graduation

[tdjohnsn]

Well, the senior had their graduation ceremony yesterday. I spoke again. I wasn't in the mood to offer any wisdom for the future, but I tried to pretend.

Teaching, along with many other things, is a lot like growing a garden. There are seasons, good and bad, and growth does not happen in a linear fashion. You plant seeds and watch them sprout. Some seeds are prolific, others steady and slow. Some plants flower and thrive, others are temperamental and slow to bloom. Some plants are aggressive, some are stubborn, and others are clever as they find their way. All, in their own way, are searching for light.

College has its own seasons, and as experienced gardeners of students, we watch the storms blow through the student body. We know not long after the freshmen class begins if they are going to learn and thrive, or if we will have to shovel on more fertilizer to get them growing. We know that the sophomores will be surly and checked out, that the juniors will be fun and easy to deal with, and that the seniors will be frantic with the sudden realization that they were supposed to be taking notes the previous three years and that there will be a test. Only it will be the world, not us giving it to them.

At the college I attended, one of the many lessons that the Jesuits impressed on us was the importance of loving what you do. A life lived doing that which you are not called to do is only half lived. Fortunately, as artists, the battle is half won; we are already doing what we are called to do. Our lives are dedicated to telling stories visually, our own, other people’s, the world’s.

But life is full of setbacks. In the garden there are storms, and bugs, and poor soil, and in the pursuit of a full life there is sickness, and misjudgment, and missed opportunities. It is easy to stray off the path and follow other people’s dreams, mistaking them for you own until it is too late and you are lost.

To stay on the path, you have to know why you do what you do. What drives you to turn thoughts and ideas into visual language? Why do you tell stories?

Writer Madeleine L’Engle, who died this past Thursday, had an answer to why people tell stories. She said that it had to do with faith.

“…faith that the universe has meaning, that our little human lives are not irrelevant, that what we choose or say or do matters, matters cosmically.”

Don’t let your lives be irrelevant. Tell your stories. Follow your own paths much as plants grow; stubbornly, aggressively, and most of all, cleverly. Find the light in a life fully lived.



I think it’s safe to say that you are the strongest and most successful class we have ever had at the Northwest College of Art, and I am sure that I speak for the rest of the faculty when I say that it has been a pleasure and an honor to have been your teachers and instructors.

Thank you

Watching them graduate, they look the same, but at the same time, it is easy for the first time to really see them as adults.

I always feel so empty after the ceremony. The graduates disappear into the crowd of friends and family leaving the faculty waiting for hugs and thanks that don't actually come, or at least, very rarely. And that's the end.

In other news, Ron left for Maryland last night on a redeye. He had to leave our club dance a little early to get to the airport. I assume he arrived on the East coast okay. I have been checking the newspaper to make sure there weren't any plane crashes and there weren't, so the must have arrived safely.