Etta DeMartino

I'm no stranger to desensitization. My morning ride to elementary school gave me a view of the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the Manhattan skyline, and I barely noticed. Most people consider New York City to be magical, but because I was used to it, I was numb to the magic. I had experienced the Ohio landscape before, because of road trips to visit my grandparents in Gambier (an hour south of Wooster). But while it's always been familiar to me, getting a car in the summer of 2020-so that I could be independent amidst all the uncertainty surrounding COVID-allowed me to create a whole new relationship with the landscape. The open roads with soft blue skies, deep red barns, and cow-covered fields were my safe escape from campus. And now I regard them with a combination of nostalgia, comfort, and an appreciation for their breathtaking beauty.

HONK FOR MILK! is a reference to a sign on a barn that my mom reacted to during one of our trips to Gambier. She wrongly assumed it meant 'honk if you like milk,' (not 'honk if you want to purchase milk') and we still laugh at the memory of her happily honking as the farm disappeared in the distance.

People often refer to rural campuses as being 'in the middle of nowhere,' and so I assumed Wooster would feel that way. I no longer consider this Wooster landscape to be 'nowhere'; I was excited to explore translating my particular admiration for the Ohio landscape through ceramics and photography. My goal is to offer my experience of the area surrounding Wooster to viewers in the hopes that they also discover a new appreciation for it.

Etta DeMartino ‘22