My Teacher
I don’t know why or how I remembered what he said. At the time it sounded like a lot of romance about the past and how Art was a noble act become corrupt. But I did remember later when his words became steppingstones into a world I wanted to belong.
He spoke of cavemen painting with their fingers. He spoke of first things, first reasons, first thoughts, first desires. Then somehow those first ideas were passed on to children, and then on… and wound up as fantastic images and sculpture of Egyptians. He spoke of that as tradition and compared that with Native Americans who speak with reverence of the “old ways”. Mr. Kadoc said that was culture… that is how we use the wisdom of the past to help us define the present. A history of graphic ideas.
I remember thinking what the fuck is this? Somehow it stayed with me even though I didn’t know what many of the words meant.
Throughout the term Mr. Howard paid compliments and heaped praise on students whose drawing managed to rise to a certain quality. My work never seemed to get his attention. Not that term anyway.
I began to phonetically jot down the words that I did not know. An English major who lived down the hall in my dorm helped decipher and translate his ‘big’ words into terms I understood. The mystery of it and the passion in his voice began to push me (or better) pull me into a kind of religion or belief system that I never imagined.
Toward the end of that first semester, I wandered into an Art Department bungalow that served as his upper division painting class. The entire floor was segmented into individual mini-studios occupied by a single student. Only one student was working that evening and I cautiously asked her about the class. What remains in my mind was the phrase, “He combines Art and Philosophy, and he is a god on campus”.
Curiously I asked what she was working on and she pointed to a book on the table near her easel and said she was making a study. The reproduction was that of a huge horse seen from three quarter rear view. The right front leg lifted seeming to prevent injury to a man lying on his back underneath.
