace and Eloise’s pieces.
While figure drawing is a classical technique, incomparable in terms of practice with form, shape, and value,
it can also be very gender-normative. “When you look at the images, they’re very much in line with the
female figure that has been promoted in our world. Even though it’s a good study for all of this, it falls into
this tradition of de-clothing the female form more than the male form.”
Head of school Tim Breen highlights his admiration for the student work and dedicated hours of
conversation to the decision. “I still can’t say the decision was the ‘right’ one,” he says. But it was the
thoughtful result of careful consideration with the best possible intentions.
THE TAKEAWAY The issue of displaying nudity in art—especially in the context of a school environment—
is not a simple one. While the need for free, artistic expression is undeniable, so too is the responsibility of a
school to hold the expectations of family environments.
“There’s a pretty vast landscape,” Chris emphasizes. “This is the tip of the iceberg. And there's a tension
that exists in a lot of different directions. I would say that it’s not an easy decision for Tim, for me, for the
artist. When you try to take it all into account, it gets kind of complex.”
RECIPES
The Perfect Grilled Cheese Teo Schollmaier
The first step to a great grilled cheese is the bread. The bread is the foundation of the grilled
cheese and should be treated as the most important ingredient. Wonder Bread is not adequate for a
true life-changing grilled cheese. I use the Breadworks Batard, but any high quality, dense, doughy
bread will do. Make sure the bread is thick-cut.
The second main ingredient is cheese. I use cheddar, although this can be modified to whatever
cheese or cheese mixture you might want. It is very important that you shred the cheese instead of
just slicing it. This will allow for it to melt more consistently. Use significantly more cheese than you
think you need—when you think, “Hmmm, this can’t be a healthy or reasonable amount of cheese,”
you’ll know you’re about halfway there.
The next step is to heat a griddle on medium heat. This temperature gives the cheese a chance to
melt while browning the bread quickly enough that it doesn't become soggy with absorbed oil. I like
to spread mayonnaise on the outside of the bread to act as cooking oil. Use enough mayonnaise to
completely fill the surface of the bread, but you should still be able to see the texture of the bread
through the translucence of the mayonnaise. This makes the bread brown more evenly than butter or
olive oil and adds a little bit of tangy flavor.
To assemble the sandwich, put a piece of bread mayonnaise-side down on the hot griddle and
dump the shredded cheese onto the bread and the general area around the bread. This cheese will
become crispy and delicious, and as the cheese fats render they will help the bread brown. At this
step, I sprinkle on a little bit of MSG to act as a flavor enhancer and give a slight parmesan taste.
Place the other piece of bread mayonnaise side up on top of the other half of the sandwich. Cover
and grill for about 5 minutes, or until the bread is brown and the cheese is mostly melted, then flip
and wait until the other side is also browned.
By far, the most important step in cooking a good grilled cheese is to slice the sandwich in half at
an angle for the best possible presentation. If you skip this simple step, then the sandwich will not
live up to its full potential.
JUST FOR FUN / RECIPES | 10
Cover Art
Front Cover: Titan Mikuta, "sketchbook spread"
The Watermark.
Back Cover: Lucy Campbell, "aggressively mediocre" SPRING • 2019
CONTRIBUTORS
editor-in-chief Dani Cooke
Art & Photography Lucy Campbell, Allie Corradino, Sophie Kennedy, Titan Mikuta
Staff Writers Sam Andrews, Marrion Ball, Dani Cooke, Theresa Dooley, Grace
Kelly, Titan Mikuta, Teo Schollmaier, Mikai Tilton, Maia Wheeler