Hutchinson Fellowships Awarded to Five Williams Seniors| 12:56PM / Monday, May 11, 2015 | |
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WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Williams College Office of Fellowships has awarded Hubbard Hutchinson Fellowships to five graduating seniors pursuing careers in the arts: Parmalier Arrington, Qadir Forbes, Madeline Gilmore, Veroneque Ignace, and Jasmine Thomasian.
The Hubbard Hutchinson Memorial Fellowship is a cash award established in 1940 that is granted to a member or members of the graduating class to support their continued work in the creative and performing arts. Prizes of $22,000 are awarded in the categories of writing, art, dance, theater, and music.
Arrington is a studio art major whose primary focus is sculpture with found materials. Arrington hails from Wilson, N.C., but finds that she spends most of her time in the Spencer Art Building. Currently, she is working on a project for her senior seminar that includes a set of five sculptures, made from a variety of found materials, that examine the question, “What am I made of?” The fellowship, she says, will mean she can “do more art for a little while longer.” She hopes to travel across the U.S. and to Australia, Japan, and Italy, where she will examine the art scenes and create her own art. Before going abroad, she hopes to become proficient in the necessary languages.
Forbes, a psychology and theater major from Brooklyn, N.Y., has intersecting interests in theater, business, entrepreneurship, and service. During his time at Williams, Forbes has performed in three plays and studied abroad at the London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art. Forbes hopes to use the fellowship to pursue his project, All the World’s a Stage, which aims to give artists a platform to perform in unexpected places in New York. “Whether we know it or not, we all have a place on this world stage," Forbes says. "I will be able to provide a stage for those people, who like me, didn’t feel like they had a stage but through curiosity, hard work, and persistence found one and this has made all the difference in my life. I want to share this with others.” While working on the project, Forbes will work at J.P. Morgan in its investor services sales division.
Gilmore is an English major from Chapel Hill, N.C. She’s interested in creative writing, particularly poetry, and this year she created a collection of poems, titled Keep, for her thesis. “More and more paths seem to have been opened for me to find out what I want to do and how writing is going to figure into my life,” says Gilmore. “For winning the fellowship I count myself as fortunate, but it doesn’t mean I should stop now. It means I should just keep writing.” This summer, Gilmore plans to travel and then move to New York.
Ignace was born and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y. She is a pre-med chemistry major with a concentration in Africana Studies and a certificate in Spanish. Although she did not pursue it as a major, dance has been a part of Ignace’s life for a long time, and she has a particular interest in dance rooted in her family’s Haitian tradition and culture. Currently, she is writing a thesis on Black trauma and recovery, specifically at the university level. The fellowship will assist her with the continuation of her research. “My long term goal is to seamlessly combine my passion for Haiti, people, medicine, and dance in such a way that allows for large scale ‘healing,’” she says.
Thomasian, a religion major from Astoria, Ore., will use the fellowship to pursue music and composition. This semester, she composed a choral piece called “Creation Telling” that combines her interests in music and religion. It was performed at the Williams Concert Choir’s spring concert. Thomasian also wrote a thesis examining Tamil Christian women in Madurai, India. Although she is not a music major, Thomasian says she’s grateful to “the music faculty and staff who have facilitated my compositional (and otherwise musical) journey through Williams, and who have given me their vote of confidence and continued support.”
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