Thank You for My Italian Year – Anya Farion – Italy 1988
Being awarded a Fulbright Grant to carve marble for a year in the town of Pietrasanta, Italy was a dream come true for a sculptor like myself. The situation was ideal; one was able to learn from and be inspired by the Italian craftsmen and the international community of artists who come from around the […]
Voices From the Center – Janeil Engelstad – Slovakia 2006
In 2006, as a Fulbright Scholar teaching at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design (AFAD) in Bratislava, I initiated conversations with new colleagues and friends about how their life had changed since the end of Socialism. I wanted to better understand the experiences of people who, like me, grew up during the Cold War. […]
Exacting – Rebecca Kaiser Gibson – India 2011
The Center for Exact Humanities (CEH) was the department at IIIT-H, an information technology school where I was scheduled to teach a semester of Creative Writing, Poetry as a Fulbright Scholar in 2012. My second night in Hyderabad, Prakani, the young guide assigned me, announced that I was invited to meet “Sir,” Navjoti Singh, the […]
In Madrid – Jenny Cascino – Spain 2017
In Madrid, the light respires millenary breaths upon terracotta facades it dances carrying earth paints a stable glaze of aspiration and crianza upon the souls of passersby who move along as if carried upon a hedonistic puff of cigarette smoke by whose subtle and sultry perfection I am transfixed. In Madrid, clouds and […]
Folk Art from Shaanxi Province, China, shared in Nyeri County, Kenya – Mary Nix Hollowell – China 2013
Three generations of Fan Gao-qis lived inside the compound. Fan Gao-qi Sr. was a small, dignified man, who wore a white button-down shirt. He welcomed us to his home, then ushered us into a first-floor room that served as an art gallery. The walls were completely covered with bright paintings. Some were just canvases. Others […]
A Great Musical and Personal Adventure – Don Theodore Jaeger – Netherlands 1958
I studied the oboe on my Fulbright in Amsterdam, and had the wonderful and unexpected opportunity to play in the oboe section of the World Famous Concertgebouw Orchestra – an experience unexpected and unparalleled in my entire life as a professional oboist. And learning another language and making good friends with the many wonderful people […]
Rembrandt, Fondue, and bicycling to a beach picnic in Holland – Susan Ross Evans – Belgium & Netherlands 1976
It was the sesquicentennial summer of 1976 when I began my Fulbright adventure in Brussels. My scholarship involved immersion in the art history of Belgium and the Netherlands. In Belgium there were wonderful lectures by noted art historians and trips from Brussels to historic towns like Ghent to see the Van Eyck altar piece, Brugge […]
Heat: An Excerpt from OY PIONEER!: A NOVEL – Marleen S. Barr – Germany 1983, 1989, 2008
Heat: An Excerpt from Oy Pioneer!: A Novel by Marleen S. Barr (University of Wisconsin Press, 2003) Although I knew that Germany has many elaborate pools replete with squirting fountains and bubbling hot and cold water, I was not prepared for the particular organic contraptions I would encounter at this pool. I could easily accept […]