Jessica Lanan ’06 has been awarded a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship. She joins an elite group of 50 students nationwide selected to conduct independent research projects abroad following college graduation. Jessica’s project, “Fairy Tales: An Illustrated Journey,” represents a crystallization of her interests in drawing, travel, and Asian culture and artistic traditions.
“During my Watson year abroad, I will travel throughout Japan, Thailand, Hong Kong and perhaps India as well,” says Jessica, who is from Longmont, Colorado. “I plan to broaden my understanding of storytelling, drawing and illustration, and, at the conclusion, I hope to compile my work into an illustrated book about my adventure that I will try to publish.”
An interest in Asian culture was sparked in her childhood, when Jessica became fascinated by the memoirs and letters written by some of her ancestors who served as Franciscan missionaries in Southeast Asia. In college, she studied Japanese language while majoring in studio art, with an emphasis on sculpture. During her fellowship year, Jessica will travel in her forebears’ footsteps while exploring the question of folk tales’ reflection of social and moral values as she investigates local illustration and art traditions that incorporate these tales. She will use her own sketchbook illustrations as a mode of understanding folk-tale traditions, documenting her own journey, and communicating and interacting with the community. Her goal is to better understand the role of illustrated folk tales in Japan, Hong Kong and Thailand, and to enrich her own process of illustration with new cultural and artistic perspectives.
The Watson Fellowships were established in 1968 to honor Thomas J. Watson, Sr., founder of the IBM Corporation, who had a longstanding interest in education and world affairs. The mission of the Fellowship Program is to offer exceptionally talented college graduates an opportunity to conduct independent purposeful exploration and travel outside of the United States to foster their humane and effective participation in the world community. Recipients are selected based on several criteria including the capacity for vision and leadership, demonstrated integrity, intelligence, and imagination.