Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College.

Julia Foxworth ’13 of New York City, at right, spent much of April 5 “bombing” a bench on Alumni Walk — yarn bombing, that is.

Aka “guerrilla knitting” and “grandma graffiti,” yarn bombing is a genre of street art designed to raise awareness of the community environment, and inspire conversation and collaboration. Seeking to bring color and warmth to a concrete bench during a time of year that’s drab, chilly and stressful (finals are next week), Foxworth crocheted the piece with the help of 15 collaborators.

Later in the afternoon, other students were expected to celebrate the piece with ukulele playing, cupcakes, poetry, guerrilla knitting and other creative expressions. “The more color, the more collaborators, the better,” said Foxworth, shown above with classmate and fellow crocheter John Sowles. “The piece reflects the diversity of Bates.”

The piece was welcomed with simultaneous cries of “That’s so cool!” from passers-by. With the guidance of associate professor Pamela Johnson, art and visual culture major Foxworth undertook this project as an independent study complementary to her art history thesis. After Bates, Foxworth is off to a master’s program in arts administration at Columbia.

Even the fusilli figurine, fondly known as the E-room troll.

On the evening of Jan. 9, Bates Outing Club moved their longtime headquarters (and stuff therein) from Alumni Gym, across the Library Quad and into newly renovated space in Chase Hall. In true can-do BOC spirit, they chose to execute the move mostly themselves.

The BOC, whose basement space in Alumni Gym had been the club’s meeting room since 1929, will have its equipment room, now in Hathorn Hall, also move into Chase Hall in the coming months.

Chase, formerly dominated by the campus dining Commons, which in 2008 moved into a Sasaki-designed building of its own, has recently been renovated to better accommodate student-life programs.

Below is a time-lapse video of the BOC move below and a gallery of images, both by Mike Bradley of the Bates Communications Office.

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The Rev. Jonathan Walton, Peter Gomes’ successor as Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in The Memorial Church at Harvard, delivers the sermon at the service of naming the Gomes Chapel. Photo: Mike Bradley/Bates College.

Thoughtfully programmed, the 90-minute chapel service painted a picture of the complex and beloved Gomes, one of the brightest lights in the constellation of Bates alumni. From the invocation by Bill Blaine-Wallace, multifaith chaplain at Bates, to the benediction by Emily Wright-Magoon, associate multifaith chaplain, the service established Gomes’ personal and intellectual ties to Bates, the college that he credited as a formative force in his life.

Ultimately, in the sermon of the Rev. Jonathan L. Walton, Gomes’ successor as Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in The Memorial Church at Harvard, the event situated Gomes and Bates in a greater moral landscape illuminated by faith, tenacity and hope.

“He relished this college, he cherished this chapel.”

And all this in a setting in which Gomes would likely have found much delight. “He relished this college. He cherished this chapel,” as one of the speakers, Carl Benton Straub, professor emeritus of religion and Clark A. Griffith Professor Emeritus of Environmental Studies, told the crowd.

Just days before the 100th anniversary of the groundbreaking for the building, its stone walls were warmed by the presence of hundreds of people steeped in deep feeling for its namesake, ornamented by pomp and spectacle, and bathed in music from Bach to Paganini to Gomes’ Harvard friend Carson Cooman.

In timing and content, the service also served as prelude to the much-anticipated inauguration of A. Clayton Spencer as Bates’ eighth president on Oct. 26. Bates trustees, active and retired, were on hand for the naming, as were three of Spencer’s predecessors as Bates president: Donald Harward, Elaine Hansen and Nancy Cable, whose term as interim president directly preceded Spencer’s.

A handful of the delegates who will represent different educational institutions at Spencer’s installation were also in attendance. And the service highlighted the Bates-Harvard bond embodied by Gomes and now by Bates’ new president, who served Harvard for 15 years, most recently as vice president for policy. In addition to Walton, that little school down the road in Cambridge also sent the Rev. Wendel W. Meyer, associate minister for administration in The Memorial Church to Bates to speak.

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Also among the Harvard contingent was violinist Ryu Goto, Harvard ’11, a Deutsche Grammophon recording artist whose virtuosic rendition of a work by Paganini seemed to capture in sound the diverse dimensions of Gomes’ character.

Courage, intelligence, delight, generosity, and humility.

If Straub provided the closest focus on Gomes’ time at Bates, it was Meyer who gave us the closest analysis of his character. The eloquent Meyer cited five qualities that he associates with his former colleague: courage, intelligence, delight, generosity, and humility — and founded on and enabled by a profound Christian faith.

The scripture reading for the service was Hebrews 12:1, which exhorts the reader to cast off impediments and run before the eyes of a “cloud of witnesses” who have made that same journey.

In his sermon, Walton built a long and masterful rhetorical arc from his relationship with President Spencer, through past Bates presidents and other central figures, to the inspirational story of injured Olympic runner Derek Redmond hobbling across the finish line with his father by his side — and finally brought it home by reminding his listeners of the lesson from Ecclesiastes that the race is not given to the swift nor the strong, but to him or her who endures to the end.

The dining room at Oceanside, the home of Peter Gomes '65 in his hometown of Plymouth, Mass.

The sale of the Gomes collection has been entrusted to Grogan and Co. Fine Art Auctioneers and Appraisers of Dedham, Mass.

The 550-lot collection features a discerning array of 18th- and 19th-century American and English art, books and furniture from Gomes’ Harvard residence, Sparks House, and from Oceanside, his home in Plymouth, Mass.

Gomes, who died Feb. 28, 2011, was the Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church at Harvard. He was a famous preacher, bestselling author and beloved member of the Harvard, Plymouth and Bates communities.

“Making a place for me in my times.”

A passionate collector and historic preservationist who embraced the past as a touchstone for today, Gomes was a man who “cared about history in a way that was quite intimate,” said his Harvard faculty colleague Diana Eck last year.

In 1997, he explained to House and Garden magazine that collecting historical items was not about “making a place for the ages” but instead “a place for me in my times.”

Peter Gomes '65 used this early 19th-century silver tea service to offer his famous Wednesday afternoon teas at Sparks House.

From a personal and theological perspective, he continued, “I do believe that God is the author of beauty. It is not beauty that distracts us from the love of God. It is beauty that affirms the presence of God. This [collecting] is not the worship of the material. This is using the gifts of God for the people of God.”

“That sentiment, about seeing God’s beauty and about appreciating the minutiae of God’s work, is straight out of the Renaissance,” observes Nancy Carlisle ’77, senior curator of collections at Historic New England, the region’s venerable historic preservation and heritage organization. In 2005, she curated and wrote the catalog for Historic New England’s acclaimed Cherished Possessions exhibition and is the author of the book America’s Kitchens.

Grounded in times and places of which Gomes was famously fond, the collection is hardly modern and hardly eclectic — but that does not mean he was a narrow collector, Carlisle says.

“One type of collector might dogmatically recreate an 18th-century period room at its most symmetrical and high style,” Carlisle says. “But I don’t think that was Peter Gomes.”

Rather, suggests Carlisle, the Gomes collection reflects his “rootedness.” He surrounded himself with beautiful and historic things that “anchored him in the world in which he grew up and lived. What he collected he deeply appreciated both spiritually and intellectually.

Seen here is Peter Gomes' living room at his Harvard residence, Sparks House.

“There are people who live in their heads and collect in their heads. But through the items he collected, Gomes was deeply invested in beauty and comfort and the world around him.”

There is, for example, Lot 110, an early 19th-century silver tea service by Lewis & Smith of Philadelphia, which Gomes used during his famous Wednesday afternoon teas at Sparks House. The gatherings hosted by Gomes, The Harvard Crimson wrote, were among the “hidden gems of Harvard life…[offering] students an opportunity to mingle with the university’s most colorful luminaries and eccentrics.”

Items from Oceanside include a George III inlaid mahogany secretary bookcase; a 19th-century English School portrait of a gentleman reading New Monthly Magazine; and an extensive collection of Chinese export porcelain and Canton blue and white porcelain.

In both residences, the Gomes collection boasts a large selection of English School and American School ancestral portraits and landscapes; 18th- and 19th-century English engravings of historical, theological and royal subjects; books focusing on similar themes; and numerous decorations, mirrors, chandeliers and lighting, garden furniture and statuary.

This fall, Bates will celebrate the naming of the college chapel in memory of Peter Gomes. A former Bates trustee and recipient of the Benjamin Elijah Mays Medal, the college’s highest honor, Gomes included Bates as one of the beneficiaries of his estate.

The auction exhibition opens March 21 and continues until the auction begins at noon March 24. Grogan and Co. is located at 22 Harris St., Dedham, Mass.

The Maine duo Cinder Conk plays music from the Balkans and elsewhere in Eastern Europe.

The Bates College outreach program “Rollin’ to Olin,” launched last fall to give local schoolchildren experience with music and visual art at the college’s Olin Arts Center, resumes this month.

Fourth-graders from Geiger Elementary School will be bused to the arts center for hourlong programs consisting of a visual art presentation and a short concert, both in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St.

Starting with the visual art presentations at 12:30 p.m., the Wednesday programs take place Feb. 29, March 7 and March 14.

The programs are open to the general public, and elementary schools are invited to send classes. Teachers can RSVP to Anthony Shostak, the museum’s education curator, or to education fellow Catherine Jones at 207-786-6158.

Maine pianist Brian Meldrum.

A generous grant from Liberty Mutual pays for Geiger’s transportation costs.

On Feb. 29, the art presentation will explore the depiction of animals in art, using examples from the museum collection. Music begins at 1 p.m. by La Morra, a Swiss ensemble dedicated to late medieval and early Renaissance music.

(NOTE: La Morra holds a second concert that day at 7:30 p.m., also in the Olin Concert Hall. Tickets are $6, and available at www.batestickets.com. For more information, please contact 207-786-6135 or olinarts@bates.edu.)

On March 7, the program features an introduction to abstraction, followed by Cinder Conk, a Portland duo that performs Eastern European music on accordion and bass. While the art presentation for March 14 is still being planned, the music will be provided by local pianist Brian Meldrum, playing music by Chopin and Beethoven.

Following each visit to Bates, the grade-schoolers will write about their experiences, connecting the program to their language arts curriculum.

La Morra performs European music of a period roughly defined by the dates 1300 and 1500, with occasional escapades outside this time frame. The ensemble pays particular attention to the secular art song, sacred para-liturgical genres and instrumental music.

Cinder Conk plays across the Northeast and has shared the stage with Petar Ralchev’s Live from Bulgaria Ensemble, Fishtank Ensemble and Slavic Soul Party. Notable performances include the Free Range Music Festival, the Golden Festival and the Common Ground Fair.

Michal Gondko and Corina Marti of La Morra.

Meldrum, of Wayne, has performed in south-central Maine for four decades. Familiar to Bates audiences from the Noonday Concert Series, Meldrum studied for more than 30 years with Natasha Chances, a legendary member of the college’s applied music faculty.

The Rollin’ to Olin program is part of new programming introduced in conjunction with the 25th anniversary of the Olin Arts Center.

Peter Gomes '65 preaches in the Bates Chapel during the Alumni Memorial Service at Reunion 2010, his last public appearance at the college.

Harvard Crimson staff writer Justin Worland reports on the Bates Chapel’s naming in memory of Peter Gomes ’65, the late Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church at Harvard.

Worland quotes Bates multifaith chaplain Bill Blaine-Wallace, who said that “Peter Gomes is adored still at Bates. He so loved this college. Having a friend like Peter certainly made me feel blessed.”

The story quotes Gomes’ sermon at the 2010 Alumni Memorial Service at Reunion: “True reunion is not just a meeting of those who may be walking around, but is that reconnection with those whom we do not see, whom we do not hear, but whose names we know.”

The chapel’s official dedication in Gomes’ memory will occur in the spring.

• View story from the Crimson, Oct. 28, 2011

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• Cosmin Ghita ’12 of Bucharest, Romania, president of Student Government
• Michael Bonney ’80, chairman of the Board of Trustees
• Paul Marks ’83 (below), CEO of the global aerospace technology firm Argosy Inc.
• Nancy Cable, president of Bates

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