Spotlight on Anjelika Paranjpe

Author: Lauren Smith and Jodie Zhang

The Middlebury Campus: What kinds of art are you involved in at Midd?

Anjelika Paranjpe: Well, I'm co-president of Vitality of the Artistic Community (VACA). I've been doing that since my junior year. And then there's Artemis, which is a women's art mag. That was sort of bestowed upon me last year. Both of those are good because they get non-art kids in campus looking at art. Most kids, they come through Johnson to go to class, but don't actually see the art. With VACA, you know, we throw an art opening with a keg of beer, because that's what gets kids to come. The goal with VACA is to have art all around campus, not just at CFA and Johnson.

The Campus: Tell us about Artemis.

Paranjpe: Artemis started as feminist mag, but the feminists don't respond to my emails now. (Laughs) Now I'm welcoming essays from whoever. The Editor of Artemis is traditionally a WAGS major. It's easier to call it a women's art mag because it's open to things that involve being female. But I've included works by male artists, too. It comes out twice a year. It kind of died last year and didn't have funding, so I had to reapply for everything and now we have funding, which is great. It's kind of like my little child.

The Campus: Tell us about your role in VACA.

Paranjpe: Well basically last J-term of my junior year, I was asked to be more a part of VACA, not just doing the decorations and such. So several of us kind of took it over and made it more alive and tried to get involved with any event that we could. Like Jamnesty, for instance. We tried to basically get our name out there, so students would say, "Hey, VACA. We recognize that name." VACA has a gallery opening at the beginning of each semester where we exhibit student art. It's important to get other students to see their peers' artwork and to let people who aren't taking art classes show their art. That's the best part of that. Like, there was this senior last year who was a math major. She said she'd never shown her art to anyone and I gave her a whole wall at the VACA gallery. It was nice. It felt good to see her able to show that part of herself. VACA has also been doing murals around campus. We were a part of the Gamut room repainting and we've been asked to do three murals in the Chellis house.

The Campus: How did you become interested in art?

Paranjpe: I actually became interested in art while I was sick. I had back surgery and I had to stop playing sports. I was 12. I said, "Okay, I guess I'll do some drawing." That's when I started taking a lot of art classes. The first serious thing I did was oil painting, in high school.

The Campus: How has your art evolved since coming to Midd?

Paranjpe: When I got here, I had no intentions of being an art major. I didn't think I'd get nearly involved with it as I have. Now I do sculpture, specifically with handmade paper and fabrics. I'm doing some printmaking, too. I've been doing embossments, which aren't necessarily prints. All of the stuff that I'm doing is about getting the viewer to touch and interact with the art. I'm interested in human beings' interactions with pieces of art and with other human beings. I want my art to be inviting. I don't want it to just be some weird heady experience. I'm interest in functional art. I'm interested in the viewer becoming a part of the piece. Way too much art is behind glass. What I get out of art is when other people are part of it. And it's just not a thing that you throw together.

The Campus: So you feel that art should take some social responsibility?

Paranjpe: Art needs to reflect what's going on in the world and it needs to progress. The important thing about art in terms of society is that art is able to relate to everyone. It can relate deeper ideas about human beings. We're all creating everything in this world. Art can bring a lot of people together who wouldn't normally come together. As cheesy as that sounds, it's true. You can be calmed or angered by a piece of art and you can't always verbalize why.

The Campus: What are you working on now?

Paranjpe: Well, I'm working on stuff for my senior show, which is April 22. I was working on the embossments primarily the first semester, but the bulk of my senior show will be sculpture. I'm creating a network that is sort of a skeleton of a room out of fabric and steel. I traveled over J-term for an independent study and went for two weeks to India and three weeks to Vietnam. I collected lots of materials, like paper and fabric while I was there and now I'm using that in my art.

The Campus: How many hours a week do you spend on your various artistic endeavors?

Paranjpe: A lot. (Laughs) Probably like four hours a day at least. For Artemis - one issue takes two full days with me in the library with a scanner. I probably have an up-all-nighter every two weeks before we have our independent critiques. The 720 and 520 independent art students present a piece every two weeks and we have a critique. We talk about why we did the piece, what we were trying to do in it.

The Campus: Do you get nervous before a critique?

Paranjpe: I definitely get nervous before a critique. Mostly because I want the piece to be finished. I don't want to present something in the making, even though everything is always in the making. I do get nervous about what the people are going to say. But I'm getting used to that now.

The Campus: What are your other academic interests?

Paranjpe: Philosophy, of course, and political science. In terms of my life, I'm really interested in politics. Academically, I didn't go there.

The Campus: What about other hobbies or interests?

Paranjpe: Well, I'm a DJ for WRMC. I've been one since my first semester. I play what I guess you'd call "rock," like Beck, Radiohead, Tori Amos - the early 90s genre.

The Campus: What inspires you?

Paranjpe: Well, my inspiration has sort of changed a lot over the course of this year. In the beginning it was mostly the people around me. I liked to do work about my friends, embossments of my friends. Last year, when I decided to be an art major, I was involved in this Plato symposium, which was about the nature of love. I also happened to be falling in love right then. Those two experiences combined sort of birthed me as an art major. You know what I mean? Now I've just been thinking about people interacting with art and I'm inspired by materials now. I want to use them to exhibit their natural properties, like light coming through a piece of paper and showing its texture.

The Campus: What are your plans for after graduation?

Paranjpe: (Laughs) I'm not sure, though I could tell you, like, my big plans. I'd really love to open a gallery - anywhere - it doesn't really matter to me. Essentially, I want to do things like VACA and Artemis professionally.

But I don't think I'd ever be an artist, because that's not what inspires me. What inspires me is spreading art, especially other people's art and helping them to put their art out there I just want to keep spreading art and make it less of something that alienates people and instead, something that brings people together.