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Art
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That Community Feeling
Gillian Pederson-Krag's résumé includes a list of schools that would make any artist and teacher jealous. But it was her time as Hollins University's
2004 Frances Niederer Artist-in-Residence that opened her eyes to the extraordinary talents of liberal arts students.
Pederson-Krag, who has taught at Cornell, Indiana, Queens, and Dartmouth, is known for finding beauty where others might have missed it. Her paintings and prints often inject seemingly familiar scenes with poetic imagery and a quiet sense of brooding.
What was it like to come to Hollins to live and work?
What's so special about it for an artist is to have the opportunity to go someplace other than where you normally are. You can think much differently in a different place.
My art is so rooted in my inner world that I sometimes feel like I could set up in a Days Inn and work just as easily, but I've had such a good feeling about the students and faculty here that it's different. It gives me so much more energy when I go back into the studio.
Being here has really given me a new understanding of what I want to paint. It's that community feeling, very similar to experiences I've had at artist colonies. It's given me a much deeper understanding of painting, as if I could see my own work from a different perspective.
And you taught a class as well?
Yes, I taught a drawing class one night a week. I've taught at Indiana, Queens College, Cornell, and I honestly feel without exaggeration that these [Hollins] students are the best I've ever taught. The students here are the most gifted, motivated, receptive, and hard working. The quality of student work at Hollins is head and shoulders above what I've seen anywhere else.
There's another thing, too. I went to an all-girls high school. Of course, high school is different from college, but I was very interested to see why someone would choose to come to a single-sex university. I never realized what it was before, but it's very subtle. In a coed school, even if it's at a subconscious level, you're always competing with the other women for the men's attention. Here, it's different. I think that's one reason why they work so hard and do so well. You really have to experience it to believe it, but it changed my mind 180 degrees.
Did you get to know the faculty well?
I've worked with many, many art departments and the one at Hollins is very unusual in that it is so harmonious. Of course, they each have their own point of view, but at the same time, they all work together so well. So getting to be the artist-in-residence here adds one more different point of view. I'm sold on how this art department works. I have nothing but good things to say about them.
Finally, does anything stand out in your mind that makes Hollins different from the other schools you've worked at?
The community is a size that I think is ideal. And Hollins is really beautiful. The architecture, the grounds, the natural surroundings -- it all really radiates a positive feeling. I grew up by the sea, and having that tremendous natural presence nearby had a healing effect in a way. Hollins has that, too, with the mountains. Hollins has a way of healing people who have the opportunity to come here.
I'll close by saying that I've been lucky to experience a number of different schools. I have a feeling about what's out there and I can tell you: Hollins is very, very different.
Interview by John Griessmayer for Hollins magazine.
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