Alumni Spotlight: Kelly Schiesswohl ’17, A Life in Visual Arts 

Alumni Spotlight: Kelly Schiesswohl ’17, A Life in Visual Arts 

As part of our Alumni Spotlight Series, Gill St. Bernard's recently sat down with Kelly Schiesswohl, a GSB Class of 2017 alum, whose artistic passions have taken her from Upper School English Teacher Derek Martin’s Senior Honors Literature class to the front of the classroom at the New School’s School of Visual Arts. 

How did you land at GSB? When did you start?  

I grew up in a small town called Vernon, New Jersey. I had known about GSB from the years my mom spent teaching and working in its theater department. I was fortunate enough to transfer there in 2014 when I was a sophomore in high school. I remember walking onto campus for the first time and noting that the air smelled like fresh baked cookies. It was a Wednesday, of course. 

Do you have a favorite GSB memory?   

My favorite GSB memory is more of a collage of many small moments spent on a tiny couch in the corner of the library where my friends at the time would convene. We spent so many afternoons there chatting, hugging, snacking, studying, and laughing. It was as if it was the set of a sitcom. There was a main cast, and many characters who would come and pass through as the years went by. The feeling that stuck out most to me at GSB when I transferred was the warmth of togetherness, of being a part of a loving and vibrant community. That little corner of the library still holds onto that energy for me even when I pass by it years later. 

What was your favorite class? 

Hmmm… Judging by my current bookshelf in my NYC apartment many years later, I think Derek Martin’s Senior Honors Literature class was my favorite. Martin exposed me to several books that I continually dive back into for my current work (A Wild Sheep Chase, The Third Policeman, Ficciones, etc.) He also pushed me hard to sharpen my ideas, better my writing, and to be brave when challenging the world around me. 

I don’t even know if he would know this, but he showed us an animated short film adaptation of Franz Kafka’s A Country Doctor by Koji Yammamura that changed my life. I became an animator two years later and now that film serves as the main inspiration for my master's thesis film, the current short that I am creating. It was the first time I saw an animated film that really spoke to the strange, dark, and uniquely humorous way I wanted to tell my stories someday. I would not be the storyteller I am today without having taken that class, so I am endlessly grateful for that time in my life. 

How did GSB prepare you for college and the working world? 

The best thing I did to prepare for college was to, both on my own and with trusted mentors, do the digging within myself to uncover the things I truly care about. When you have a strong sense of your values, interests, and curiosity, the rest of the questions around your future will reveal themselves. It’s like referring back to your thesis statement in a paper or the moral of a children’s story. If you carefully craft that core idea, you can look back to it in perpetuity to help answer these other life questions that pop up (almost like an internal compass showing you north). 

We all change over time, so it is important to keep an open dialogue with your sense of self to keep in touch with how your thoughts, ideas, and passions change over time. Though, I do believe that there is a deep core of us that always stays the same, even if some details change. A strong and loving sense of self never fails me even when, seemingly, everything else does at times. 

Tell us about what you do now. 

Currently, I am an animation director and a college professor at the New School’s School of Visual Arts and Hunter College. I teach animation, film development, and concept art across the different institutions to undergraduates in film, media, and animation. This is my second full year as a professor, and I love teaching because it is a community-facing role where I can combine my love of film/animation practice with theory and analysis. I am able to help students expand their media horizons while cultivating styles of art and storytelling that are unique to them and the stories they want to tell. This job also encourages and allows me to continue to develop my own personal films and artistic practice 

Outside of my teaching work, I am a graduate student at Hunter College continuing to make films inside of the Integrated Media Arts program which has also empowered me to gain new skills like coding, physical computing, interactive installation, documentary filmmaking, and projection mapping. It is a mountain of a task balancing school, work, and my personal practice but academics have always served as rocket fuel for my artwork so the challenge has been well worth it.  

My current project at Hunter college is my master's thesis film—a 10-minute animated dark comedy about a pie eating contest. The film’s themes center around sexual violence and how oppression is replicated through generations and inside of a workplace. It is my largest and longest solo project to date and will be coming together over the course of the next school year. People can watch this film come together on my Instagram page where I am often sharing updates, BTS, and more. 

Aside from that, I create and perform comics as my own way of combining drawing and live comedy. I will also be publishing my first comic book in 2025! It will be a collection of the comics I’ve done in the last year as well as some new ones that I am currently working on. 

My undergraduate film is called TRICHOTILLOMANIA! (available online on shortoftheweek) and was about my experience dealing with the titular hair pulling disorder. It is also a dark comedy, my favorite way of exploring otherwise distressing topics. While it started as simply a graduation project, the film and I have traveled the world screening in the UK, Italy, Germany, Austria, and across the United States and some major festivals like Cinequest, Fantastic Fest, ASIFA East, Florida Film Festival and many more. 

Recently, I presented it at Pictoplasma, a festival dedicated to achievements and innovation in character design. I also was honored to create the intro animation for the Nitehawk Shorts festival last year which was a piece that centered around corporate labor exploitation and how the ideas presented to us through cinema are fuel for activism, collectivity, and social revolution. 

Outside of art, I’ve taken up running and am training for my first half marathon in the spring with an amazing group of people in my neighborhood called The Ridgewood Runners. The rumors are true: good diet, sleep, exercise, and a whole lot of community really do make you happy after all :-) 

Looking back at your GSB experience, what are your most significant takeaways about our school? 

Ms. Small taught me that my studies are what fuel and support my promise. In my case that is art, but it could be sport, technology, or anything.  

GSB is a school for the dynamic and promising student. We are a school of the future, recognizing that learning and skill comes in a variety of ways. We don't say 'The World is Our Classroom' for nothing. We encourage students to go outside and learn and then bring back what they learn to the community. GSB wants its students to know who they are and to recognize their own promise in whatever form that takes. I live that every day, I use that in my classrooms when I'm teaching my students, and I bring it to my little community all the time. 

What would be your advice to current GSB students be? 

My best advice to GSB students would be to value community. Prioritize human connection, making memories, and collaboration. There is a tricky undercurrent at play in the world that functions to isolate and drive us apart or get us locked in our own worries. No career struggle or grad school quandary has ever weighed on me more than the feeling of being alone and stressed has. I’ve found my ways of tackling this feeling through community clubs, hosting events for animators in NYC and attending others, gathering friends consistently for meals or activities, and journaling… A LOT.  

The journaling suggestion sounds simple, but it truly is a place where so much of my self-work and processing occurs, both intentionally and unintentionally. As I said before, there is nothing more powerful in this world than a strong sense of self that we then share with our community. Journaling is a great tool to help you continually cultivate that sense and our community helps reflect that work back to us and pick us up when we stumble. I got my first real taste of how critical community is at GSB, and I have either sought or built it in each place I find myself in my adult life. 

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