"He's pretty private," said Pirie's friend Kate Levin '02. Another one of Pirie's friends, Andrew Unger '03, agreed. "I'm surprised he's letting you do this," Unger said. "In terms of his community concerns and his art, they're genuine. He doesn't wear them as a badge. He does all of these things, and I don't even know about half of them, and he's one of my best friends."
Originally from a small, hyper-conservative town in east Texas (just north of Houston), Pirie came to Amherst with aspirations in the realm of political science. "Well, I started as a political science major," he said. "I think it's partly because I was coming to college and at that time I associated college with political action. I didn't want to do crazy things, but I wanted to be more openly political than I was at home." Indeed, Pirie's activities at Amherst over the course of the past four years have reflected such interests.
Fight for your rights
Pirie spent two spring breaks working for an organization in Philadelphia called the Kensington Welfare Rights Union (KWRU), a non-profit which was concerned with welfare rights. After his initial experience with KWRU, Pirie's interest in non-profit was heightened, and he ended up working for a couple of organizations in Washington, D.C. during breaks.
Academically, however, Pirie quickly became disenchanted with his experience as a political science major during his sophomore year. "I think it was partly because I would look around and think about what the classes were telling me or how the classes were describing the way the world is organized," he said. "They were describing a world with no people in it. I just got tired of learning about institutions, so I started taking some anthropology classes which were more about people and how people experience the world. I felt like that was much more right to me."
Now an anthropology major, Pirie's academic interests lie more with what he thinks is important and constantly changing about life: the little things. "I think that those things have profound effects on people, daily living … I don't think those things are addressed when you are caught up on describing the apparatus of political power."
"As an activist, Andrew is reflecting honestly about the nature of human responsibility-in what we buy, what we eat, and where we work," said Pirie's close friend Noah T. Winer '01.
"He includes in that consideration not only humans but all living beings who can suffer, including animals," Winer added. "He is willing to make personal sacrifices and adjust his behavior in order to live up to his highest beliefs." Winer continued, "His thinking on these matters has influenced my own behavior. … Andrew is a critic, but only because he's such an idealist. He knows how much could change if we lived with the proper intentions."
Pirie spent this past year working two days each week at an assisted living environment in nearby Deerfield, where he taught developmentally challenged adults to make bookcases as a means for employment. He said that the experience was an eye-opening one.
"It was extremely changing. I think part of it was that my expectations about talking to people and dealing with people were such that just talking means something and that it can change somebody, but with this population it didn't," said Pirie. "I expected it to be something out of 'Life Goes On,' but I got there … and there were people who were depressed, and people who were violent … I thought about them all the time."
Penchant for poetry
As a former editor-in-chief of the College's literary magazine A Further Room, Pirie has done his fair share of writing outside the academic constructs of the Amherst classroom.
"I have always written poetry. … I can never write stories; I can never sustain myself … I'm more interested in the ways that words go together than I am in narrative," Pirie explained.
Pirie's interests extend across mediums. In painting, he describes himself as someone who is interested in the way that colors interact and overlap-how they "crash into each other."
"I'm obsessed with the distance between things. I don't mean just physical space. My poetry is very concerned with that. My poems aren't imagist, but I think that the concept is related [to my poetry]," he said.
Pirie's use of language and visual expression are exceptionally striking, according to his friends. "[Pirie] is very interested in irony," commented Unger. "He's into kindhearted, humanist irony … there's a real aesthetic running through his life and work: darkly humorous."
Pirie said his influences, painter Phillip Guston and poets Herbert, Blake, Bishop and Stone, seem to have taught him to perpetuate this dark humor-taking himself seriously enough while simultaneously not seriously at all.
"Ultimately," said Pirie, "I just want [my art] to be funny and fun for me, and I don't want to worry about [its] greater importance. ... I want to be able to be serious, but I think I get more out of work that is a bit more casual."
On common ground
After graduating from the College, Pirie plans to work in New York City for the Common Ground Organization, a non-profit started by Amherst alumni to provide affordable housing to low-income households. Pirie is the recipient of the Common Ground Fellowship; he will primarily write grants and participate in institutional outreach for the organization.
"Common Ground makes affordable housing in Manhattan. What it does is it buys dilapidated old buildings and restores them, making them into facilities for single adults to live in," said Pirie. He continued, "Half the people that live there are homeless, so they were referred by the Department of Social Services. The other half are people who make under $28k a year … I think what they're striving to do is to make stability possible for people who want it."
People who live in the Common Ground facilities undergo job training and eventually work for companies with which Common Ground holds a joint-venture. "I think ultimately what I want to do is to become a social worker," said Pirie, 'I always want to be doing something to help build a community."
Apart from social work, Pirie's interests and involvements are diverse, resting mainly in art, writing and farming. "Lately I've been really into food and farming, and one of my long-term aspirations is to grow my own food," he said.
His friends feel that there is something grounded about Pirie, something real-a facet of his personality that is undeniably refreshing. "I think people can be startled when they first meet Andrew," said Winer. "He is utterly honest about who he is, not just in words but in his reactions and commitments. This is so unusual and rare that we barely know how to respond. Talking with Andrew can return us to our roots as individuals. I know myself better through knowing him."