Growing up in Weston, Mass., Boyle said that her father, Brian Boyle '69, used to cut out college ranking articles, circle Amherst, and leave the page under her bedroom door. These "subliminal messages" led her to eventually applying for early decision to the College-a decision that would become a great boon to the Amherst community.
Hopes for a dual career
Boyle has been particularly busy this past year. She completed her studio art thesis and began applying to medical school. "Sometimes I wished I had just one interest, or one easy path," she said, "even though I think art and medicine really do go hand in hand." Citing a brain surgeon whom she knows is also an avid painter, she hopes her interest in people and desire to serve others will allow her to combine a career as an artist and a physician. "Visual diagnosis is a big part of medicine, and so I hope my visual training as an artist will really help me," she said.
Boyle's thesis is currently on display in the Eli Marsh Gallery in the Fayerweather Building. Officially titled "Constructing and Deconstructing Myself," it is a photography collection which thematically portrays her struggle to differentiate herself from her mother and to establish an independent identity in society. The thesis was a long process, which began with a great deal of street photography-approaching women for permission to photograph and subsequently interview them. It was during that portion of the work when she felt another great connection between her interests in art and medicine. "To photograph these women on the street, I had to really gain their trust, much like doctors have to gain the trust of their patients," she said.
In the end, however, she ended up getting the feelings and themes she wanted from photographs of herself more than from photographs of other women. "It took me a while to accept that I was doing a self-portraiture," she said, commenting on how she had known an artist doing self-portraits when she was younger and how she had always found the practice somewhat self-absorbed. The ideas and messages which she had originally searched for in photos of other women came through most clearly, however, in her own photos. Thus, her photographic thesis represents both a great work of art and a valuable study of self-reflection and discovery.
Appreciating Amherst
Looking back on her four years at the College, Boyle seems happy with both her accomplishments and experiences here. Despite the pressure and long hours of working on a thesis, she said, "[I was glad to] reaffirm [my] creativity and my ability to be an artist." Coming from a small New England town, she also really appreciated the diversity of the Amherst student body and the interactions with many different types of people, even people to whom she never grew especially close. Listing her favorite courses as a photography course with Professor of Fine Arts Justin Kimball and a sculpture course with Professor of Fine Arts Carol Keller, she has really come to value close relationships with faculty members and speaks highly of the entire fine arts department.
Boyle rowed on the crew team for her first three years at the College, and values the friendships she has made here both inside and outside the classroom. She has also volunteered as a mentor for the "Big Brothers Big Sisters" program and has done so since she was a first-year.
An open canvas ahead
The road beyond Amherst is still a somewhat uncertain one for Boyle, though it will be a lifelong hope for her to combine her passions for art and medicine in working to understand, empathize with and help other people. Already involved in the process of applying to medical school, she will spend the summer studying for the MCAT and searching for more ways to pursue art in the future.
In a recommendation for Boyle, Kimball gave voice to all that she has accomplished in her four years here at the College: "In addition to her extremely strong Studio Arts thesis, Alex is an exceptional student of the sciences. She is in the process of applying to medical school with the hope of creating a hybrid career as artist and doctor that is at its core community-oriented."
Indeed, the unusual career track that Boyle will be tracing for herself represents much that is wonderful about an Amherst education. In Kimball's words: "Alex is what we hope for from our Amherst students: she has taken the best of an interdisciplinary education and has defined a path uniquely her own, one that few of us might have imagined. I am excited to see where it will lead."