Godshall films a scene for Lord Byron in a swamp outside of Lafayette, LA. Photograph courtesy of Zachary Godshall

Zachary Godshall stands before his film class like any professor. He discusses the necessary evils of screenwriting’s restrictive and bland format. Having graduated from the University eight years ago, a casual observer may mistake Godshall as a student with his laid back attire and five o’clock shadow. Godshall may appear to be just another English professor, going through his daily routine. However, this 30-year-old Sundance invitee – named Louisiana’s Filmmaker of the Year – is anything but an ordinary teacher.

Since receiving an MFA in film from UCLA in 2005, Godshall has gone on to make three feature films. All of the films feature Louisiana as a backdrop, something the young filmmaker said he values. Raised in Lafayette, Godshall’s southern roots played a vital role in the filmmaker’s decision to return.

Making films for a living became a reality during a screenwriting class here at the University. Godshall says he remembers taking English 2009 with Professor Ricky Blackwood and “having a light bulb go off.”

Professor Blackwood, who has taught at the University since 1990, said he vividly remembers teaching the up-and-coming Godshall. “He stood apart from the rest in his ability. He knew how to swim and not just make splashes,” Blackwood said.

After graduating from the University with a bachelor’s degree in creative writing in 2002, Godshall went on to UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television. Upon completing his education, Godshall began work on his first feature film, “Low and Behold.”

The film, which follows an unlikely friendship in post Hurricane Katrina New Orleans, was selected for the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.

Sundance was the first film festival the young director attended. Though his film was not selected for a competitive category, the experience still taught him something film school could not.

“Seeing audiences of 400 people pack a theater to see your movie hit home the importance of making movies,” Godshall said. “The reason to make films is to share it with audiences, which is very gratifying.”

One may assume that Godshall’s accomplishments would pursuade him to live on the west coast and attempt to make a name in Hollywood.

“I’m not keen on being a gun for hire right now. I’d rather focus on doing the movies I want to make,” said Godshall.

Robert Longstreet, Eddie Rouse, Godshall and Barlow Jacobs before the screening of Low and Behold during the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. Photograph courtesy of Wire Images.com

He said that he sees filmmaking in Hollywood as a constant struggle for money and reputation. While the young filmmaker does not rule out the possibility of one day working in Hollywood, the impact Louisiana has had will always show in his work.

“When I make a movie, I want it to feel like it’s coming from someone, not from a machine,” explained Godshall.

Passion illuminates the young filmmaker’s expression as he speaks about Louisiana and its people.

“I feel most inspired and invigorated when I’m here. It’s my home. Everywhere you go, there’s something unique. Everyone has a unique story to tell,” Godshall said.

A perfect example of inspiration growing from his surroundings is Godshall’s latest movie, “God’s Archichects.” The documentary follows five divinely inspired architects as they set out to make their own environments without funding or blueprints, according to the “God’s Architects” official Web Site.

The movie won Godshall the title of Louisiana Filmmaker of the Year at the New Orleans Film Festival in 2009. The Lafeyette native considers the award a huge honor and great experience.

Despite his recent successes, filmmaking is never easy for Godshall. In fact, Godshall said he recalls that the first film he made out of college “should never be seen by anyone. It’s really boring. ” He adds that everything is a learning experience and helps one to grow better as a creator.

The filmmaker seems to be a jack-of-all-trades as he has written, produced and directed all of his movies. Although it may seem like he relies on himself to get his movies made, the filmmaker says he has learned a very important lesson through the years.

“I love to collaborate with people,” Godshall said. “I would say it’s the most important part of filmmaking and also the most exciting. You get to meet a lot of new talent and take the film to new places.”

Godshall said he feels that working with rising, unknown talent really brings a film to life. He takes collaboration to a new level in his third film entitled “Lord Byron.” Now in post-production, the movie follows a man experiencing a mid-life crisis.

“We had a fifteen page outline and no script. So it makes the filming process a lot of fun, but at the same time, it’s really hard to edit something like that,” added Godshall.

Photograph by Erin Arledge

When he’s not editing in the lab or directing on set, Godshall spends his time in the classroom, teaching screenwriting and film as literature here at the University. The director is just as passionate about teaching as he is about filmmaking.

“Teaching really forces me to get down to the essence of each story and reminds me of the fundamentals,” Godshall added.

Many of his film classes involve students helping one another through group discussions and scene reenactment, while Godshall guides from a distance.

“I really enjoyed having Zack as a teacher. He had a lot of good insights since he is so experienced in his field. I could tell he really cares about students’ futures,” Ryan Bergeuron, creative writing senior, said about Godshall’s screenwriting class.

LSU’s English Department benefits from having an accomplished filmmaker as a teacher. “Having Zack here is an inspiration to everyone trying to accomplish their dreams. He sat where every student is sitting now and made something of himself,” Professor Blackwood said.

Zachary Godshall may someday be one of the biggest names in Hollywood. For now, he is happy to call LSU and Louisiana home.

Answers:
A,5 ; B,3 ; C,6 ; D,1 ; E,2 ; F,4

“I study why crime happens, why crime goes down, why crime goes up, who’s committing most of the crime, who isn’t committing the crime [and] why the crime rate changes,” the sociology professor explained.

The Web site “CAPER,” or the Crime and Policy Evaluation Research Group, has assisted the University in becoming one of the strongest criminology programs in the country, according to Shihadeh.

“Anybody interested in doing research about crime on campus can be a member of CAPER,” he said. “We’ve got a guy in accounting who does forensic accounting. He can track criminals just by looking at their accounts.”

Sociology associate professor Matthew Lee co-founded CAPER with Shihadeh in 2005.

“The goal of CAPER is to consolidate the crime-related expertise on campus into one informational structure,” Lee said. “Through CAPER we can project to key stakeholders in the community that we have significant crime-related expertise on campus.”

Lee’s relationship with Shihadeh wasn’t a byproduct of the work the two have put into CAPER. It started in the ’90s when Shihadeh was Lee’s adviser for graduate studies and director for his doctoral dissertation.

“We worked very closely on macro criminology, or communities in crime,” Lee said. “[Shihadeh is] recognized as one of the top experts in that area.”

Shihadeh, a demographic criminologist, is currently researching the relationship between Latino immigration and crime.

Shihadeh believes the absence of “long-standing Latino communities” frustrates the Latino population in these areas, thereby increasing crime.

Shihadeh is passionate about his work. Students who walk into his cramped office in Stubbs Hall can expect to find an amicable man, slightly balding, wearing the professor’s choice: a button down and slacks. Most find him typing away at his computer on a desk covered in papers and books. A typical professor’s office, but in no way a typical professor. In fact, some might say his list of hobbies reaches astronomical proportions.

“In 7th grade, the kid in front of me turned around, and we started talking about his model rocket collection,” he reminisced with excitement. “These model rockets, they actually fly! The little ones, you know? I was enamored, and I’ve been in love ever since.”

Now that Shihadeh is an adult, he’s moved on to big-boy toys. He’s an avid collector of high-powered rockets. These rockets can be 15 feet tall and can travel up to 10,000 feet into the sky. He explained that every state has a rocket club, and you must obtain permission from the Federal Aviation Administration to shoot these rockets. The FAA gives them a limit on how much space they have to send the rockets off and makes sure no airplanes fly in that area. The club members put cameras into the rockets before they go up to film what it would be like to be inside of one.

“We’re not allowed to fly them unless there’s a recovery system. They go up into the air, and there’s a little computer inside with an altimeter that measures how high the rocket is above the ground,” Shihadeh explained. “The altimeter tells the computer, ‘Hey, I’m starting to come back down. Please pull the parachute out,’ and the computer has a timer on it, blows a little gunpowder charge, blows the nose cone off and [the rocket] comes down by parachute.”

When Shihadeh is forced to stay grounded, he does it in style in one of his classic cars. He has a 1969 Jaguar XKE, a 1970 Corvette Stingray and a 1976 Cadillac El Dorado convertible.

“I buy the classic cars that were the really cool things when I was a young man,” Shihadeh said.

The way he purchases vehicles now, however, is vastly different than the way he bought them when he was younger. Instead of searching rows of cars at a dealership, he scours the Internet.

“I decide I like a certain type of car, and I’ll go online,” he said. “For example, I found my Cadillac in Colorado. It was on eBay. I paid for it by credit card on Tuesday, a truck picked it up on Wednesday and delivered it to my house Thursday.”

Shihadeh said he wishes he had more room at home so he could buy more cars. But there is another reason he can’t afford to do that:

“I have three cars and my fourth car, my wife tells me, will have to come with a divorce attorney!” he said jokingly.

Though his wife, Margo Brault, doesn’t see a divorce in the future, she does admit she’s a little jealous of the way Shihadeh treats his “babies.”

“The garage is the apartment where he keeps his ‘other women,’” Brault joked. “He let me drive each one of them. He was OK with it, but I’m the one who was hesitant. It’s not my deal. I enjoy them because he enjoys them.”

Shihadeh isn’t a man who experiences many dull moments. Along with collecting cars, shooting rockets and teaching, he enjoys home-improvement projects, photography and a variety of other activities. With that said, he stresses that teaching is his true calling.

“[In the classroom,] I get to change people’s thinking about the world. It’s really quite rewarding,” Shihadeh said. “As far as the research goes, I get to create knowledge. That’s how I describe my job: ‘I create knowledge.’ I get to think of interesting questions that I get to explore. I get paid for it, and that’s pretty cool.”

See a slideshow of more photos from this story.

Dance is the language of love, but just like a first date, it can be one of the most awkward experiences a person can have. The first day of Intro to Ballroom Dance is just that — awkward. Reminiscent of a middle school dance, students stand along the walls with their arms crossed behind their backs, fidgeting and looking around as if they want to escape.

However, these students aren’t pubescent teenagers; they are fully grown men and women.

Awkward or not, Kinesiology Associate Professor Melanie Seeling lines her students up against the back wall and begins to show them the basic steps of a Foxtrot, counting aloud as she performs the steps with them.

“One, two, one, two, one, two … Congratulations you’ve all just done quick steps,” she says, “And it didn’t hurt you any, did it?”

The students force out nervous laughter, but from the looks on their faces it seems as if they may, indeed, be in a bit of pain. This feeling is often shared among beginners.

While many students enroll in this class with a partner, some, like mechanical engineering graduate student Ranran Liu, enroll by themselves and are assigned partners on the first day of class. Liu thinks this aspect of the class is actually in the best interest of students.

“I want to know more people. This makes it easier,” Liu said after the first day of class.

Kinesiology senior Jonathan Finney remembers his first day learning the Foxtrot.

“Miss Melanie would rotate partners, and all of a sudden you’re standing next to a person you don t know,” Finney said. “I attribute my ability to dance on the way she teaches. I’ve become more confident and decisive, and it’s spilled over into other areas of my life.”

Seeling takes pride in watching dance bring people together. She feels dance has the potential to create many ties and build social skills.

“Like any other sport, [ballroom dance] forms a bond that can’t be anything other than positive,” she said. “It shows how you should treat your partner. The man should take care of lady, and the lady should respect and love the man.”

When students swap partners in class, Seeling points to a man and then points to a woman and says, “Ask her to dance, please.”

University alumnus Dillion Couvillon remembers learning more than just dance steps from taking Seeling’s ballroom dance class.

“Ballroom gave me more respect for women,” he said. “These classes are good for people our age because it shows us how to treat each other.”

But Seeling wasn’t always the teacher. Eighteen years ago Melanie Watts walked into Ric Seeling’s Dance Studio to take a jitterbug class. Ric Seeling had extra men in his class and needed a partner.

“I used her as a person to demonstrate, and I saw her abilities, fell in love with her, and the rest is history,” he said.

Melanie Seeling remembers being nervous for her first day of class.

“I heard music start, went to peek in the doorway, and [Ric] walked up to me, looked at me kinda grimly and asked if I was in his class,” she said. “I said I was just watching because it was my first day. He said, ‘Nobody watches the first day,’ and pulled me into class. I was interested in dancing, and I was interested in him, and I never left either one.”

Soon after that first class, Melanie Seeling began to attend regularly, first taking private lessons with her soon-to-be husband who taught her the way the man leads and makes sure the woman is always supportive and perfectly in tune. Shorty thereafter, she began teaching her own classes.

Three years later she and Ric Seeling were married.

Seeling hopes dance will gain popularity among younger ages so they can reap its benefits earlier in life. She’s enthusiastic about the awareness that television shows like “So You Think You Can Dance?” and “Dancing with the Stars” have brought to audiences who aren’t normally exposed to this art.

“’Dancing with the Stars’ has made dance relatable to people. Men look at Emmitt Smith and say, ‘If he can do this, I can,’” she said.

Because TV is increasing its popularity, Seeling is excited about the future of dance and working with new students. One of those students she’s currently working with is Kinesiology freshman Amanda Cockerham. Though she’s a former dancer herself, Cockerham still appreciates Seeling’s teaching style.

“She doesn’t just say, ‘Watch me do this.’ She does the same thing at the same time we do,” Cockerham said. “This is important because no one knows what they’re doing. She shows us that we’re all the same. I used to dance before [this class], but I’m still excited because I don’t know what to expect!”

Photographs by Maggie Bowles

“FREEZE!” he yells.

With this shout, Yoshinori Kamo begins the first day of his Introduction to Sociology course.

“People probably find it shocking,” he explained, looking a little pleased with himself. “People go, ‘What’s going on?’” He glanced confusedly around his office, mimicking his bewildered students. “You know, it gets some attention.”

Kamo uses this word to shock his students because it tells a much larger story — one that’s relevant not only to sociology but to his own life. On October 17, 1992, the same word rang out in a Baton Rouge suburb, and a Japanese exchange student was left dead.

A little more than 16 years ago in Baton Rouge, 16-year-old Yoshihiro Hattori and his host “brother” were driving around trying to find the house for a Halloween party they were attending. The boys found what they thought was the right address, pulled over on the street and walked up to the porch. Dressed as John Travolta in a white tuxedo from Saturday Night Fever, Hattori rang the doorbell.

This was the home of Rodney and Bonnie Peairs, a white, middle-class couple. It was not the location of the party, but the numerous Halloween decorations on the porch convinced the boys they were in the right place.

Bonnie Peairs opened a side door a crack to see who was outside, then quickly slammed the door when she did not recognize the two people on her porch. She yelled for her husband Rodney to get his gun. Unaware of the commotion inside the house, Hattori and his friend had turned around and were walking back to their car.

At that moment, Rodney Peairs came out of the carport door. “FREEZE!” he yelled, pointing his .44 magnum handgun with a laser scope at the boys. Hattori turned around and began walking toward Peairs. “We’re here for the party,” he said. Peairs panicked and shot Hattori in the chest from about eight feet away, then ran back inside the house.

The ambulance and police swiftly arrived at the scene, but the Peairs couple remained inside the house for an additional 40 minutes. Hattori died on the way to the hospital. A Baton Rouge jury found Rodney Peairs not guilty of the charge of manslaughter. (Some analysts believe Peairs was acquitted because of Louisiana’s “Kill the Burglar” statute, which gives the homeowner the right to decide if deadly force is necessary to prevent entry or to compel the burglar to leave.)

Following the criminal trial, a civil court judge awarded $650,000 to the Hattori family — a record amount in Louisiana history for a wrongful death suit. Peairs’s homeowner’s insurance paid only $100,000 of the settlement, which the Hattoris used to establish Yoshi’s Gift, an award given to gun control organizations in the U.S.

Yoshinori Kamo was a volunteer interpreter for the Hattori family at both the criminal and civil trials. “I became involved in the case and became much more than a translator later,” he told me in his lightly accented, rapid-fire English. “I became more of an advisor-coordinator. I got real close [to the family].”

He later published a book — essentially a court record — written in Japanese and titled “A Japanese Boy Who Loved America: The Trial of the Yoshi Hattori Shooting in Baton Rouge.”

Kamo instructed me to grab the dark blue hardback book off the shelf next to me. I flipped through the book to the four pages he had marked. The first marked page showed a photograph of a grinning Hattori proudly holding a large fish. The second tab marked a court photo of Kamo sitting with the Hattori family behind the prosecutor’s bench at the trial. The third picture was of the murder weapon, a sinister-looking firearm. The fourth picture was of the grim-faced Rodney and Bonnie Peairs exiting the courtroom, flanked by camera crews and photographers. These images were the only things I understood among the tight rows of Japanese characters, but they spoke volumes.

Kamo said he felt the need to write the book because he found that a lot of the press coverage of the case was inaccurate; he wanted to set the record straight for the Japanese people. He believed it was important to provide the Japanese public with this information so they could try to make sense of a tragic event that took place almost 7,000 miles away.

“We had a lot of press coverage that was incorrect, so people [in Japan] read the book and they figured out what was going on in the [United States] with the case and everything … so I think they learned a lot of truth,” he explained.

For example, any stories that ran in the media said Hattori did not understand the word “freeze” when Rodney Peairs yelled it at him. This could explain why he turned and walked toward a man holding a gun. Kamo rejects these arguments.

“Hattori came [to the U.S.] two months before the incident, so he may not have understood the word, but he was a very smart kid and I believe that he understood what was going on. It was just unthinkable for him to get shot because he had nothing to hide. I think it was more of a misunderstanding than ignorance … he knew what was going on but he didn’t believe that someone was going to shoot him, so he basically tried to explain to them, ‘Don’t worry about it, don’t worry about it, I’m here for the party,’ that’s all.” As Kamo imitated Hattori, he raised his hands, palms out, in a placating gesture.

The majority of the objects decorating the walls of Kamo’s office are related to the trial. There is a photograph of the Hattori parents shaking hands with President Clinton, in which Kamo is visible in the background. To the left of his desk hangs a gun control poster that lists gun-related deaths by countries, ending in an overwhelmingly high number for the United States.

I asked Kamo what the Japanese people thought about gun use and gun control laws in the States. “They think they are horrible,” he said, frowning. “Which, I agree,” he added. “The handgun is illegal in Japan except for police officers, military and some sports shooters. Otherwise, nobody carries a handgun. They are not used to handguns and they find it hard to believe that in this country anyone can own a handgun. They think, [and] I think, it’s ridiculous.”

While many people in Louisiana have forgotten about the Hattori incident, many Japanese people have not. “If you go to Japan and you say ‘Louisiana’ people say ‘Hattori case,’” Kamo said. “If I say ‘I’m from Louisiana,’ they say ‘Oh God, how could you live there?’”

In the case of Yoshihiro Hattori, Japanese and American cultures were juxtaposed to a tragic end. Hattori, Kamo believes, could not fathom that someone would shoot him because guns were so foreign to him. Peairs, on the other hand, grew up in the “gun culture” of the South and had been around guns all of his life. However, since he was not well trained with firearms, instead of shooting the gun in the air or shooting the perceived attacker in the leg, he shot Hattori in the chest. “When the guy didn’t stop, he panicked, basically. After he shot [Hattori], he went back to the door, locked the door and started sobbing. He knew he screwed up,” Kamo explained.

The shooting sparked a drive for more stringent gun control laws in the U.S. The Hattori family collected 1.7 million Japanese signatures and 1 million American signatures on a petition demanding stricter gun laws.  Kamo is still in contact with the Hattori family. He is involved with several projects, including advocating for gun control and improving Japan-Louisiana relations.

Their main project is the Japan Louisiana Friendship Foundation. Hattori explained, “They send students … from Louisiana to Japan and Japan to Louisiana every spring, and they pick like three or four students each time [for] a two- or three-week trip.” The hope is that this organization will foster a greater sense of understanding between the two cultures.

Kamo spoke about the case matter-of-factly, but with a restrained passion. The years that have passed between the trial and now have mellowed his anger, even if the American system has remained the same. The need for change has given Kamo a purpose, something to help him make sense of what happened — something to fight for.

“That’s the first thing they tell you in vet school,” Professor Gary Sod explained when I met him in his office. He then confessed that was the reason he chose vet school to study medicine. “I don’t like people,” he said with a chuckle.

An assistant professor of farm animal medicine and surgery in the LSU vet school, Sod said he has always liked medicine, surgery and orthopedics. Originally from Berkeley, California, Sod came to Louisiana to teach applied mathematics and physics at Tulane University. It was his wife who talked him into going to veterinary school, which brought him to LSU.

Only two tattered, leather chairs welcomed visitors into Sod’s office, along with a model set of front and rear horse legs towering in a corner. On one wall hung a dry erase board covered with the illegible scribbles of a doctor. Another wall was home to a bookshelf stuffed with vet books and scattered bones.

Sod’s attraction to helping animals came early in his life. “I brought home stray dogs as a kid,” he told me. After rescuing the dogs, he would feed and take care of them, keeping most and finding homes for others.

Today, Sod spends the majority of his time at the LSU Large Animal Clinic helping animals in a different way. His research focuses on decreasing the number of horses that are euthanized due to leg fractures. LSU is currently the only school in the country whose vet program designs implants for large animals, particularly horses.

Few fractures are ever successfully repaired in adult horses, although the small animal implant field is highly sophisticated, Sod said. In many cases, methods and implants used in humans can be used for fracture repairs in small animals such as dogs. But a leg implant made for a 160-pound person won’t work on a 1,000- to 1,200-pound horse.

Sod explained that the success rate of repairing fractures is so low, euthanizing a horse is often seen by owners and veterinarians as the only choice left. “I think it is unacceptable that horses don’t have an option,” Sod said.

High-profile cases of racehorses like Eight Belles (who was euthanized on the track during the Kentucky Derby in 2008) and Barbaro (who was euthanized after hospitalization in 2007) have helped shed more light on large animal fracture repair, Sod said. He designs implants that are both large and efficient to keep horses and other animals comfortable enough to live through a fracture wound.

The process of designing an implant is tedious. Sod begins by coming up with a design, which he tests on a computer to see what changes need to be made. “After I am satisfied with the computer model, I have a machine that makes the limb,” he said. He then tests the implant in a cadaver, or a leg that he has harvested from a euthanized horse.

The success rate of horse leg implants is low mainly because a horse implant must be able to work immediately. “Horses stand right after surgery,” Sod said. This makes them very difficult patients.

One of the most memorable moments in Sod’s career was the first time he placed an implant that he personally designed into a horse. “There’s a difference between testing implants and actually putting it into a live animal and seeing that it works,” Sod said.

Sod’s most publicized case was Molly, a pony that was rescued after her owners abandoned her following Hurricane Katrina. She had been attacked by pit bulls, resulting in the loss of a leg. Sod assisted with the amputation of Molly’s leg and helped design the original prosthetic device. Sod described Molly as a “sweet, docile” horse, which he said was helpful in the success of her surgery. At 700 pounds, Molly’s size worked in her favor. “Had she been bigger or had a worse temperament, it wouldn’t have worked,” Sod said.

Throughout his career, Sod has performed surgery on many animals, not just horses. The list includes cattle, bulls, sheep, goats, llamas and even kangaroos. Sod has treated problems ranging from fractured limbs and gastrointestinal complications to trauma wounds and birthing dilemmas. According to Sod, helping cows deliver is a “fairly common” procedure.

“I try to stay emotionally detached from my patients,” Sod said with a sigh, though he admitted he takes it personally if an animal dies or has to be put down. Sod said his interaction with the animals outside of surgery is what he enjoys most about his job.

Sod joked openly about his discomfort around large groups. (Apparently, two people in Sod’s office at once is bordering on a crowd.) Teaching lecture classes comes with the territory of his duties as a professor, but Sod is much more comfortable during his time in clinics. “I like working with students,” he said. “That’s why I stayed in a vet school.”

Sod finds comfort in his weekend hobby as well. “I fly planes,” he said casually, as if piloting were something everyone did in their spare time. Sod enjoys the solitude of flying, describing the experience as quiet and relaxing. He said seeing hawks and eagles in the sky less than 15 feet away is beautiful. His attraction to flying isn’t such a contrast with his work as an animal surgeon. When flying, Sod said he always searches for a lift to keep the glider up. And with large animal orthopedic surgery, he continues to search for new technology to keep animals up and moving.

Professor Gary Sod probably won’t be nominated for Mr. Congeniality at the LSU Equine Hospital’s Christmas party this year. But however shy Sod may be, he is still outstanding in his profession. As he told me, “I enjoy being able to put an animal back into a better quality of life.”

“I’ve been collecting these things for a while and I think I even spray-painted them silver at one point,” he explained. “I like painting things silver. I don’t know what that’s about.”

Dean, a professor of graphic design, laughed as he rummaged through the crate and reminisced about some of the projects he’s worked on in the backyard of his house in Beauregard Town, Baton Rouge’s oldest neighborhood. Dean, with his thick beard, glasses, sandals and nearly too short t-shirt, put the crate down, his words trailing off as he made his way toward the back door.

A bowling ball lay in the tall grass not far from the steps — one that probably used to sit with the eight or 10 other balls beneath the kitchen table. Inside the house was a mixture of thrift shop finds Dean has collected over the years. A decade-old art project leaned against the wall in the laundry room. An orange teapot on the living room floor looked as though it had been there forever, a fixture in the modest home.

Suddenly it was obvious why Dean favors collages to express his artistic thoughts. The combination of art, furniture, toys, bowling balls and books scattered throughout his home reflects the eclectic style of his artwork. An unfamiliar onlooker may wonder why a Troll peeks from the window, but they couldn’t argue against how well it fits into the big picture of Dean’s life.

Seated in the front room, Dean snipped at a used cereal box. The snippets, along with countless others, will form a multi-faceted image the artist likened to a gem.

“I have this box of crap and I fold the cardboard and cut it with scissors. I’m intentionally trying to put in some random element here, so that I’m not in complete control of what happens,” he said as he cut strips of the cereal box, rendering its brand less and less recognizable. “I’m trying to make it look like refractions, like in a diamond or some kind of crystal, and then, when it looks right, I glue it down.”

The style is bright and complex, yet still organized. His piece “New Dotti Berry” is a mixture of colorful packages, images of round candy and other dot-inspired fragments. But he doesn’t limit his materials to discarded packaging and pictures; he also uses money as a means of expression. In “Wu Yuan,” Dean uses Chinese currency to showcase the intricacy and beauty of the medium.

Natalie Smith, a book cover designer and former student of Dean’s, recognized his appreciation of art in unexpected places. “He can take the things that people throw away and those are his treasures,” Smith said. She explained that Dean was able to look past the material value of everyday objects.

Dean attributed his style to the art movement known as Dadaism, a cultural movement during World War I that primarily involved art as a means of protesting the war. His interest in punk rock reminded him of the Dada movement and helped influence his work.

“I was like 18 years old when punk rock was invented, so that was really fun. That was my movement,” he recalled. “A lot of the Dadaists were collage artists; they liked collage because it’s so rebellious.”

Dean noticed the album covers of the punk rock records he purchased in his early years also had a unique design. Until then, he said music covers had a slick, meticulously crafted style that often went unnoticed. Dean said that wasn’t the case with punk rock.

“One of the best things about punk rock was the ‘do-it-yourself aesthetic.’ The idea that you don’t have to get anyone else’s permission,” he explained.

A calm jazz tune tinkled in the background from the Apple computer on Dean’s desk. Don’t expect to hear punk blaring from the speakers now; Dean has since lost interest in the genre.

“You know what’s ironic?” he asked, looking surprised at his own words. “I don’t like punk rock. Even though it changed my life and I was even in some bands [and] it led to a career path and everything.”

A native of North Carolina, Dean received his undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina. He later traveled the world to find out what he wanted to do with his life, deciding to look for a job either designing book covers or teaching graphic design. He chose the latter.

“I taught in Springfield, Missouri, and I have to tell you I didn’t like it. I thought the whole country was the same. Then I was in the Midwest and was like—” He groaned.

Dean came to Baton Rouge in 1992 and started working as a DJ for KLSU, hosting the station’s international show.

“When I became a vinyl DJ, the tradition there is to appreciate funk. Music that works. Music that a crowd will appreciate. Funk and soul. A groove became really important to me, which in punk rock it isn’t. You know, punk is like, ‘Di-GAH, di-GAH, di-GAH, di-GAH,’ Which is not bad.” He smiled. “But I love rock ‘n’ roll and the Velvet Underground and Iggy Pop and that sort of thing.”

His DJ name, “DJmisc,” reiterates the variety present in his day-to-day life — a jumble of interests that collectively paint a picture of Paul Dean. Whether blogging on his website, dog-earing a page in a Jack Kerouac novel or piecing together his next collage, Dean tries to stick with what keeps him interested.

To relax, Dean lets the creativity flow freely so he can experience the art. “Working on [the collages] is almost therapeutic. I’ll put on a movie or whatever, or just the radio and just look at these pretty colors.”

Smith said she remembers Dean being relatable, someone you’d want to spend time with.

“He’s like the cool older brother who you wanted to hang out with and play with all the cool stuff in his office,” she said, adding that he was a good friend but a better teacher. “I always got B’s on my work because he knew that we could make it better. He really challenged your work. He’d be a friend with you, but he would expect you to be a great student also.”

Dean’s complexities can make understanding him a challenge. As typeface designer and former student Tal Leming said, “He is hard to nail down.” But Leming had no trouble praising Dean’s teaching abilities.

“Paul really made us aware of design and just finding things interesting outside of the classroom,” Leming explained. “We were taught to pay attention to the colors of leaves and the way the sun reflects off the windows in the art school building. Paul, in a lot of ways, taught us to see.”