Losing Something and Moving On

Will etching

Sayre's Law states, in a formulation quoted by Charles Philip Issawi: "In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the stakes at issue." By way of corollary, it adds: "That is why academic politics are so bitter." Sayre's law is named after Wallace Stanley Sayre (1905-1972), U.S. political scientist and professor at Columbia University.  On 20 December 1973, the Wall Street Journal quoted Sayre as: "Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low."

It has been a tough four months in which I have lived in limbo.    My part-time job was turned into a full-time position around March.  I applied for it.  And it has taken the powers that be four months to tell me the results of their search.  I do not do limbo very well.

For the past twelve years I have worked part-time within an institution, but full-time within the context in which I worked, which was teaching printmaking and art.  I set up a printmaking program within a new school, made it mine, let it evolve into conforming with and enhancing the parameters of the department within which it existed, and loved every moment in which I saw kids fall in love with making art, and surprisingly enough because not everybody likes it, making prints.  Today, that thing I gave so much of myself to create was taken away form me.  I did not get the position.

It has been hard on me because it is not as if I was applying anonymously for an anonymous job.  I could have more easily handled that.  It has been a tough four months because, not only was I applying for my job, I was doing the job while applying for it.  Granted, the scope of the full-time position is much greater than that of my part-time job; but because I had been with the institution from its inception, when part-time jobs functioned differently, I knew what was involved in the position and was looking forward to the challenge of working full-time.

Long ago, I had chosen to teach part-time because I thought that in doing so, I would have time to continue making art while earning some money.  I was indeed able to make some art over these years; but even when it is part-time, teaching is full-time.  It is all-consuming, especially teaching at the level I was doing it.  I have missed being totally immersed in my art work, but I have loved the teaching.

I can’t begin to describe how painful it has been to have something which I felt was so integrally part of who I am wrenched away from me.  To use a cliché, it’s as if a piece of my gut has been ripped off. 

Apparently (or so I was told), I am a great teacher of printmaking, as exemplified by the work that follows and by the awards my kids were always getting, and by the marketplace: strangers asked to buy their prints.  Also, apparently, I am a great teacher of art; for although I was paid to teach printmaking, I've always refused to only teach the mechanics of the thing without having the kids investigate the meaning and context of art by giving them extra work which they did willingly.  I always thought that was part of the mandate of the program.  And, apparently once more, I am a great artist.  It seems that what I am lacking is what it takes to be a good citizen of the Governor School for the Arts and no longer much Humanities.  And after two years (1/16/13), I can safely say that I proudly agree with that assessment, I really was the wrong person for that job though as Lou Reed says, “Don’t believe anything your hear and half of what you see.”  Maybe that comes with the territory of wanting to be an artist and seeing through the bullshit, and in my case, voicing it. 

I will miss the teaching, it comes naturally to me; but I will finally have enough time to seriously investigate pictorial ideas in the studio again, and that too is like breathing.  The last time I investigated ideas intensely in the studio was years ago when I was as fully unemployed as I am once again.  This hurts right now, but it is a good thing.  Here’s to new beginnings...

What follows is a tiny tiny fraction of student prints I have collected over the years- I love looking at them.  I chose these because they were readily available in my computer: 

Zeke etching

Sydney etching

Sydney etching

Sydney etching

Josh linocut

Marie linocut

Seth linocut

Emma etching

Emma etching

Madeline etching

Morna Etching

Laura lithograph

Lisa lithograph

Celie reduction linocut

Eliza reduction linocut

Whitney reduction linocut

Ross etching

Sophia etching

Laura lithograph