Meet Ren Bergeron | Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Ren Bergeron and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Ren, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking
WATCH WHAT SHE CAN DO was nothing else if not risky.

I was a sophomore at Colorado State University, Fort Collins, when I was assaulted by my professor of CON 151 in the year 2019. His name is Ronald Holt & I want everyone to know that name so they know the threat he poses when given the responsibility of power over others. I called one of my best friends right after & she told me to get evidence right away. To not let this dissolve into silence & doubt.

That week, I had a recorded phone call with CSU PD in which we were able to coax from Ron what intentions he had towards me as his student. Not to mention he had taken photos of the incident, so my evidence was bountiful. I took my story to the administration & several days went by as they internally investigated him, all while I still attended class in the building he taught at. I had run into him several times after the incident with him lacking any knowledge of the backlash I was brewing.

That was the inception of WATCH WHAT SHE CAN DO. It wasn’t until several months later that I would pursue finding some form of justice for what I & so many other women had went through, which eventually evolved into the WATCH WHAT SHE CAN DO brand image. WWSCD was the artwork that I had created to hang over the location where his old murals use to be (he was an artist, hence how he was able to build a connection with me by appealing to my own calling).

For the entire week of the investigation and the weeks that followed his voluntary resignation from the university, I lived in a daze. I dreamt through my waking life & constantly peered over my shoulder waiting for his offensive. I couldn’t focus in class & my grades reflected that. I worried about other male teachers ostracizing me as a threat to their careers or my peers demanding evidence of my claims. I lived in fear of who I might become because of all of this trauma & public reveal. It took two years before I stopped questioning my own motive behind creating WATCH WHAT SHE CAN DO. I had the voices of a critical media who had scrutinized so many women before me for coming forward pestering my mind. Most of all, I worried my efforts would be perceived poorly by my industry & that I would be barred from opportunity either from publicity or Ron’s influence on his network, however vast that may be.

But risk is the inherent gatekeeper of achievement. There seems, in my life, no way to avoid risk. I am an artist & WWSCD is one of my greatest pieces, one of my most profound statements. I believe it is such because I took great risk to realize it. As an artist, nothing has proven to be worthy of broadcasting without equally being of great risk. It is precisely the message that contorts others into the whirlwind of self reflection, fear & eventual understanding or rejection that needs to be brought before humanity into our great debate called cultural & biological evolution.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I have always been an artist, & WATCH WHAT SHE CAN DO is one of my proudest pieces. It is a symbol to encourage the conceptual connection between women-identifying individuals & STEM.

So often women are depicted with their sexuality as the focus, or a gender stereotype that teaches the audience to connect those ideas to the reality of what women are or are meant to be. I set out to challenge that concept & to bring a new range of attributes that our societal perspective of the woman-image could instead promote.

I attempt to find the same profoundness & relativity to my experience of our current cultural state in each of my works. WWSCD is a rare piece in which I created its final production via electronic tools. My preferred medium at the moment is pen & paper. I like to keep it simple & purchase cheap supplies from general stores to produce my work as I never grew up having the kind of money it takes to access over priced art supplies. I have trained myself to use what is at hand so that I can never be limited in my creations by financial access.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I’m interested to see how my response to this will be edited in with the rest of my rather somber story, lol.

If my best friend were visiting CO & I wanted to show them the best time ever, I would not be able to do that in less than a year’s time. There are way too many places to list. To start, there’s Old Colorado City where karaoke is a kick on Friday nights right before shopping locally all along the main street Saturday morning. Then, there’s Manitou & the Rainbow Falls Graffiti Caves- a fun, cost-free way to get a taste of what Cave of the Winds has to offer (though I must put a disclaimer to be careful in exploration of these caves as they are not maintained for human passage especially in the deepest run). Fort Collins is one of my all time favorites with a buzzing Old Town & calming Horsetooth Reservoir, a drive that pairs especially well with a couple of friends & good music. Moffat CO has the best hot spring I have ever been to with yurts to stay in totting skylights that offer magnificent, light pollution free views of the night sky. The Paint Mines are also incredible for nature lovers & are great when combined with an evening at the Denver International Church of Cannabis (the light show is WORTH IT). Don’t forget the Royal Gorge train ride & a stop by O’Malleys Pub in Palmer Lake for their famous chicken wings.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
There are two leaders who deserve to be highlighted in my story for the support they gave a young student who could just as easily have been ignored. They are Dean Lise Youngblade of the College of Health & Human Sciences at CSU & Dr. Paul Goodrum, Head of the Construction Management Department at CSU.

Both of these leaders chose to elevate my voice & believe my story. They cleared the obstacles from my path in order for me to create & display the original WWSCD print in Guggenheim Hall at CSU- the building where I had first met Ron. That print now rests against the wall as a testament to the commitment these two leaders have for their female students & women in STEM.

Dr. Goodrum helped bring me back to reality & find trust in male faculty again. His manner of being was enough to dispel the bias I had developed from my trauma towards men in construction. He was an accomplice in my artistic endeavor & helped me gain department approval on my design.

Dean Lise Youngblade gave me my pride back. She helped me see that what I had done was for the right reasons & that I had created something beautiful. She gave me the distinct honor of being the first recipient of the Spirit of the College of Health & Human Sciences Award at her annual college award ceremony.

I’ll never forget the platform both of them gave me.

Website: watchwhatshecando.com

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ren-bergeron-671803188

Other: tiktok: @wwscd