Spotlight Intern: Susannah Davis!

This month we are appreciating our bright and talented adaptive engineering intern, Susannah Davis! Susannah began working with us in May 2016 and continuously presents the best version of herself in our community. She is organized and studious in her work and treats the whole community with enormous amounts of respect. Enjoy an interview between Susannah and DannyDF: HelloSD: HiDF: Hello I’m Daniel JamesSD: Hi I’m SusannahDF: How did you hear about the Arts of Life?SD: I heard about the Arts of Life when I was job searching on Linkedin it said adaptive engineering intern and I said “well I’ll just check it out” and I did and thought the opportunity looked really cool. I went on the website and I thought the organization looked great and I emailed in my experience. DF: Did you know any artists before starting?SD: I did not know any of the artists before starting. My little sister actually recognized an artist who works at the local supermarket by our house! She was really excited to see him on the website and said “That’s the really fun guy that works at the Jewel!” DF: What do you like most about The Arts of Life?SD: What I like most about the arts of life is it allows people the opportunity to put art into their life and be practicing artists. That’s really important to me. I’m an engineering student which I love, but I also do a lot of theatreDF: (shocked happy face) The musicals right!?SD: Yeah I do a lot of musicals. I sing and I act and I also do costumes. I know that’s a really big part of my life and me being happy. It’s great to be a part of an organization that creates opportunity for people to make art. I think it is really great DF: What do you like most about being in the studio environment?SD: I like that everyone is really creative and that it’s a community of creative people. That’s been really nice, especially because I’m home for the summer and all of my friends from school are back on the east coast. It’s really nice to come into a community that already exists and be a part of a larger group. Especially when that group is all really creative fun people! DF: What kind of work are you looking to do when you are here?SD: So the work that I’ve been doing is that I’m here as an adaptive technology intern so I’ve been working on assistive technology. One of the projects I’m working on right now is sort of like a tape roller that can be used with one hand and help artists use painters tape as a technique in their projects. I’m also working on tool grips for different artists and hopefully one of my long term projects is to improve the safety rails in that bathroom.       DF: Are you an artist and if so what kind of art do you do?SD: I am sometimes an artist. When I am an artist, I’m an applied artists. I do a lot of costume designs and I make garments. Engineering isn’t really art but a part is design which is a big part in a lot of kinds of art. I don’t really consider myself an artist but I do take part in a lot of art activities when they are applied DF: Do you have a favorite artist?SD: My favorite artist is a costume designer named Irene Sharaff. I did a project on her in high school. She did the costumes for The King and I, West Side Story DF: I LOVE west side story!SD: Me too, Her work is just really beautiful. She also has to consider the practical considerations of costumes. The jeans in West Side Story, they didn’t have stretch material yet. She had to cut them on a bais so they would stretch. She sort of used engineering thinking on her art. DF: What do you do when you are not at The Arts of Life?SD: During the fall, winter and spring, I’m in college. I go to Smith College in Massachusetts. I’m studying engineering there. I also have classes in classics and theatre. When I’m here at home for the summer, right now I’m taking a tap dancing class for the first time. That’s been really cool because I’m usually not very good at dancing DF: Oh I LOVE dancing!SD: I’ve seen you, you’re very good. I’m also going to start taking banjo classes next week. One of my friends is abroad, but left his banjo behind so I’m borrowing it. We’ll see how it goes. DF: (air guitar) making banjo sounds!