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Jennifer Harmon
Student Commencement Speaker 1995
Good Morning parents, friends, faculty, staff, and
administration. We thank you for joining us in honoring our
graduating class of 1995!
While a student here at Wellesley College, I've
discovered many astounding things. But the greatest among
them came while taking my first sculpture class Sophomore
year. I discovered my hands and the radical potential for
creativity they hold. I began to spend many late hours in
the studio, sculpting in clay, plaster, and bronze. The
process of translating the intangible universe of ideas into
tangibility fascinated me! It instilled in me a kind of
lustful desire to create and create. Thus I entered into the
highly romanticized and controversial world of art. I found
that art, though, is really an arduous process; that despite
my persistent spirit, my hands often became tired and felt
cramped. Consider your hands for a moment. In fact, I'd like
you to join me in the studio so you can use them. Here,
we're creating a work of art. You've been here before. There
lies the clay before you. You've been working on this same
lump of clay for a good time now. You've stayed up late,
sweating over the image that increasingly becomes better
defined. You've used your hands to shape it, your palms to
push it and your fingers to pinch the clay into a desired
form. How meticulous you are in smoothing out the surface
and sprinkling the clay when it becomes neglected and dry!
Now you step back and look at it. No, it's just not good
enough yet. You're dissatisfied and ready to go home for the
night. But you'll return. The dissatisfaction feeds your
progress so that when you leave, your eyes shine with the
possibilities. Alice Walker writes about this radiance- her
mother has it whenever she works in the garden. She becomes
a Creator, that is, with a capital "C". "She is involved in
work her soul must have"-- a work which causes her to
radiate an intense glow of creative power.
Graduating Seniors, when I look out at you today, I am
blinded by your radiance. You are Creators with a capital
"C". You've been Creating yourselves in the Wellesley studio
for years now and are here today to reveal in some manner,
the final product. Final? Of course not. In case it's still
a secret, life does not end after Wellesley and we have many
opportunities to shape and form our lives afterwards. I'm
certainly not satisfied with my life. It's simply not a work
of art yet.
Now look at your hands, the ones you've been using so
well these years in the studio. No, not your real hands, but
those inside you, that is, your minds, hearts, bodies, your
sense of good judgment, your faculties of every kind. These
are your tools for completing the work of art which is your
life. Just like your real hands, they have muscles too which
must be exercised and used or they will become useless.
Now I literally use my hands to create my life. I
exercise my hands by creating physical art objects with
them. Someday I hope to support myself with my hands. But
you are artists in a more liberal sense, Creating in many
diverse forms. Earlier this semester, I was surfing through
Bulletin with my friend. She paused at a certain message to
let me read. It was a call to order for all people to
protest the "'Contract With America." Students here at
Wellesley had their hands deep in the organization of the
protests and petition-gathering which later ensued. This
activism is a way in which we punch at and mold the clay --
but this time, our creative, political forces are not
centered on our own individual sculptures. This kind of
creativity stretches our hands out, so we end up using them
not only for the improvement of our own lives, but those of
others as well.
Our hands relate to that abstract force within each of us
which drives us to better ourselves. Did you ever think that
by using our symbolic hands, we also insure our eternal
existence? As a beginning, think of all the pages of essays
and lab reports you've written these past years -- slavery
and back-breaking labor! Yes, writing, as we all know, is
not easy. Ask any thesis student. Extracting our thoughts
into a coherent written argument can sometimes border close
on our emotional grounds. But, seniors, think how valuable
all the pain and effort is. Above all, how priceless is the
written proof of our thoughts. Now let's take our writing
one step further. I sincerely believe that writing is one of
the creative acts which ensure that we exist forever. Not
very surprisingly, Shakespeare also believed in the eternal
power of writing. He said, "my love shall in my verse ever
live young." Whether or not you think your thesis and paper
assignments are your eternal verse, the essence of your
existence will reside in what you've written -- yes, perhaps
forever. They are your permanent hand print on the world. In
my family and in my church, it is a tradition to write in
personal journals and record our own histories. These serve
as reminders of our existence to our children and
descendants. We hope that all our successes and mistakes
will help them in their lives. This is exactly why I
treasure my personal diaries, journals, and sketchbooks.
Something of me has become a part of eternity.
In case you haven't noticed, I love sculpture with all my
heart and hands. I'm an artist and I'm also an idealist.
These things may count as strikes against me in this day and
age, but they are invaluable traits to have. Having both
these qualities has taught me that the ultimate artistic
creativity lies in living. Nothing is going to happen unless
we see the despair and pain in the world and then plug in
all the optimistic artistic energy we can. Professor
Sternberg of Yale's Psychology Department co-wrote an
article with one of his students which concerns the ways we
can encourage creativity. They write, "In most creative
endeavors, there is a period of time during which an
individual is groping -- -trying to figure out what the
pieces of the puzzle are .... Creative individuals need to
be able to tolerate such ambiguity and to wait for the
pieces to fall into place.... Unless one can learn to face
adversity and conquer it, one is unlikely to make a creative
contribution" to the world. These may be ambiguous times for
many of us. Some may not have jobs yet. Others may be
grappling with personal beliefs or just trying to have a
little fun. Well, one lesson learned from making art is that
you can do whatever you want, as long as you believe in it
and prove it to your professor. And ambiguity is a big
opportunity to do just that.
So it's time to wet the clay and begin molding it again
with our hands. We have a lot of work to do. As long as we
live, it will never end. Earlier this semester, I saw a
poster advertising a show of artwork done by Wellesley
graduates entitled, "Is There Art After Wellesley?" The show
had been organized as encouragement for us that there are
artists who work creatively after Wellesley. Someone,
obviously discouraged, had scratched out one word, changing
the question to this: "Is There Art at Wellesley?" Let me
answer the anonymous hand which asked this question: Yes,
THERE IS! And ever after!
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JENNIFER HARMON 1995
STUDENT COMMENCEMENT SPEAKER
A resident of Madison, Connecticut, Jennifer Harmon is a
Studio Art major at Wellesley College. She is the daughter
of Duane and Lynette Harmon and is the seventh of nine
siblings. At Wellesley, she coordinated the Live Model
Sessions for the student Art Club and completed a thesis
under the mentorship of Professor Carlos Dorrien with whom
she has studied bronze sculpture since sophomore year. As a
junior, she studied art for a semester in Florence, Italy.
Ms. Harmon has recently begun to exhibit her female bronze
figures in Boston with The Copley Society of Boston. She
will continue to pursue her career as an artist after
graduation and plans to study toward a Master of Fine Arts
degree. This fall, she will depart on a mission with the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints for eighteen
months. Ms. Harmon has traveled with her family throughout
the United States. She has held a summer job at a fishery in
Alaska and, during another summer, taught English in
Indonesia.
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