Artist Spotlight Vignettes: The Crimson’s Arts Board’s Favorite Artists

Across all media, art inspires our creativity, emotions, and unique perspectives. Consuming art is an individual and personal experience — an experience dependent on the life, values, and character of the consumer. Here are some of the Arts Board’s favorite artists and works of art.

Joni Mitchell

If I were to name one artist who has profoundly impacted my life, I would have to say Joni Mitchell. As a kid, I loved the upbeat tune of “Big Yellow Taxi,” a song that continues to resonate with me as I pursue climate activism. I also vividly remember listening to “The Circle Game” when transitioning from elementary to middle school.

At 18, as I found myself at the crossroads of childhood and adulthood, the evocative lyrics of “Both Sides Now” resonated with my life experiences. The juxtaposed introspection and retrospection of the lyrics “I really don’t know life at all” and “I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now” remind me of the constantly evolving nature of my memory and wisdom.

These days, I find myself jamming out to “Raised on Robbery” while biking along the Charles, commiserating with Mitchell while listening to “River” in the bleak midwinter, and getting ready to “Morning Morgantown” every day.

As a lifelong Mitchell fan, watching her surface in my generation’s consciousness, following the formation of the “Joni Jam,” has been deeply moving. Mitchell has a song for every occasion, and her artistry will always be relevant to both me and society at large. Words cannot describe how much her music, visual art, and career arc mean to me.

—Staff writer Lola J. DeAscentiis can be reached at lola.deascentiis@thecrimson.com.

Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh, my favorite artist, is not underground; he created one of the world’s most famous paintings. However, he makes being basic worth it. When I visited my first art museum — Boston’s very own Museum of Fine Arts — I was entranced by van Gogh’s underrated masterpiece, “The Ravine.” The tangled whirlwind of mint, gray, and white oil paint puzzled me at first, but after taking a step back and truly looking, I could see two figures trudging along a cliffside. I couldn’t tear my eyes away, and I knew that van Gogh would stay with me forever.

Many years later, I learned that the MFA had used X-ray imaging to reveal another picture hiding beneath “The Ravine,” called “Wild Vegetation.” This fascinating revelation prompted me to dive deeper into the history of van Gogh and his oeuvre.

Today, this passion for artistic discovery drives my everyday work as a Student Guide at the Harvard Art Museums. Vincent van Gogh is my favorite artist for many reasons: his wild use of color, his persistence in the face of adversity, and his innate understanding of emotion and life. Most of all, it was his art that guided me toward one of my most favored hobbies.

— Staff writer Hannah E. Gadway can be reached at hannah.gadway@thecrimson.com.

“Late Afternoon, New York, Winter” by Childe Hassam

I found this piece of art on my Instagram Explore page during reading period of last year. It was on one of those art accounts that posts pictures of paintings whose creators are too long buried beneath the ground to do so themselves, and it had — by some miracle of the algorithm — made its way to me.

“Late Afternoon, New York, Winter,” by Childe Hassam, that is.

The blustery purples and shimmering whites of the ultramarine blue buildings and warm orange city lights seemed to speak — like a December wind that whispers against your ear when you step outside — to the burnt-out me sitting in my overheated dorm room. Carefully adjusting the screenshot this way and that, the painting situated itself in its new home, my lock screen, with my phone case as its new frame.

Whenever my eyes were blinded from consuming one too many PDFs, and my fingers were numb from pounding away at the keyboard, I would press the power button on my phone and take a minute to soak in Hassam’s view of a “Late Afternoon, New York, Winter.”

—Staff writer Nicole L. Guo can be reached at nicole.guo@thecrimson.com.

Meaux Cathedral Crypt

The silent stone forest of Meaux Cathedral in Meaux, France loomed overhead, its canopy of vaults soaring to nearly unfathomable heights, as the bishop knelt beside my professor’s feet. As he heaved the floor hatch aside with a resounding thud, musty mystery beckoned from the blackness. It had been only a few weeks since our History of Art and Architecture class had first learned of the crypt’s existence; Now, we ventured incredulously down a roughly hewn stone staircase into its cool depths.

Our 21st-century cellphones cast patchy light over the 12th-century items nestled within the great cathedral’s junk drawer, the shadows of discarded columns and forgotten capitals shifting uncomfortably under our intruding lights and sounds. Seeing these long-hidden treasures, I pondered why the items below were not numbered with those above. It seemed these were things to be saved, but not exalted, things judged less significant, but no less valuable. The messy figures resting within the hidden solace of Meaux’s foundations — forgotten objects by forgotten artists — reminded me that the art we don’t see has as much to say as the art we do.

—Staff writer Marin E. Gray can be reached at marin.gray@thecrimson.com.

“Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver

I tend not to read poetry unless it’s assigned, yet a scribbled-on piece of loose leaf with the text of Mary Oliver’s “Wild Geese” rests perpetually on my bedside table to be glanced over every night. I despise a cluttered desktop, yet a Word document with “Wild Geese” sits ever-present on my laptop home screen. I have severe memorization troubles — ask anyone who’s ever tried to get me to learn a multiplication table — yet the lines of “Wild Geese” spill effortlessly from my lips on command.

I’m not sure what it is about Oliver’s poem that causes me to cling to it for dear life; maybe it’s just always been there for me at the right times. When I tormented myself in the weeks before my first year of college — Will I get along with my roommate? Will I fail all my classes? Did I peak in high school? — Oliver spoke to me through my pre-orientation leaders’ unwavering voices, reminding me from a FOP mountaintop that the world would never fail to “offer itself to [my] imagination.” Whenever I spend a little too long concerning myself with internship applications or Canvas discussion posts, Oliver reminds me that “the world goes on,” regardless — and maybe in spite — of my best efforts to bend the pace of the world to my personal will.

For the longest time, I saw myself as separate from the natural, physical world. The “self” I always considered as “me” was my mind; my body was merely a vessel to carry my mind around from place to place. But every time I read “Wild Geese” and Mary Oliver’s reference to the “soft animal of [my] body” shakes me from my mental turmoil, I am brought closer and closer to reconciling mind, body, and soul. In short, “Wild Geese” reminds me of my “place in the family of things.”

—Staff writer Stella A. Gilbert can be reached at stella.gilbert@thecrimson.com.