“I’ve always known I was an artist, whether I wanted to be or not,” said Augusta Sparks Farnum, a local artist who is currently showing her work at Brasserie Four on Main Street.

Farnum’s new set of works entitled “Beside the Garden” consists of two groups of eight-foot murals and seven other smaller pieces. She uses graphite to produce energetic, jagged lines which produce a “raw,” (as she describes her style) physical depiction of natural landscapes. The bending of a tree and the chaotic thicket of branches are captured by a two-dimensional space, but her pieces could not be categorized as realism. This choice allows for the audience to draw their own meanings from the piece, adding another dimension of relatability to her artwork.

“I believe in [my work] being a trigger. I believe in it being a destination, that the viewer, the person that experiences it inputs their work, inputs their color, their experience, that what they have to offer to the art is just as important,” she said.

An idea that Farnum approaches in her work is the need to bring the outside in.

As she puts in her artist statement, “I construct art to redefine spaces … I create places that I want to be.”

The sheer sizes of her two murals, which she believes would ideally span the wall of a normal home, really does create a space for the viewer. It’s a space of wildness that can only be achieved in nature. By capturing that in her unique style and choice of line, Farnum consciously does not depict the sublime landscape to impress the viewer with nature’s perfection, but she instead depicts the energy of a landscape that overlaps, that clashes and interacts together.

“Whenever I enter a space I’m really interested in how everything relates, to a degree that it’s just the way it is,” said Farnum. “When I’m in a forest, I’m looking at how things are relating to each other and almost in a social context; how trees are moving towards or way; [and how] they make postures in a way that one might make a posture in modern dance.”

This body of work is Farnum’s third solo show. She has previously showed her work at Amo Art gallery in Waitsburg and at Telander Gallery here in Walla Walla on Colville Street.

Farnum moved to Walla Walla with her husband right before the birth of her children at which point her career solely as an artist took a brief aside. She nonetheless held jobs as an interior designer, a landscape designer and a florist. She has worked in social work, on farms, in nurseries and in galleries. A common thread that runs through all of her outside work, though, is that she has always worked to assist others with their needs. In this body of artwork, Farnum has produced something that is entirely her own; from the medium to materials to the subject matter, Farnum attempted to achieve a certain self-sufficiency that allowed for these pieces to build completely from her own creation.

“I needed to find steps that I could take that I could own, that didn’t make me feel like a marionette,” she said. “I needed to find what steps that I could take that were truthful and that were mine.”

Student-initiated and independently produced theater performances are few and far between outside of the main theater season, but in the upcoming month there will be three plays performed and produced solely by students. Senior Eli Zavatsky created a solo performance, “The Bat-Poet and the She-Wolf,” as his senior thesis, senior Tyle Schuh readapted a trans-feminist version of Jean Genet’s play “The Maids” in conjunction with his David Nord award, and seniors Caroline Rensel and Sarah Ann Wollett will perform “The Stronger” by August Strindberg as an independent study project. The utter difference of each of the plays is shocking and a testament to the diversity of interests within the Department of Theatre; from plot to dialogue to production, each play engages with radically different concepts with which the audience can discuss.

Zavatsky has been in the process of writing his play over the past year. Describing the play as sitting amongst the new sector of environmental theater, Zavatsky’s play began with a story that he wrote in secondgrade about “a bat and a wolf that meet and become friends and go on an adventure.” Zavatsky acquired the bulk of his play during the past six months in which he wrote every day during his summer working as a kayak instructor in the San Juan Islands and his semester abroad participating in Whitman’s Semester in the West program.

“Pretty much every sentence in this play is something that I really want people to hear [and] need people to hear,” he said.

This solo performance was a project that revolved almost entirely on Zavatsky’s own vision. Apart from some guidance from his advisor, Assistant Professor of Theatre Kristen Kosmas, Zavatsky wrote the play himself and will perform it alone two more times on April 30 and May 1 at 5 p.m. in the Black Box.

“I was really intrigued with [a solo performance] and … I know that I’m capable of it, but it’s not necessarily something I want to do [in the future],” he said.

Schuh’s independently driven project was initiated by the David Nord award. The David Nord Award gives 2,500 dollars to two students at the beginning of this semester who wish to engage with projects relating to queer topics. Schuh realized their project after reading “The Maids” in a theater course last semester. In Genet’s original work, the play consisted of two maids, who are played by two adolescent boys, who hate and therefore dress up like and perform sadomasochistic acts behind the back of their employer, Madame. In Schuh’s adaption the two maids, who are sisters, are altered to be one transgendered woman and one cis-gendered woman, and Madame is a drag queen. Schuh explains that Genet’s work is in discussion with sexual orientation whereas Schuh’s adaptation is more of a dialogue with gender identity.

“I was really struck by the poetics of [the play] and particularly how the poetics are playing with femininity. I saw so much luxury in it and it reminded me a lot of drag and these ideals of excess femininity, and these characters just started speaking to me,” they said.

Schuh’s work touches on topics such as the incarceration of trans women, the harmful portrayal of trans women in the media, the feminist movement and its close-minded approach to primarily cis-gendered issues, and the daily micro-aggressions performed surrounding transgender and feminist issues.

“A large part has been entering problematic territory and understanding the problematics but still going forward with it,” they said. “Because at least if we do something shocking and something problematic and we recognize the problematics that we’re creating, there is a shock in the audience and that allows for a conversation to be had around that.”

The play will take place in the Black Box on May 13, 14 and 15 at 8 p.m., and the last performance includes a talk-back with the three actors and with Schuh.

The play chosen to be performed by Rensel and Wollett was written in a naturalist style during the 19th Century. This one-act play consists of two characters, Ms. X and Ms. Y, only one of whom has dialogue for the duration of the 20-minute piece. In order to allow both the opportunity for dialogue, Rensel and Wollett will switch characters and perform the piece four to six times back-to-back in the acting classing on May 12 at 7 p.m., the one night that the play will be performed.

“I think we have different instincts on how sympathetic we find each character in different moments, which is really cool that two actors have widely different perspectives,” said Rensel.

The initiative of students to perform their own project, outside of the direct supervision of a professor or with a large group of other theatre students, is an occurrence less often seen at Whitman. It is also a unique experience available from which all students can learn from and enjoy.

Corrections: Caroline Rensel and Sarah Ann Wollett are performing “The Stronger,” not “Pariah.”

“The Maids” was written by Jean Genet, not Gadet.

As another academic year comes to a close, seniors throughout all disciplines have worked hard to provide a capstone to their Whitman experience in the form of a thesis. All 14 senior art majors have a unique task in that they must create a whole series of work that will be open to the public in the Sheehan gallery for the remainder of the year, opening at 5:30 p.m. on Friday, April 24.

Inevitably it’s close to impossible to discuss the complexities and artistic vision shown by each of the works in the show, but it is fair to assume that the pieces shown are a representation of each artist’s navigation through their education as an artist up to this point.

“I think that one of the things I like about this show and this group a lot is that when I look at it, I don’t see any of the faculty’s hand in this, I see all of their hands,” said Professor of Art Charles Timm-Ballard.

Natalie Shaw is one senior art major who describes her mixed media paintings as “constructed landscapes that draw references from romantic landscape art, renaissance painting and early medieval religious art.”

“This is the first time I’ve done something that I don’t feel like I’m really done with,” said Shaw. “I feel like I could make more paintings like this, and this is the first time I’ve felt like that with a series of works.”

Shaw working on her final piece. Photo contributed by Maddison Coons.

Shaw describes the evolution into her current style as a kind of natural process in which she let her innate interest in certain images take importance above her initial construction of meaning. This flow from content to idea is something that she thinks both senior seminar professors, Assistant Professor of Art Rick Martinez and Timm-Ballard, stressed for their students.

“When this semester started I wanted to focus on making things that I liked. So I thought of things that I liked and that was old paintings, gold things, and gods and religious figures, and I put all those things together to see what came out of it,” said Shaw. “It was probably the best place for me to start because I was able to define my direction pretty early on in the semester.”

Eddy Vasquez is another senior art major who uses the medium of book arts to relay his message. In a similar way to Shaw, Vasquez started with the fascination of the way that book arts required his “full-focus” in order to create the precise intricacies of the six books that he has on display in the gallery.

“I’m drawn to the book as an object of literacy; it’s the most effective way to tell a story because it’s all contained in these pages and you just have to open it,” said Vasquez. “It’s a container of knowledge, like an encyclopedia, and it’s there forever if you take care of them.”

Vasquez’s books discuss issues of a social concern, such as surveillance and physical and semantic borders, as well as themes of a personal sentiment. In order to discuss these issues, though, the physical space and presentation of the piece is inherent in its meaning.

The senior art majors pose for a photo to advertise the events. Photo contributed by Maddison Coons.

“My intention was find book structures that tell a story by themselves and that can stand on their own, and I think they do,” he said.

12 other artists will show work at the gallery, exhibiting a range of media and provocative ideas. Their diversity and complexity, as Timm-Ballard notes, should not be missed.

“This group in particular has some pretty intensive projects that are very labor intensive and complicated,” he said. “They’re really supportive of each other, and I think the level of work is pretty outstanding.”

If Whitman students thought that Mr. Whitman was the only chance they had to see shirtless men shamelessly selling their talents and good looks for charity, they were wrong. On Saturday, April 18, Mr. Walla Walla will be hosted at the Gesa Powerhouse Theatre to raise money for the Walla Walla Dance Festival.

“I was just looking for an event and I absolutely hate auctions. I think they’re so boring  … I think this will be a fun event and also a good way to raise money,” said event coordinator and publicist Michael Mettler.

There will be 10 contestants and three female judges, two of whom have been named Ms. Washington. The activities of participants include a dance routine, a formal and active wear exposition, a talent show and an interview. After the competition, there will also be a bachelor auction in which approximately four Walla Walla bachelors will be auctioned off to the crowd.

“It has turned into something that I don’t think will be children-appropriate,” said Mettler.

The Walla Walla Dance Festival is a non-profit that is related with Whitman’s Summer Dance Lab program. The WWDF hopes to bring internationally recognized dancers to Walla Walla at the end of the summer to perform for aspiring dancers at the Summer Dance Lab. WWDF also hopes to start a weeklong intensive immersion programs for kids in Walla Walla who want to learn dance. In order to raise money for this effort, Mettler collaborated with locals to create Mr. Walla Walla.

Each candidate will raise money in the week before as well as during the event, where audience members will have the option to donate to a candidate of their choice. For the bachelor auction, Mettler says he aims to get anywhere from 1,000 to 2,000 dollars for one date.

“For students it might be harder to sell, but [they should attend because] it’s supporting a cause for the Whitman College community, and it’s supporting dance education in Walla Walla public schools,” said Mettler.

Tickets are on sale online at PHTWW.com for 30 dollars, which includes a complimentary glass of wine.

The first Food Truck Night of the season took place last Monday, April 6 and was welcomed with open hearts and mouths by many Whitman students and community members alike. The Food Truck Night, consisting of 15 different food trucks, will take place the first Monday of every month and will continue through October. This is only the second time that this event has taken place in its location at Burwood Breweries near the Port of Walla Walla. The first time was last October, and it was met with the same success as this year.

“It was way bigger than any one of us could have ever imagined,” said co-coordinator and co-owner of Burwood Brewery, Laura Marshall.

“It was madness,” said other co-coordinator Shane Johnson of food truck Why Not Pizza.

The initial Food Truck Nights began two years ago and took place in the parking lot of Bacon & Eggs. After the venue at Burwood Brewing proved to attract a much larger crowd, the owners of Bacon & Eggs approached Marshall and Johnson about moving the Food Trucks permanently to the spot. While Marshall and Johnson are unsure why this particular venue attracted such a large group of visitors, they hypothesize that it is because it provides more access for parking, a nice grass area for customers to sit and a conducive environment for families.

“It reminded me of Portland’s food truck culture — just walking up and ordering and eating outside around everyone and seeing the people make the food. It was a nice atmosphere,” said junior Isaac Sappington.

The quantity of food trucks available in Walla Walla is surprisingly large for such a small community, perhaps due to Walla Walla’s food and wine culture which provides a wealth of events and opportunities for food trucks. Approximately 25 trucks ranging from Mexican food to burgers and ice cream are available for events. Trucks also obtain permits to occupy a certain parking spot in Walla Walla throughout the week.

According to Johnson, a food truck is a welcome alternative to a restaurant in that it does not require the certain overheads necessary to owning a physical area. Owners of a food truck do not have to pay to employ, for rent space or for utilities, and the mobility of a food truck allows for owners to move from space to space, not restricting their customer base to one crowd.

“There’s more demand for food trucks [in Walla Walla] than what’s available,” said Johnson.

The presence of a food truck culture in Walla Walla is only growing, and the expansion of the wine industry and the success of nights such as the Food Truck Night will only increase that popularity.

Just 3.1 miles from Whitman’s small campus sits Walla Walla University, a campus of 1,831 Seventh-Day Adventist students. Within this school sits a variety of musical opportunities, one including the Music Department Showcase that takes place today, Thursday, March 5 at the University Church at 7:45 p.m.

Performances at the showcase will include the symphony orchestra, the large university singer’s choir, the cantori select choir and the wind symphony.

Another music event that will take place next week at Walla Walla University is the Honor Band Festival. In this festival, high schools students from around the country have auditioned to come together at the campus and perform on Saturday, March 7 at 4 p.m. as one large concert band piece.

“[We do it] to give high school students a challenge to be able to see what it’s like to perform with other students and also to keep them interested in performing. It gives them a challenging, satisfying and difficult experience,” said Music Department Chair Karen Thompson.

This event, which takes place every other year, is a uniquely competitive opportunity, and it also allows for students to stay on a college campus and feel the ebb and flow of daily college life. Walla Walla University junior Lindsey Armstrong took part in a similar program that was focused on choir when she was in high school.

“I absolutely loved coming to Walla Walla because I was immersed with all these college students, and it made me feel grown up,” she said. “It gives you a chance to do something that you love with a whole bunch of other like-minded people.”

The Music Department Showcase will occur in conjunction with the arrival of the students in the Honor Band. This way, Thompson said the WWU Music Department can “share with them what we do.”

The kickoff for the roughly weeklong Music 360 Festival: Looking Back, Reaching Forward began on Wednesday, Feb. 25 with a masterclass taught by Seattle Orchestra’s former composer in residence Dr. Samuel Jones. The festival features a variety of musical collaborations all centered around the music of Dr. Jones. The events will include a keynote address by music critic Walter Simmons, a Fridays at Four recital, a Whitman Chamber Singers and Orchestra concert, and a question-and-answer session with Simmons and Dr. Jones himself. The festival will conclude on Sunday, Mar. 1 with a concert by the Walla Walla Symphony.

“This whole festival represents rewarding collaborations from so many perspectives: students with faculty, orchestra with the choral group, performers and composers with musicologists, and, not least, Whitman College with the Walla Walla Symphony,” said Adjunct Assistant Professor of Music Amy Dodds in an email.

The festival’s theme, Looking Back, Reaching Forward, is in reference to the composition style of Dr. Jones and what musicologists would define as the Neo-Romantic Movement. According to Assistant Professor of Music Douglas Scarborough, the popular trend of music during the 20th century was to feature atonality, or music that did not revolve around a central key. Composers such as Aaron Copland whose music was more harmonious and melodic were scoffed at by academics. In the past 50 years, however, this love for harmony has slowly been seeping back into the accepted and popular vein of music, and Dr. Jones falls under that category.

“[Dr. Jones and Simmons are a part of] this little niche [of Neo-Romantics], and we figured we would pull these people together and at the same time introduce it to the community and students who are learning about this struggle with harmony,” said Scarborough.

One of these students who is learning and performing a vocal solo is junior Randy Brooks. Brooks was alerted in the summer about the opportunity to perform in the festival and learn firsthand from Dr. Jones, and he jumped at the chance.

“I found myself during the process of learning his music intrigued by how he challenges a listener’s expectations in his melodic lines by using a musical style we are accustomed to hearing but twisting the direction somewhat to create aural interest. It is music that I have really enjoyed learning,” he said.

This festival began in the hands of the Walla Walla symphony as long as a year-and-a-half ago when the symphony planned their event schedule for this year. From there, conversations between Whitman staff resulted in scheduling Dr. Jones to visit and inviting Simmons, who specializes in reviewing Neo-Romantic works in his home of New York to campus. These conversations eventually spread and a network of musicians within Whitman, passionate about learning from such a distinguished and local musician, collaborated together to create this first ever week long music festival.

“Composers thought we had done everything we could do with harmony … but there’s an infinite variety and now we’re finding that out,” said Scarborough. “There is more to be said and that’s what I want people to learn. Music has an infinite ceiling and that’s what I like about it the best. As soon as you think you’ve thought it all, someone comes up with something else.”

On the corner of Main and Palouse sits Walla Walla’s first wings and beer restaurant: Wingman Birdz and Brewz. Owned by Brendon Mendoza, a born-and-raised Walla Wallan, Wingman has been open for roughly two months and aims to build a strong and loyal local culture.

When I walked into Wingman to speak with Mendoza, I forgot that I was in the small, rural locale of Walla Walla and felt like I was transported to an oh-so-hip and trendy craft brew pub like those found in Portland. (Mendoza describes the interior, designed by an Italian-born Walla Walla resident, as “modern industrial” because it “feels timeless.”)

The menu itself is unique, surprising and exhaustive. Customers can order their wings with a choice of 19 sauces, including Mendoza’s favorites peanut butter and jelly, raspberry chipotle, mango-habanero and maple bacon bourbon. The craft beer selection includes three beers from the recently opened and local brewery Burwood Brewery. Aside from the dependable Bud Light, Coors Light and Blue Moon, all other beers are from the Pacific Northwest.

“People around here like the work local and they like to spend money local,” said Mendoza.

The business was in some ways formed locally as well. Mendoza’s parents have owned the building over the lifetime of the past two businesses; it first housed a bistro for 13 years and then a vegan café. Last March Mendoza’s parents called him at his home in Austin, Texas and told him that the building had come up vacant.

“I got off the phone with my mom and I said to my wife, ‘Hey, what do you think about going back to Walla Walla and opening and a restaurant?’ and she said, ‘Well, what would you do?’ and I said ‘beer and wings,’”  he said.

That night, Mendoza and his wife stayed up for 20 hours making a business plan. From that point, the couple moved to Walla Walla, a place that Brendon hadn’t called home for 13 years.

After he graduated from the University of Washington in 1999 with a degree in hotel and restaurant management, Mendoza moved to California and got a job working for Olive Garden. Over the next 13 years Mendoza was promoted within Olive Garden’s corporate management and traveled from Santa Ana, Calif. to Las Vegas, Nev. and Austin, Texas.

“Most recently I had nearly a thousand employees and nine general managers under me, so [running Wingman means] a lot less people to be responsible for,” he said.

Mendoza’s management experience is evident in his understanding of genuine and efficient customer service.

“I strongly believe that guest service is our lifeblood. When I’m here, I’m committed to talking to everyone that comes to the door,” he said. “I want to build relationships because this is a very relationship-based town.”

And he does indeed stick to this approach — every person that finished their meal and walked out the door during our short interview gave Mendoza a wave and thanked him.

Other than working with local incentives and deals in his current business, Mendoza does not yet have any long-term plans for his interaction in Walla Walla’s foodie culture.

“I want it to be a yearlong restaurant where locals come all year,” he said. “I want it to be a community.”

Whitman’s Department of Music does its best to remain open and accessible to all Whitman students, regardless of major or previous involvement in music. One option that welcomes all students is the possibility to learn an instrument. Teachers in the music department are available for instruments from voice to piano to sitar.

Each semester fluctuates. One instance of this being that this semester has the largest amount of banjo players, at seven students, ever in the history of banjo at Whitman.

“People are more interested in [playing banjo]. It’s been great for me because it’s kind of a passion for me to teach this instrument,” said Music Assistant Jon St. Hilaire.

Hilaire sites bands such as Mumford & Sons and Sufjan Stevens as part of the resurgence of folk in contemporary music. He notes that there are still “hardcore folk” artists, but that folk is such a mutable genre of music that many other artists are utilizing folk instruments and subgenres, such as bluegrass, to create contemporary combinations.

Another instrument that became available to students at Whitman in the fall of 2014 is the sitar. This unique instrument is offered by new Whitman Music Assistant Jeremiah Gregg, who has been studying sitar for roughly 13 years. He began in his first of seven trips to India and has overall spent an accumulation of three years in India. Four students last semester and four this semester are enrolled in lessons.

“The sitar has been my favorite instrument for as long as I can remember. My parents mainly played world music in the house growing up, and took my sister and me to lots of world music festivals, which often featured Indian Classical music, so I fell in love with it early on (along with other styles of Indian music),” said senior Rhiannon Clarke in an email. “I’d always in the back of my mind wanted to take sitar lessons, but I just assumed I’d never get the chance.”

Gregg has taught on and off for eight years, and he recognizes that teaching is a profoundly different experience than playing the instrument.

“I thought [musicians] who taught lessons didn’t perform; however, my guru was very much an international performer. It gave me a different perspective on the importance of teaching here and artistic practice. You have to know what you know so much more thoroughly [as a teacher] than if you just play,” said Gregg.

Gregg learned the process of teaching the sitar from his guru, Ustad Usman Khan of Pune, in India. In this process, the student must first learn to sing on key and practice the technique before delving into playing tunes.

Additionally, Gregg learned the importance in sitar of tuning each string by ear to create a relationship with each string between the performer and the instrument.

“Each note has a certain feeling. If you can feel that unique feeling then you can, in your mind, create that feeling and that’s how you start to sing on key. I think in order to really tune well [you need to learn to sing before you play],” he said.

Clarke notes that the teaching style between Western music and learning the sitar seem largely similar, but, similar to Gregg’s observations, the general process of learning the instrument is different.

“Learning sitar has felt very holistic, maybe more so than learning other instruments. It feels like there are so many components: learning to sing pitches; working on rhythm patterns; and playing the instrument itself,” she said in an email.

Next Wednesday, Feb. 11 marks the 26th-annual One Act Play Contest, a Whitman tradition that aims to introduce students to theater production and further promote the endurance of the arts. According to tradition, three plays will be performed, all of them written, directed, acted, designed and managed by students.

“We stress process over product so it’s learning to work together, and a lot of the people [participating in the One Acts] have never done their job before,” said Production Manager sophomore Alex Lewis.

One such of these new comers to the theatre is junior Tino Mori, who wrote the play “Ground Nut Stew,” a comedy that his friend described as “a mix between ‘Waiting for Godot’ and Agatha Christi.” This is the first script that Mori has ever written, and he found that the One Acts allowed for an effective learning curve.

“I’ve always had a bias, like [thinking that] the writer has a huge impact, but really there’s a lot that can happen,” said Mori. “I have to realize the version I had in my mind is not necessarily the right version.”

Allowing for the collaboration between teams can only be effective when everyone is working together. Organization of all pieces of the play is a dimension that is unique and vital to theater production, and another lesson that can only be learned through taking part in the process.

“The hardest thing about the One Acts is keeping that communication open with your creative teams, like making sure that the stage manager isn’t pulling props and that the director isn’t designing the sets. It’s making sure that everyone is talking so everyone can do their job,” said Lewis.

Both the writer and the director are present during the rehearsals of the plays, and the combination of their artistic visions is an important part in the production process that the audience misses in the final product. Cues for stage direction or certain lines must often be changed within the transition from script to acting, and this transition is mediated in part by the director. The play “Skin Like Iron,” written by junior Sam Gelband and directed by senior Eli Zavatsky carefully combines the creative vision of both.

“[Gelband] wrote a play that is expressing a part of himself that is very real, and my job as a director is to try to enhance and imprint part of my reality on that,” said Zavatsky.

This is the first play that Zavatsky has directed, and he acknowledges the process and relationship that he has had with the script and characters.

“I’m figuring it out as I go along in a lot of ways, and, Sam has said this, it seems like I know the play better now than he does,” said Zavatsky. “I’m coming at it in a different way because I have been inside his play for a couple weeks now and he has been far from it.”

According to the Production Manager Handbook, the One Acts Play Contest was started by Professor of Physics Craig Gunsul because he believed that Whitman was “superior in teaching analytic behavior but deficient in encouraging creative behavior.”

The shows will be held at 8 p.m. on Feb. 11-14 and at 2 p.m. on Feb. 15. Tickets are free for Whitman students, 12 dollars for adults and eight dollars for seniors.