Lawrence Today magazine, Summer 2004
Janie Ondracek, ’04, a neuroscience major from Neenah,
and Rachel
Hoerman, ’04, from Bryant, who is majoring in history and
studio art, have been announced as 2004 recipients of $22,000 fellowships
from the Providence, R.I.-based Thomas
J. Watson Foundation. The program supports a wanderjahr — a year of independent
travel and exploration outside the United States — on a topic of the
student’s choosing.
Food and cultural differences
An interest in the preparation and pedagogy of food will take Ondracek to
France, India, and Japan to examine the teaching methods chefs use to instruct
culinary
arts students; the technical and visual preparation of meals; and the habits,
customs, and etiquette found in the social consumption of a meal.
"These countries represent three very distinct customs of food preparation,
from the seasonings and ingredients used to the manner in which each course
is prepared,” Ondracek says. “I want to explore these countries
as an apprentice cook and as a true devotee of the rigor, care, and pleasure
that go into making, arranging, and consuming a meal.”
Ondracek will visit a variety of restaurants and culinary schools in Lyon
and Paris in France; interview chefs and individual residents in both southern
India, where the Hindu influence favors a largely vegetarian cuisine, and
northern
India, where the kitchens of Bengali women play a role; and conclude her
travels in Japan, speaking with culinary instructors in Tokyo and Kyoto.
"Social situations fascinate me,” says Ondracek, who plans to pursue
a medical degree when she finishes her fellowship. “Each country has a
very specific code of etiquette. I’m curious to learn how these rules
developed and to understand the history behind them.
“I hope to experience not only the pleasures of savoring foreign delicacies
but the satisfaction of learning about fascinating cultures in such a revealing
and personally significant way,” she adds. “The Watson Fellowship
offers me a chance to meet people who are as enthusiastic about food as I
am and to relate to them despite our cultural differences. And, it offers
me an
opportunity, unlike any other, to be able to say that I have honestly and
unreservedly pursued one of my most treasured interests in life.”
Preserving and practicing traditions
Hoerman will undertake a comparative study of printmaking in Japan and painting
and printmaking in Bhutan, Tibet, and Australia, focusing on the artistic
traditions that have survived to the present day and how geographic isolation,
cultural
factors, and various modern institutions have altered or aided the development
of traditional art and artists.
“As a student of history and art, I’m constantly reminded of the
long and often strange transitions both ideas and images make as they move through
the years,” says Hoerman, who, as a freshman, was named a Wriston Scholar,
allowing her to travel extensively throughout Europe the past three summers.
“By the same token, I’m struck by how many things seem to remain the same. Painting in Bhutan and Australia and printmaking in Japan are art forms that have been preserved and practiced for centuries.
“
I want to find answers to questions about how traditional arts have survived
and how they are passed down and preserved, who creates traditional art, and
what role art and artists play in society,” she adds.
Hoerman will start her project in the tiny East Asian country of Bhutan,
the world’s only Buddhist kingdom, where she will visit the National
Painting School in the capital of Thiumphu, as well as temples and monasteries
throughout
the country. The second phase of her project will take her to Kyoto,
Japan, to study woodblock printing, which dates to the seventh century.
In addition
to working at the Kyoto Handicraft Center, which specializes in the preservation
of traditional Japanese handicrafts, Hoerman will visit galleries, museums,
and temples.
The final four months will be spent in Australia, where she hopes to
work with artists in Aboriginal communities, observing their work and
learning
their
traditional designs and processes.
“My project ties together the interests that have sustained me from childhood
through college,” says Hoerman, who hopes to pursue graduate studies
in creative writing and museum studies or possibly painting. “This
project will challenge my skills as an artist and as an observer in cultural
environments very different from my own and permit me to reassess my
world view. It’s going to allow me to pursue what I love to
do and to test my determination and ability to do it on a global scale.”
Ondracek and Hoerman were selected from nearly 1,000 students representing
50 of the nation’s top liberal arts colleges and universities who
applied for the fellowship. Since the program’s inception in 1969,
Lawrence has had 60 students awarded Watson
Fellowships.
The Watson Fellowship Program was established
by the children of Thomas J. Watson, Sr., founder of the IBM Corporation,
and
his wife, Jeannette, to honor their parents’ long-standing interest
in education and world affairs. Watson Fellows are selected on the basis
of character,
academic record, leadership potential, and willingness to delve into
another culture, as well as the personal significance of the project
proposal.
