While many artists find inspiration in solitude, some create their best work in the company of others.
Over the summer, Denison visual arts major Tori Tutt ’28 was awarded the opportunity to take art classes of her choice at an arts facility in Colorado.
Tutt received the Keith Boone Anderson Ranch Award, which allowed her to go to the camp, held at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Aspen, Colorado. She chose to spend the week-long camp learning about cyanotypes — a form of art that involves placing photo negatives on top of materials drenched in light-sensitive chemicals.
Her favorite print was that of a sea cucumber, which she replicated on various thick papers, as well as on cotton shirts. She also enjoyed printing traditional Puerto Rican vejigante masks onto canvases.
Tutt uses many mediums in her art, with acrylic paint being her go-to, though lately she has been experimenting with oils. She does linocutting and photography professionally in her spare time but wanted to learn a new skill.
“This was great because it was really like, ‘Oh, I get to just work on my stuff,’” she said. “I don’t have to worry about anything else. And the materials were kind of boundless as well. We were really able to expand our minds, and we weren’t limited by a lot.”
Tutt attended classes from morning until right before dinner, when she was free to explore. While many of her classmates took advantage of the gorgeous surroundings, Tutt chose to spend most of her free time practicing what she had learned.
“Mostly I was waking up early, going to the studio before the professor got there and then staying there after hours, and it was just such a fun place, and it’s so beautiful, and the temperature is just, like, perfect,” Tutt said. “It’s like an art haven.”
Even though she misses the top-tier cyanotype materials, art-oriented environment, and the professors at Anderson Ranch, she said she has an equally good community at Denison. She has also found a way to continue making cyanotype art at her studio in Bryant Arts Center.
“I’m still making good artwork, because I have my professors to back me up, and I have friends giving me feedback, so it kind of feels like I’m still there sometimes,” Tutt said.
The ranch is open for anyone to take workshops or spend art residencies, so Tutt was surrounded by artists of all ages and experience levels. She learned from the older artists who shared their stories and how they got to where they are now.
“It was an interesting dynamic,” she said. “I was meeting people from all different walks of art. And especially my older classmates, they gave me so much advice that I feel really shapes my philosophy as being a junior now, since I’m close to graduating.”
At the end of the week, the camp hosted auctions for the student’s artwork, with proceeds going back into Anderson Ranch to fund more scholarships and programs. Tutt’s class created a book of their cyanotypes, which made $330, and she sold a piece of her own for $150.
Following the end of the camp in July, Tutt worked at El Museo de Arte in San Juan, Puerto Rico, teaching art to children ages 9 to 13. She said she was inspired by the perspectives of the children and would sketch in her free time, sketches that she painted on canvas upon returning to her on-campus studio.
“I love working with children and just being around minds that are very much not really bound by what we feel like now,” she said. “Their philosophy is very different; their way of approaching life is very different. So I was very inspired by that. And so I would take that approach to my own mind, and then I would sketch it out.”
Many pieces of Tutt’s art reference her home in Carolina, Puerto Rico. She also draws inspiration from the rural areas of Puerto Rico where her grandmother grew up, and the folklore that surrounds those areas.
Her eventual goal is to return to Puerto Rico but, because of political instability, she plans to stay in the continental United States after graduation. She hopes to find a city with a good arts culture where she can share her work.
Tori Tutt Studio
