Courtesy of Abi Alvarado

Courtesy of Abi Alvarado

Courtesy of Ada Potter

Courtesy of Lauren Russler

Last semester, four Bowdoin juniors—Ada Potter, Lauren Russler, Miles Benson and Abi Alvarado—took their respective drawing, painting, performance and filmmaking skills to various European countries.

As the Office of Off-Campus Study (OCS) offers programs in a variety of disciplines and countries, these four students selected to study in cities that accommodated their creative pursuits. They cited the unique creative inspiration their study abroad locations ignited in their day-to-day lives.

Russler, who spent last fall  participating in a painting program in Florence, Italy, took a liking to museums like the Uffizi, while Benson, an aspiring music teacher, attended two inexpensive Western classical concerts each week in Vienna, Austria, where classical music is subsidized by the government to create more affordable ticket prices.

“In the U.S., tickets for an equivalent level of performance, [run a] minimum [of] $60 for the worse tickets, versus in Austria, [it’s] $12 for standing room tickets,” Benson said.

Benson’s peers noted other cultural differences within their artistic practices abroad. Alvarado noted that filmmaking in the United States is mostly refined using Adobe Premiere Pro, while in Prague, Czechia, the preferred editing software is a program called Avid. In terms of inspiration, Potter, a visual arts major, shared that her commute through the city of Copenhagen, Denmark was particularly influential to her artistic journey.

“It was this stretch of meditation that I don’t have at Bowdoin, but I had in the city,” Potter said. “I could sort through all my thoughts and filter out what I saw. From there, I could decide what was important that I wanted to portray.”

Benson, a bass trombonist, studied with renowned Vienna musicians and performed a variety of famous compositions. Potter took a watercolor painting class and a visual journal course that combined observational drawing and architectural drawing, often offering the opportunity to travel with her classmates around Copenhagen.

Beyond observations of daily life and craftsmanship in new places, several students were required to pursue large-scale projects.

Alvarado, who is pursuing a minor in cinema studies, shared that the final project of the program in Prague was a 70-minute cinematic project. The program emphasized exposing students to the professional work environment of the film industry.

“It’s the most I’ve ever emotionally invested in a project and also just creatively had that much free way or liberty,” Alvarado said. “I really enjoyed it and the people that I worked with. I thought our actors were great; the locations were awesome.”

Russler recalled an oil painting she toiled over last semester as a part of a portfolio she created following the 20th-century experience of Italians immigrating to the United States, which depicted a sailboat in rough waters.

“I spent two months working on just that,” Russler said. “I tried to do it based off of [‘The Storm on the Sea of Galilee’] by Rembrandt from the [1600s]. It took me a really long time because I referenced another ‘His Majesty’s Ship’ replica. I put a lot of work into making sure the composition worked.”

Reflecting on leaving the Bowdoin campus for a semester, each junior found that the experience of studying abroad greatly benefitted their artistic journey. Potter, in particular, saw OCS as a manifestation of her efforts to work outside of her comfort zone.

“In order to make art I was really proud of, I had to make the effort to seek out experiences. I couldn’t let the inspiration come to me, I feel like I really had to dig for new sites and talk to new people,” Potter said.