Peg Board

“I’m not sure where I’d be had I not gone to Darrow. I was
sort of scared of performing before I arrived, but that went
away because I felt so embraced by the community. The
teachers, my classmates, everybody helped everybody
else flourish. It was sort of a judgment-free zone.”
—Kari Wishingrad ’78
Jennifer Law-Stump ’85 with her husband,
David Stump
Jennifer Law-Stump ’85
The Kid Who Could Draw
In the early ’80s Darrow offered
computer classes for the first time, but
Jennifer Law-Stump ’85 wasn’t interested.
She was an artist, oils and pastels
only. So, how did she end up mastering
the computer and building a career of
more than 30 years creating visual and
digital effects for dozens of films and
television shows?
“My father was an industrial designer,
and my mother was a fine artist, so I was
always the kid who could draw,” Jennifer
said from her home-away-from-Los-Angeles
in New Mexico. She brought that
talent to Darrow, but didn’t really take
it seriously until Art Department head,
Richard Chavka, pushed her to pursue it.
“He was the first one, other than my
parents, who told me I had a talent that I
should pursue,” she said.
While working on her art, Jennifer
also plunged into theater, designing
sets for school plays directed by John
Walmsley, head of the department. “And
I got a lot of encouragement from him,
and also from Sheldon Flory, one of the
most generous, warm people I have
ever known,” she said. “He had this
way of being totally nonjudgmental and
accepting, which allowed me to see my
potential.”
In her application to Otis School of
Art and Design in Los Angeles, Jennifer
insisted that she was done with theater
and set design, but after two years in
college found herself on scaffolding
in an earthquake-damaged building in
downtown Los Angeles, marbleizing
columns and ceilings—in effect, doing
real-life set design. Because she was
particularly good at trompe l’oeil, she
was able to get work as a scenic artist.
“I developed a very close relationship
with Bondo,” she said of the substance
used to seam together portions of TV
and movie sets.
This experience led to work in visual
effects, making flats, painting models,
and creating backdrops for various
productions. As computers and visual
effects advanced, audiences demanded
more visual sophistication from movies.
“I was in the right place at the right
time,” she said, noting that she had the
right skill set during a turning point in
filmmaking. “(My then-boyfriend David)
pointed to a huge computer and told me
that if I could apply my artistic skills to it,
I’d have a job doing digital effects.” So
she taught herself to create digital effects.
“Those were kind of frontier days,
where you had to invent solutions
to problems because the programs
didn’t exist,” she said. “Now you have
programmers all over the world coming
up with plug-in programs, which significantly
expedite the process.”
So, the young artist who wouldn’t go
near a computer ended up riding its
evolution as a creative tool in filmmaking,
earning titles like “visual effects supervisor”
and “compositing supervisor”
on dozens of movies and TV shows.
“I learned a lot at Darrow, got good
grades, and became the Art Prefect, but
there was this other kind of learning that
happened there; I learned to show up,
do the work that needs to be done, and
be honest. The rest followed.”
Having worked on the X-Men and
Batman series of films (among many),
Jennifer’s latest project is American
Gods, a new television series based on
the graphic novels of Neil Gaiman.
—Sam Harper
Peter Gordon ’84 with one of the two Rocky
Mountain regional Emmy Awards he’s won
Peter Gordon ’84
Director’s Cut
In the high-energy world of live TV
sports broadcasting, almost anything
can go wrong at any time; and it sometimes
does. For professional director
Peter Gordon ’84, being able to react
and respond quickly can mean the
difference between capturing a critical
play or missing a pivotal moment.
DARROW SCHOOL 21