Traditional Korean calligraphy brushes and gouache--a thick, opaque water color--rest on Hepler's latest drawing. PHOTOGRAPH BY ANNA HEPLER
			Oberlin Graduate Works in Korea on Luce Scholarship By Sue Kropp
	The artist, intent upon her project .		MARCH 17, 2000--Anna Hepler '92 is one of 18 recipients awarded a fellowship in the 1999 Luce Scholars competition. Hepler, who graduated from Oberlin with a degree in art, is spending a year in Seoul, working with local curators to organize a bilingual symposium on contemporary Korean art. She also is working on her own drawings, using materials available only in Korea. The Luce Scholars program, which began in 1974, provides yearly funding for 18 young Americans to live and work in Asia. Designed to increase awareness of Asian culture among Americans, the program helps Luce scholars foster relationships through internship, including those in medicine, the arts, business, law, science, environmental studies, and journalism. At Oberlin, Hepler explored the world of art by participating in three separate semesters of off-campus, working internships. Hepler studied typography and letterpress printing in Vermont, book design in New York City, and art history in the Netherlands. "Each time I returned from one of these off-campus experiences, I felt enlivened by the process of bringing new material back to campus," says Hepler. On campus, Hepler curated three annual artist-book exhibitions and helped Sam Walker, a former assistant professor of studio art, teach the first artist-book class offered at Oberlin. "Book artists produce limited-edition books that are entirely hand crafted," says Hepler. "We often collaborate with writers to interpret text through hand-printed imagery. The paper, binding, typography, and design of a hand-crafted book comprises an artistic statement--resulting in a far more labor-intensive and unique creation than a mass produced book." After graduating from Oberlin, Hepler attended the University of Wisconsin in Madison and received her M.F.A. in 1994. During the past three years Hepler has been teaching college-level art courses--first at the Oregon College of Art and Craft and most recently at Whitman College in Washington. "Although I enjoy being an educator, this fellowship allows me to devote myself to my art for an uninterrupted year," says Hepler. Hepler gained this artistic freedom after being nominated by Oberlin College as a candidate for the Luce Scholars competition. Unlike traditional fellowships, the selected scholars do not fulfill specific project proposals. Instead, the recipients of the award--who have had some experience working in their chosen field--act as emissaries to Asia, cultivating relationships as they carry out their internships. Currently, Hepler is making drawings on large sheets of Korean handmade paper, using traditional calligraphy brushes and thick opaque water color, known as gouache. Hepler will make some of the drawings into wood cuts, but plans to use many others in an artist book next fall. She is using the drawings she makes in Korea to map the evolution of her ideas, many of which are inspired by cultural differences. Hepler's future plans are indefinite. "I will probably look for more funding when I return home," she says. "Maybe I will find another teaching job. But most importantly, I plan to keep making artwork that challenges my own ideas."
			A detail from Hepler's drawing shows representations of knots and tangles of threads. PHOTOGRAPH BY ANNA HEPLER
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