Stomping Grounds: Senior Seminar Highlights Show
Brigitte Gendron
The work displayed is a selection from a semester-long study of nostalgia and grief, contributing to a larger tapestry of works that aim to capture aspects of my personal life that most nearly reflect my identity. Inspired by the compositions and natural elements of Art Nouveau, this piece reflects the most comprehensive work from the course of the seminar.
The subjects are two of my childhood dogs, Max (left) and Hugo (right), both of whom were pivotal and a constant presence throughout my adolescence and early adulthood. There were countless rituals and routines surrounding the boys, and their role as pets never prevented them from being considered indispensable members of my family. Both Max and Hugo passed on while I was too far away from home for me to properly say goodbye—at least in the way I would have hoped to. My absence from their departures, events that I always assumed I would be present for, added an unexpected dimension of guilt to my grief.
For this piece, I wanted to capture the boys in the way I always picture them: lounging in the grass of my backyard, with Hugo sounding one of his famous howls. Honoring them in this way has been a tremendous comfort and, perhaps most significantly, feels like I’m giving them a proper goodbye.