ABOUT ME
Gabrielle Frohlich
I am a sophomore at the University of Maryland in the College Park Scholars Arts program, majoring in Family Science and minoring in Nonprofit Leadership and Social Innovation. I was on the pre-medicine track up until this semester, though I am still very passionate about healthcare and the sciences. I am also passionate about the arts, practicing my fine arts skills and arts appreciation via Arts Scholars and my love for singing as a soprano and the treasurer of my a cappella group, Rak Shalom. A third passion of mine is service, which I implement into my college career by serving on the board of Challah for Hunger and as the Individual Volunteer Coordinator for Food Recovery Network. The overarching goal of my capstone was to weave these three passions of mine into one cohesive project.
Please scroll down to learn more about the central issue, history and distinction related to, approach, and intended audience and impact of my capstone project: The Coronavirus and Us.
ARTIST'S STATEMENT
ISSUE
My capstone project's primary focus was addressing the issue of the coronavirus and the initial laxness of my peers to it upon us first learning about it. The animation was created with two purposes in mind. The first was to present the urgency of the coronavirus and act as a PSA to UMD students about the importance of taking it, and its accompanying safety measures, seriously. The second was to merge the arts and sciences by expressing scientific processes in an abstract, animated manner.
HISTORY & DISTINCTION
There is a lot of evidence regarding the academic benefits of art, not only in terms of sharpening one’s analytical and observational (“scientific”) skills (3), but regarding the development and improvement of one’s overall intellectual capabilities (1). Thus, the highly researched and frequently verified link between the arts and sciences provides a strong claim for an artistically formatted PSA being an effective tool to successfully portray scientific concepts to a science and non-science audience. Art and its study’s benefits are expansive and applicable to, in theory, all areas of study, thereby making it an amorphous media that can beautifully act as a vehicle for an effective PSA. Additionally, microorganisms have been inspirations to various different types of artists throughout time, whether it be via the inclusion of biomorphic structures in the work of architect Frank Lloyd Wright or Ross Bleckner’s piece, “In Sickness and In Health,” which is an oil painting of the HIV virus (2).
APPROACH
I completed the animation mainly through exploratory methods, primarily via teaching myself how to animate using Adobe Photoshop and Animate through trial-and-error, using a Wacom tablet and my laptop's trackpad to draw. I also used the help of the Adobe website and graphic design forums to create the animation. Additional research included monitoring news sources, specifically The New York Times, the CDC's official website, and reviewing information on PSA construction (4), to create the animation’s prologue and epilogue. Due to the constant updating of coronavirus-related news, I decided to go for a broader approach with the text portions of my animation. The microbiological components of my animation were created with the knowledge I had from taking cellular and molecular biology and microbiology courses.
AUDIENCE & IMPACT
My project's primary audience is the UMD student population. As a member of that community, I think that we are struggling with coping with the new preventative measures set forth by the government, specifically social distancing. Additionally, when we first started learning about the coronavirus from the news, I noticed a lot of my peers not taking it seriously nor realizing the extent to which we are responsible for ensuring our own and others' safety from infection. My goal is to impact UMD students with a slightly daunting, emotional portrayal of being infected by the coronavirus to emphasize the urgency of the matter, in addition to providing resources via my website that may mitigate the mental and physical effects of the pandemic.
Acknowledgements
I would first and foremost like to thank Harold Burgess and Heather Bremenstuhl for their guidance throughout the development of this capstone. The creative process is unpredictable, constantly evolving and often frustrating, and their advice and support was helpful and motivating in overcoming every obstacle I faced throughout the process.
I would also like to thank my fellow Arts Scholars, specifically those who were in CPSA250 with me, for their advice and support throughout the semester. I am also very thankful for the input of friends as I developed and tweaked my animation and tested the impacts of my project on its intended audience.
Finally, I would like to thank you, the viewers, for visiting my website and participating in my virtual exhibition! My animation and website are here for you- to convey to you the significance of the coronavirus and our responsibility in protecting ourselves and others from it, provide for you ideas for remaining healthy and productive throughout the pandemic, and create a forum to express yourselves and support each other. Please use this website and its resources as you wish; with the proper safety measures, positivity, and unity, we can all help flatten the curve.
References
Cole, K.C. “Why the Arts Are Important to Science.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 13 Aug. 1998, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-aug-13-me-12745-story.html#targetText=To educators fighting over school,subjects like math and science.&targetText=Artistic training can sometimes play a critical role in scientific success.
Gamwell, Lynn. “Beyond the Visible--Microscopy, Nature, and Art.” Science, vol. 299, no. 5603, 3 Jan. 2003, pp. 49–50., doi:10.1126/science.1077971.
Jasani, Sona K., and Norma S. Saks. “Utilizing Visual Art to Enhance the Clinical Observation Skills of Medical Students.” Medical Teacher, vol. 35, no. 7, Mar. 2013, doi:10.3109/0142159x.2013.770131.
PDF. May 2015.