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Five years after he graduated, Ross Gay '96 has returned to campus to share his experience and insights into art and poetry with other students. He is serving as the Dean of Studies Humanities Fellow for the academic year.
“It is great but strange to be back,” he says in his combination office/studio in the Williams Visual Arts Center. “It's a good situation for me. I'm now on the other side (as a teacher). The art faculty are awesome. They're great people with whom I sit and talk about ideas and art.”
Gay says he was recruited as a student to Lafayette for his football skills and came to campus not knowing what he wanted to study. His sophomore year he took an art course with Ed Kerns, Eugene Clapp Professor of Art. “I quickly realized this was fun and good, and things just blossomed from there,” Gay says. “Ed Kerns has been my teacher and uncle since I was 19.”
Gay had a similar experience in a poetry course taught by Lee Upton, professor of English and writer-in-residence, and ended up graduating with a double major in English and art. He credits Upton with helping him develop as a poet and English faculty Susan Blake and Laura Dassow Walls with helping him develop as a reader. His poems have been published in Sulfur, Columbia, American Poetry Review, and Harvard Review, among others.
This semester he is teaching an introductory art course on the principles of studio art, such as basic color theory and two-dimensional composition theory. Next semester he will teach “The Painted Word,” focusing on the use of words in painting, something he is exploring in his own work.
“My poetry has a narrative thrust to it and depends on music,” Gay says in describing his work. “It often discusses some social or political issue.” He describes his art as “textural” and “layered.” He uses acrylics, oils, and sand to create large layered works, often in very muted colors.
“To use a football metaphor, when Ross is in the 'zone' and painting his best, he's not even aware he's painting,” says Kerns. “His work is an amalgam of words and images, and other special constructs. His art shows a broad cultural expansion and inclusiveness. He has a sophisticated, intellectual approach as opposed to emotional art-based work.”
Gay's next project is a collaboration with fellow alumni Tom DiGiovanni '96, a musician in an ensemble in New York and a former football punter, and football defensive end Derek Mast '95, an animator in Calif. The three will collaborate on an animated film, using Gay's poetry, DiGiovanni's music, and Mast's animation skills. “Derek was the reason I was backup defensive end my first years,” says Gay laughingly. “We're very dear friends and remain close. It will be fun to work together.”
“I loved playing football,” adds Gay, who played under Coach Bill Russo and was a member of the 1994 Patriot League championship team. “But I didn't like being a backup player my first few years. I wanted to play.”
Gay eventually won the starting defensive end position on the varsity football team and was awarded the 1996 George Wharton Pepper Prize as the senior who “most nearly represents the Lafayette ideal.” He graduated with honors in studio art and received the Vivian B. Noblett Prize to the outstanding senior in studio art, and the Gilbert Prize for superiority in English.
After earning a master's degree in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College, he is now working towards his Ph.D. in literature at Temple University. Gay hopes eventually to teach at the college level.
His fellowship this year is the latest in a series of contributions to the enrichment of Lafayette's cultural scene. He collaborated this summer in a distinctive painting project that included use of text on canvas with Kerns and Chris Michaud, a junior art and music double major. He also led a workshop on poetry and painting for high-school students participating in art classes conducted by Jim Toia, director of Lafayette's Community-Based Teaching Program. Gay has participated in poetry readings and has exhibited his work with artists Melvin Butler and Roderick Jordan at the David A. Portlock Black Cultural Center on campus.
Ross Gay ’96 works with students in his “Principles of Studio Art” class in the Williams Visual Arts Building.