Generations in focus: Amherst Regional students use photography, painting, personal interviews to build connections with seniors

AMHERST — About two weeks after interviewing and photographing Amherst resident Tom Joyce late last year, Ryann Dorrie-Burgoyne, a junior at Amherst Regional High School, completed a watercolor painting, from memory, of his late dog Callie, a Bernese mountain dog.

Seeing for the first time his black-and-white portrait, in which he commented that he looks somewhat bewildered, Joyce said the painting captures his dog perfectly.

“I saw the dog picture and I said, ‘I love this.'”

Dorrie-Burgoyne explained the process.

“We asked about his schools, his favorite memories, his job, everything,” Burgoyne said. “It was really cool to hear about what high school was like then compared to what it’s like now, to interview about everything in his life.”

“I love talking about myself,” Joyce said, chuckling, and adding that his sons and granddaughter have graduated from the same school. “I’m 77 and I have a lot of stories to tell. It was enjoyable.”

Joyce and Dorrie-Burgoyne are among those who took part in “A Wider Lens: An Intergenerational Arts Partnership coordinated by visual art teacher Kristen Ripley and photography teacher Elena Betke-Brunswick, with financial support from the Amherst Education Foundation.

All told, more than 30 senior citizens with ties to Amherst were interviewed by the students, who used black-and-white film, rather than digital cameras, for the photos and completed watercolor paintings to show an important element of their subjects’ lives.

According to the proposal from the teachers, the “partnership will expand intergenerational connections among participants, challenge art students to create work based on authentic content, and honor the experiences and perspectives of our community elders.”

The recently completed two-week exhibition at the Amherst History Center on Boltwood Walk featured a reception bringing together some of the participants for a mini-reunion.

A longtime champion of progressive political causes who has been active in protests and rallies for decades, Myra Lenburg of Amherst spent an hour talking about her life with some of the students.

Drawing from that interview at the high school library, Lenburg is featured through a black-and-white photograph portrait and a watercolor painting depicting a megaphone with the words “Black Lives Matter” and civil rights inscribed alongside it

“This project shows aspects of peoples’ lives,” says Brennan Summers, a senior, who completed the painting as fellow student Aliya Nazirova took Lenburg’s picture during the conversation. “The painting has a megaphone because she did civil rights and political campaigns, and Black Lives Matter.”

“I was very interested in how high school is so different,” Lenburg said. “I had to say to Brennan, it wasn’t like that.”

Both Lenburg and Summers continue to see each other when they bring their dogs to the Amherst Dog Park.

Other community participants included couple Dorrie Merriam and Marguerite Sheehan, who recently returned to Amherst after having previously made their home in Shelburne.

“It was a blast,” said Dorrie Merriam. “It was so much fun.”

“It was a thrill to hear what students would do with their lives. It was an incredible conversation we don’t get on a regular basis with youth; we crave it.”

“It was so enjoyable to be with high schoolers and to have the intergenerational connection,” Sheehan said. “I think it’s fantastic.”

As one of the first to obtain a same-sex marriage license in town, the watercolor painting for Merriam includes a rainbow, along with a stethoscope to show her career as a nurse practitioner and a snowplow from time spent living in Alaska.

Sheehan’s watercolor, by high school student Sophie Bergan, conveys a scene from when she left high school with her best friend and went to California in 1971. Included in the painting are the way she hitch-hiked from Springfield and a small church to reflect her Catholic upbringing, though Sheehan is now a United Church of Christ minister. Her photo was taken by student Cael Danylchuk.

“I talked about how there was no gay presence at the high school,” Sheehan said. “Somehow all that jabbering I did, this is what came out of it.”

Stewart Williams of Amherst said he talked about how he suffered 60 seizures and went right to the hospital during his chat with students Jasper Ekwere, Jihwan Ryu and Elsie Woodruff.

He loved being part of the project. “I’m very grateful, and very impressed, and thankful,” Williams said.

Williams was particularly gratified that Woodruff’s painting shows the Citroen he drove, passing in front of a volcano.

“This was when I was really driving across the country just to stay alive,” Williams said. “This really captures how I was living at the moment. I had to drive cross-country and I had to live life to the fullest.”

Rose Collins, a junior, helped the teachers with framing the photographs and watercolors.

“I really liked hearing their stories and what makes them interesting,” Collins said. One of the lessons she is drawing from those with more experience is to “do what makes me happy.”

Collins said she finds it satisfying being in the dark room, where she developed two rolls of film. “We chose what we thought represents the person the most,” Collins said.

Her subjects were Karen Lavender, who she made sure illustrated her free spirit and physicality, and Paul Peele, wanting to have this show someone who “is a real sweetheart.”

Just as Lenburg and Summers remain in touch at the dog park, Diane Mercomes of Sunderland, who is retired from teaching at the former Mark’s Meadow School, regularly sees Ololara Baptiste, one of the students who interviewed her.

Mercomes said she was interviewed by three students, telling them stories about what school was like in the 1950s and 1960s and the differences between then and now, like listening to music on vinyl record albums versus through Spotify.

Mercomes’ granddaughter is on the track team at Frontier Regional School, while Baptiste is part of the Amherst Regional track team.

“Now we have a nice little relationship,” Mercomes said. “This is exactly what the teachers wanted.”