Creative Works Fellowship

The Creative Works Fellowship (CWF) is a 10-12 week summer program that provides CMC students in the humanities the opportunity to engage in a fully funded self-directed project that culminates in some type of creative output. Past projects include: podcasts, artworks (2-dimensional and 3-dimensional), e-magazines, documentary films, virtual games, etc.

Summer 2025 Creative Works Fellows

Jasmine Duncan ’26

Bridging Cultures: Black influence and identity in k-Pop

This summer, I will explore the dynamic relationship between Black culture and the global phenomenon of K-pop. While K-pop is often celebrated for its catchy beats and polished visuals, its deep-rooted influences from Black music, dance, and style are frequently overlooked or unacknowledged. Through a creative documentary and multimedia essay series, I aim to trace how elements of hip-hop, R&B, and street fashion have been adapted and used by the K-pop industry. My project will also spotlight the voices of Black K-pop fans and creatives, examining how they navigate cultural appreciation, appropriation, and representation within the industry. By engaging with fans, scholars, and performers across both cultures, I hope to create a more nuanced understanding of cultural exchange in pop culture. My ultimate goal is to foster meaningful conversations around identity, influence, and respect, and to celebrate the ways in which Black culture continues to shape global art forms.

Carol Hutchison ’26

Rooted in the Land: How Stories Facilitate Our Connection to ʻĀina

Moʻolelo (stories, storytelling) and aloha ʻāina (love for the land; patriotism) are two essential and intertwined concepts of Native Hawaiian culture, and indeed, to many other indigenous cultures as well. Growing up in Hawaiʻi, these two concepts have been foundational to the development of my own Hawaiian identity and continue to shape who I am. This summer, I will explore the role of moʻolelo (stories, myths, legends) in creating and shaping our connection to ʻāina (land) by specifically learning about the moʻolelo of native plants in Hawaiʻi and Southern California. Native plants are both ecologically and culturally significant, but are often endangered and overlooked. For my project, I plan to journey throughout the Hawaiian Islands and Southern California to observe native plants in their natural ecosystems and to learn about their moʻolelo through research, such as consulting archives and cultural experts among other sources. This project blooms from my desire to further strengthen my own connection with the land as a Native Hawaiian and to appreciate how relationships between people and the Earth can be built through the power of story. At the end of my project, I will create a scrapbook of creative writings inspired by various moʻolelo, my travels, and my experiences of seeing native ecosystems in a world where they are slowly disappearing. I hope to reflect on how my own relationship to ʻāina has grown and how we can each nurture our own spirit of aloha ʻāina.

Robert Litscher ’27

Rediscovering Albania’s Lost Faith

For centuries, Albania had been a crossroads of faith, where Islam, Orthodoxy, and Catholicism coexisted, providing an anchor to millions of faithful Albanians. Until the 1960s-1990s, when under the communist rule of Enver Hoxha Albanian churches, mosques, and temples were destroyed, and replaced with social centers and weapon-producing warehouses. Even the simple acknowledgment of God became punishable by death, and Albania was declared the world’s first atheist state. The erasure of faith left a deep void in Albanian society, one that did not simply vanish with the fall of communism.

My own family bears witness to this rupture. My grandparents fled Albania as children in the 1950s, narrowly escaping the spiritual and cultural suppression that followed. In a journal my grandfather left behind, he described the day he learned his church had been turned into a warehouse as a moment when he had lost a part of himself. So, for the millions of Albanians that stayed behind, could the government fill the void inside of them that religion once filled, or did the government destroy a part of his citizens as he did Churches, Mosques, and Temples?

Now, decades later, religion in Albania is re-emerging. But how does a society reclaim its faith after years of forced silence? By traveling to Albania and speaking with the many new faithful Albanians, I aim to understand not just how religion is re-emerging, but why. Understanding this can offer insight into why spirituality endures and transforms, even in societies where it was once systematically erased. 

AJ Matheson-Lieber ’27

An Analysis of the State of Waterfalls and Rivers in the Pacific Northwest

We live in a time of climate precarity, where natural landscapes are increasingly shaped and threatened by the forces of climate change. As we face the potential loss of vital landmarks that define both our historical and contemporary environments, my Creative Works Fellowship project will focus on exploring, researching, and documenting waterfalls and waterways across Oregon and Washington. Through qualitative observation, I aim to preserve their present state before they are further altered or lost, and to create a guide for engaging in conservation, sustainability, and responsible interaction with nature.

Hydroelectric infrastructure, intensifying wildfires, and shifting water levels are already transforming Pacific Northwest waterways. My process will blend historical research with artistic practice, incorporating site visits, field recordings, interviews with local communities, and a deep exploration of each site's cultural and ecological significance.

While scientific research is essential to understanding climate change, data and analysis alone often fail to move people to action. My goal is to create a body of artwork that captures the emotional and sensory impressions these landscapes leave behind. Ideally, this project will be able to translate abstract awareness into personal connection, in an effort to spur conservation efforts and drive meaningful public engagement, while also providing concrete next steps so that individuals can feel hopeful and empowered to make a difference.

Daniella Reyes ’26

Mucha and Me: Reviving "Art For The People" Through Advertisements For Women of Color-Owned Businesses

This summer, I will create a series of advertisements, inspired by Alphonse Mucha's works and the Art Nouveau style, specifically for women of color-owned businesses to learn about accessibility in art. In contrast to the minimalist adverts we see today, Mucha made elaborate decorative works used in daily life and worked with the mindset of making “art for the people”. I will be traveling to Prague to learn about Mucha and how his works influenced the daily lives of people in the Czech Republic. Following this trip, I will work with businesses in my community to design my own posters inspired by what I learned and celebrating the backgrounds of the business owners. While working on these posters, I will explore how small businesses approach obtaining art and explore accessibility to art across gender and race. This project will culminate in a digital portfolio including my posters and analysis of the conversations with the businesses and time in Prague, demonstrating the influence that art can have in daily life. Ultimately, I will see how “art for the people” currently manifests itself and how I can contribute to making art more accessible. 

Ethan Wood ’27

A Heart of Stone: The Craft of Sculpture

To have a heart of stone, to be as cold as marble, to be a brick wall: these are sayings that I would never want used to describe my character. Symbolically, these idioms express the common metaphor of the space between rock and nothingness–a body void of soul. Yet, the sculptor, with chisel and rasp in hand, chooses and transforms impossible mediums of stone, marble, clay, and metal, to capture and memorialize moments which encapsulate the human experience in its most raw and vivid purity. My exploration, from the perspective of both the observer and creator of sculpture, will endeavor to answer how the sculptor achieves this task, culminating in a portfolio of sculptural studies and visual diary entries.

Beginning as an observer, I will travel to sculptural gardens and museums in Paris, Nice, and Venice where, with sketchpad and pencil, I will attempt to understand form and structure. As sculptor, during the second chapter of my exploration, I will return to Massachusetts, where for the remaining weeks I will be an apprentice for the classically-trained sculptor Pablo Eduardo. In Eduardo’s studio I will live amongst his mountainous metal forms, and, under his steady and inspiring tutelage, slowly watch, assist, and prod them into sculptural fruition. All in the hope to comprehend this demanding yet magical form of creation– bringing rock to life.