Transcript of interview with Rita Deanin Abbey by Claytee White, November 29, 2014 and February 26, 2015

CT 21? A 23 M2 An Interview with Rita Deanin Abbey An Oral History Conducted by Claytee D. White The Boyer Early Las Vegas Oral History Project Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas 1 ©The Boyer Early Las Vegas Oral History Project University of Nevada Las Vegas, 2012 Produced by: The Oral History Research Center at UNLV - University Libraries Director: Claytee D. White Editors: Maggie Lopes, Stefani Evans Transcriber: Kristin Hicks Interviewers and Project Assistants: Barbara Tabach and Claytee D. White n The recorded interview and transcript have been made possible through the generosity of Dr. Harold Boyer. The Oral History Research Center enables students and staff to work together with community members to generate this selection of first-person narratives. The participants in this project thank the university for the support given that allowed an idea the opportunity to flourish. The transcript received minimal editing that includes the elimination of fragments, false starts, and repetitions in order to enhance the reader’s understanding of the material. All measures have been taken to preserve the style and language of the narrator. In several cases photographic sources accompany the individual interviews. The following interview is part of a series of interviews conducted under the auspices of the Boyer Early Las Vegas Oral History Project. Claytee D. White, Project Director Director, Oral History Research Center University Libraries University Nevada, Las Vegas Table of Contents Interview with Rita Deanin Abbey on November 29, 2014 by Claytee White in Las Vegas, Nevada Resume: Updated September 2015....... Revised transcript edits by Rita Abbey. .v - Vll .1-22 Appendix: Interview of Rita Abbey by Joshua Abbey [November 28, 2003] Family Photos Artwork Photos xv Rita Deanin Abbey Resume Updated through September 2015 Rita Deanin Abbey/Short Resume Rita Deanin Abbey is an Emeritus Professor of Art at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She taught drawing, painting, and color theory and innovated interdisciplinary courses with the sciences at UNLV from 1965 to 1987. The University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Marjorie Barrick Museum and the Palm Springs Desert Museum (presently Palm Springs Art Museum), Palm Springs, CA collaborated to present the Rita Deanin Abbey 35 Year Retrospective, which was held February 16-March 5,1988 at UNLV and March 25-June 5,1988 at the Palm Springs Art Museum. Abbey received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1952 and her Master of Arts degree in 1954 from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM. She also studied at Goddard College, Plainfield, VT; the Art Student's League, Woodstock, NY; the Flans Hofmann School of Fine Arts, Provincetown, MA; and the San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA. She was an artist in residence in the studios of Toshi Yoshida, Tokyo, Japan; John Killmaster, Boise, ID; Methow Iron Works, Twisp, WA; Tamarind Institute, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM; the Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ; Shidoni Foundry, Tesuque, NM; Bill Weaver Studio, Chupadero, NM; Savoy Studios, Portland, OR; and Carlson & Co., San Fernando, CA. Abbey, who works in the areas of painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, porcelain enamel fired on steel, stained-glass, and computer art, has had 60 individual exhibitions and has participated in over 200 national and international group exhibitions. She is represented in private and public collections in the United States, the Middle East, Europe, and South America. Abbey has published several articles in journals, and six books: Rivertrip, Northland Press, Flagstaff, AZ, 1977; Art and Geology: Expressive Aspects of the Desert, Peregrine Smith Books, Layton, UT, 1986 (co-authored by G. William Fiero); the Rita Deanin Abbey Rio Grande Series, Gan Or, Las Vegas, NV, 1996; In Praise of Bristlecone Pines, The Artists' Press, Johannesburg (presently located in White River), South Africa, 2000; Isaiah Stained- Glass Windows, Gan Or, Las Vegas, NV, 2002; Seeds Yet Ever Secret, Poems and Images, Gan Or, Las Vegas, NV, 2013. She has been the recipient of many commissions and grants and has won several awards, including the Bicentennial Commission for the State of Nevada, 1976; the Governor's Seventh Annual Visual Arts Award for the State of Nevada, 1986; and the Chairman's Award of Excellence at the 1987 International Exhibition of Enamelling Art, Ueno Royal Museum, Tokyo, Japan. From 1988-1990, Abbey fabricated Northwind, a steel sculpture (17ft. x 27 ft. 5 in. x 25 ft. 10 in., 7 tons), installed in Las Vegas, NV. Abbey was invited by the Gallery Association of New York State to exhibit four of her works in its 1989-1991 traveling exhibition, Color and Image: Recent American Enamels. In 1992, the Markus Galleries, Las Vegas, NV, and the Nevada Symphony presented an exhibition of art by Abbey, which inspired VI Virko Baley's Piano Concerto No. 1. The world premiere performance of the concerto was held in 1993 at the National Opera House, Kiev, Ukraine. In 1993, Abbey constructed Spirit Tower, a cor-ten steel sculpture (20 ft., 11 tons), which was commissioned by the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District for the Summerlin Library and Performing Arts Center. Abbey was invited by the Pacific Division of the American Association for the Advancement of Science to lecture on Art and Geology at San Francisco State University for the 75th Annual Meeting, on June 19-24,1994. She was one of three artists from the United States invited to participate in the exhibition, Enamel Today, at Villa am Aabach, Uster, Switzerland, June-July, 1995. Additionally in 1995, Abbey completed a series of cast bronze sculptures at Shidoni Foundry, Tesuque, New Mexico. Commissioned in 1998, Abbey completed the Isaiah Stained-Glass Windows in 2000, sixteen 10 ft. x 2 ft. stained-glass windows for the main sanctuary of Temple Beth Sholom, Las Vegas, NV. Also in 2000, she completed Holocaust, a stainless steel sculpture (14 ft. 3 in., 4.5 tons), installed in Las Vegas, NV. In 2003 her bronze sculpture, Ner Tamid, was installed in Temple Adat Ami, Las Vegas, NV. Snakewash, a cor-ten steel ground sculpture (62 ft.), was completed in November 2003. Abbey fabricated steel sculptures and cast small and large bronzes from 2004 through the present. In 2006 she completed and installed Guardian of All Directions, a stainless steel sculpture (14 ft., 1.5 tons). The Guggenheim Hermitage Museum and Young Collectors Council visited the studio and home of Rita Deanin Abbey, Las Vegas, Nevada October 15, 2006. During March 2008, Women's History Month, Abbey was recognized for her contributions to the Arts by Mayor Goodman and Members of the Las Vegas City Council. Hidden Pass, a 2-inch steel plate sculpture (16 x 28 ft. 8 in. x 13 ft., 22 tons), was installed in 2010. Between July 16-December 23,2011, Abbey exhibited in Blast from the Past, '60s & '70s Geometric Abstraction at Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, California. The City of Las Vegas Office of Cultural Affairs, Las Vegas Arts Commission presented Abbey the Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in the Arts on May 25, 2012. Balanced Arc, an outdoor bronze sculpture (8ft. 8 in. x 9 ft. x 7 ft. 4 in., 1600 lbs.), completed in 2012, was installed in April 2013. The Western Museums Association 2014 Annual Meeting in Las Vegas, NV, toured The Art of Rita Deanin Abbey at the Desert Space Museum October 5, 2014. Abbey participated in the fall group exhibition Macrocosm/Microcosm: Abstract Expressionism in the American Southwest at the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma, October 2, 2014-January 4, 2015. Her artwork was also shown in the Recent Acquisitions exhibition at the Marjorie Barrick Museum, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, June 19-September 19, 2015. Currently, Abbey is working on new sculptures, paintings, and enamels. VII t [This version of the interview has been revised and expanded by Rita Deanin Abbey and it replaces the recorded interview.] (2nd revision of Feb. 26, 2015 (final)) It is November 29th, 2014, and I am with Rita Abbey in her home here in Las Vegas. And this is Claytee White. You have shown me such beautiful art today. So take me back to the beginning. Tell me where you grew up and what that was like, how the family was formed. My father, Joseph Deanin, came to the United States from Russia when he was sixteen. My mother, Frieda Osman, came from Poland when she was fifteen. They met in New York. I grew up in Passaic, New Jersey and went to public schools. That's the beginning. How many brothers and sisters? I had a brother who died when he was four months old, then my sister Sylvia was born, followed by my brother Daniel. I was the fourth child. What did your parents do for a living? My mother was a homemaker and she was always there, cooking and taking care of us. She had a lot of talent: she did embroidery, knitting, crocheting. And she was a seamstress, so she was always making clothes and repairing them. My father worked in a clothing factory. He was on the job at seven o'clock in the morning and came home when it was dark. He was a cutter in the factory, working on layers of cloth with a rotary blade and had to stand on his feet ten hours a day, maybe more. Did he ever own his own business? He did eventually. He became a partner in a large group. During World War II they had contracts from the government to make military uniforms. RDA 11-29-2014; 2nd rev. 2-26-2015 Page 1 So who influenced you at that point? It sounds like both your mother and father were creative. My father was a creative businessperson. My mother enjoyed opera, music in general, and art. But she didn't go out very much or have the opportunities to study, so I don't know how she satisfied those interests. My sister was out of high school when I started first grade and my brother was five years older than I. My sister had an interest in painting and drawing and she used to let me use her art materials when I was a child. When I was eleven she bought me a box set of oil paints and brushes; I still have the box and cherish it. Sylvia was interested in my work and encouraged me as I was growing up. Is she the first one that saw your talent? I don't know if she saw me as having talent. She just saw my interest in working. I never had special help at that point. It was just something I did and felt compelled to do. Tell me about when you knew that this was what you were going to major in in college and this would be your life work. How did you then pattern your life? I started patterning my life a long time before college, because I wanted to learn as much as possible. I couldn't pursue art in depth in the public schools that I went to. So very early on I arranged to go into New York City. I lived on the outskirts of New York and I would take a bus into the city. I walked from the Port Authority bus terminal on 41st Street and Eighth Avenue, through Central Park. One day in my wanderings I found the French Institute on 60th Street. Since I had dreamed of studying art in France, I went into this building and followed the directory to the Naum Los School of Art on the top floor. I was fourteen years old. And you were traveling alone? Yes. I walked everywhere by myself. I showed Mr. Los some of my work, and he encouraged me to RDA 11-29-2014; 2nd rev. 2-26-2015 Page 2 jv.«*nd his Saturday classes even though they were for adults. I drew from the model and also *t. Juced classical plaster busts with plastilene. The training was academic. I had a natural ability to k. * epresentationally. I didn't go in every Saturday, but a few times a month. That class was the basis • ? , learning process as a teenager. Actually, that was the only professional instruction I ever had at that point. A"d when was the next time that you had some formal training? .sent to Goddard, a small college in Vermont, for two years. My first year art teacher was Al Mullen, and the second year it was George Fuller. They would come to the studio (that I shared with three other !•: tudents) to critique our work. Mullen and Fuller had both been students of Flans Hofmann, so is that why you chose the school? v i didn't know much about the school except that it was a small liberal arts college (about ninety tudents at the time) with an experimental curriculum and educational philosophy based on John . fvey One of my father's younger brothers, Sam Dinin, had studied at Columbia University with John ewey Also, one of my cousins had a friend who was attending Goddard and spoke very highly of their ; rogram. The freedom and informality at Goddard allowed me to develop my interests. They used to • iv.* a program that encouraged students, after their second year, to study elsewhere for a year in order • 'i.ive a broader experience in their chosen discipline. I applied to the University of New Mexico in • r; .querque. I remembered a trip I had taken when I was sixteen, on the way to California to visit my •• and aunt; the train stopped in Albuquerque, and I knew I would return there one day for some • r j%on or other. I was mesmerized by the view of the desert from the train window. After my year in ?• ? irt department at UNM, I was encouraged by the chairman of the department to stay in that ? - am for my senior year. I stayed, and after graduation I was offered a graduate assistantship to RDA 11-29-2014; 2nd rev. 2-26-2015 Page 3 work for my Master of Arts degree. I had my thesis exhibition at the Harwood Foundation in Taos, New Mexico. What did your parents think of you traveling across country? So you were probably, what, nineteen or twenty after your first two years? Yes, nineteen. How did they feel about that? They were permissive. If I wanted to do something strongly enough, they encouraged me. I don't know if my father ever related to what I was doing, but he always allowed me to do what I really wanted to do. My parents weren't restrictive that way. So were they unusual as parents at that point? So we're talking about...l don't know when you were born. So tell me what time period we're talking about. I was born in 1930. So we're talking about the early 1950's? Yes. We're talking about 1950. But I had a lot of independent interests and I was off on a tangent, I guess, in relation to my brother and sister because I always wanted to go to college and I was the first one in my family to do so. And you were the baby. I was the youngest, yes. I love that story. I love the independence. So I'm going to jump to today and then we're going to go back. So today you have shown me your studio, your home here in Las Vegas, and it is simply amazing. How did this come about? Well, it didn't come about when I first came here and I never had a goal or inkling that it would come RDA 11-29-2014; 2nd rev. 2-26-2015 Page 4 about. It is something that just developed. Although my husband Robert Belliveau and I had our independent lives, interests, and professions, we wanted to share everything, and we built this home. In this day and time how does the public get to see your work? Through private invitation to our home and studio. My older son, Joshua, at one time arranged for groups from different parts of the country and for local residents to see my work. Since I'm in the studio on a daily basis and live in a rural area abiding by neighborhood laws, it is necessary to limit the visitation schedule. For years much of my work was exhibited annually at UNLV's Donna Beam Art Gallery and other venues in the community. On display now in Las Vegas are Spirit Tower, a 20-foot tall cor-ten steel sculpture at the Summerlin Library, the sixteen Isaiah Stained-Glass Windows in the main sanctuary of Temple Beth Sholom, the bust of Flora Dungan in the Humanities building at UNLV, and a plexiglass mural in one of the University Medical Center buildings on Charleston Boulevard. Okay. So let’s go back to college. So after the two years you moved to New Mexico. Yes. Tell me about that period. On holidays I went back to New Jersey to visit my parents and my family. While still at Goddard I attended the Art Students League summer program in Woodstock, New York. While enrolled at UNM I spent two summers studying with Hans Hofmann in Provincetown, Massachusetts. I went to school all day and worked evenings and weekends waiting on tables, as my schedule allowed. But I was seriously working creatively making art, and attending classes, and getting exposure to people and ideas. I want to know what happened when you discovered that you had this great talent. When did it dawn on you? It still hasn't dawned on me. RDA 11-29-2014; 2nd rev. 2-26-2015 Page 5 Yes, it has. I never thought that way. It was always daily life that I was living and work that I was driven and committed to do. I can't explain it to you. I had a lot of questions, but I never questioned pursuing what I felt I had to pursue. I had a natural discipline and a drive to work hard. So how did you begin your career? You were talking about the schooling and what happened there. What was the first professional job? The first job I had was in graduate school. I was a graduate assistant and taught classes at UNM. At the Hofmann school in the summer I had a monitorship, which meant that I set up the classroom, posed the model, and swept the floors at the end of the day. Then I returned to Albuquerque because I had gotten a letter inviting me to teach at the new Highland High School, and I did that for two years. At various other times, I rented storefronts that I converted to studios, and I was able to give private classes to help pay the rent. In 1965 I moved to Las Vegas, and with my master's degree I was able to get a job teaching part- time in the art department at UNLV (called Nevada Southern University at the time). Later I was hired full time and I taught there for 22 years. Good. So you've talked about when you studied art and with whom. Can you talk about the type of art, the various types that you engage in and how you learned all the different techniques? I didn't always learn them through academic means. As a child I had done small sculptures in clay and hammered metal, in addition to painting and drawing. And later I started carving wood more aggressively, making heads and figures from fallen tree trunks. When I was in college in Vermont, I started to carve mineral blocks. These were easily available to purchase because they were used on the farms there for livestock. That was my preview to carving stone, actually, because you go about it in a RDA 11-29-2014; 2nd rev. 2-26-2015 Page 6 similar way. Most of that work has been lost. I have some photographs of works from that time. So work getting lost, how does that happen? I moved many times. Some things were lost, some damaged in floods and other disasters. I've had many works stolen. But with regard to materials and techniques, I have always had curiosity about materials and tools and finding out different things about form and space. I'm very attracted to diverse media that I don't know about because I see potential and I'm always eager to try things. So whatever seems challenging to me, I explore. At the University of New Mexico, I became interested in welding. I had to work in the engineering department because the art department didn't have welding equipment at the time. No females were welding, so I was largely ignored. A few people gave me some advice, but mostly I experimented on my own, and I made all the mistakes I could make before I caught on. I also took classes in printmaking, different aspects of printmaking. Drawing from the model is something I did from a very young age, and I continued to do a lot of figure drawing. Even before UNM I had started to transition into painting and drawing abstractly. So for an artist, even a very young artist, fourteen years of age, the human body never intimidated you? Drawing the human body, drawing it or sculpting. No, I just saw it as a part of nature and as a way to develop my visual perception and my understanding of space, form, and color. When I moved west I became very involved with the desert and was very influenced by geology and the landscape - from large-scale vistas to small-scale fragments, plant growth, and wildlife. It was all-encompassing for me, and it still is. And now you see I'm doing work that combines animal form with human anatomy and RDA 11-29-2014; 2nd rev. 2-26-2015 Page 7 geological forms. I'm attracted to arroyos, valleys, cliffs, canyons, rivers. So I sent you some of the questions that I was going to ask. Right. It did not have anything about art and the Jewish community. I am very interested to know about art and the Jewish culture. It’s so important as part of the Jewish culture. I don't know how to even ask the question, but I want to know why art has always been so important. I want you to talk about the one piece we saw today, the Star of David piece, if you will, and I want you to talk about the stained- glass windows. So I want you to try to do all that in some way. In the sculpture called Holocaust I tried to express, through abstraction and symbolism, a catastrophic historical event. It evolved with my knowing that the event is painful for the world, not just for people in the culture and religion. I wanted to express a hope for unity and faith for collective peace. The Star of David is split, so that the upper triangle hovers above the base triangle; the floating fragment awaits reuniting with the base triangle. Inside the triangles I used brushed stainless steel so that when the sun hits directly, it produces an intense glowing light. A stepped plane causes an aggressive interruption that symbolizes the catastrophe. But since the other part of the star still hovers, it offers the hope that the disruption will be overcome and the Star of David reunited. I did two commissions for Temple Beth Sholom. The first, Wall of Creation, I made for their synagogue on Oakey Boulevard. It was made with polyester resin and fiberglass. It was a twenty by forty foot mural consisting of twenty-three panels, with a quotation in Hebrew from Psalm 104 along the bottom panels: "O Lord my God, Thou art very great; Thou art clothed with glory and majesty. Thou coverest thyself with light as with a garment; Thou stretchest out the heavens like a curtain." I built the mural in an airplane hangar that I rented in Las Vegas. The hangar was being used at the time to build RDA 11-29-2014; 2nd rev. 2-26-2015 Page 8 model homes and stage sets for shows on the Strip. I rented one of the sections of the airplane hangar. It was adequate because the medium I used created toxic fumes and I needed a big space, a high ceiling, and an exit door for ventilation. I had to wear a respirator and be completely covered for protection. So twenty by forty feet. Yes. The work was divided into two sections so that the ark that holds the Torah scrolls could be placed in the center. The individual panels were made from polyester resin, catalyzed, and poured into a mold with fiberglass that I painted with resin dyes. The surface receiving the resin had to be completely flat when doing the pours, so I had to build a false floor and make sure its base was perfectly level. Otherwise, the panels would have warped and would have been impossible to install architecturally. So when you're building something like that, you have to build a false floor; who does that kind of work for you? I had a carpenter help me. He became a friend during and after this project. He was very curious about what I was doing. After the initial layout for the mold, I worked by myself. And so tell me about the second piece of art for the second location of the temple. That project was for the new Temple Beth Sholom. The commission was for sixteen stained-glass windows on two walls in their new main sanctuary. Before each of these Temple projects I had had vivid dreams about different materials and different images spanning a wall of bright colors, light, and texture. And so I start drawing and working and experimenting with these materials not knowing what the results would be. It doesn't make sense, but the dreams urged me to further explore the transmission of light, with polyester resin and then glass. Yes, it does. It makes perfect sense. So I did twelve glass windows on my own early on, before there was any commission. I was totally RDA 11-29-2014; 2nd rev. 2-26-2015 Page 9 captivated by the glass process and the variety of glass products available. When I actually started the second project for Temple Beth Sholom, titled Isaiah Stained-Glass Windows, I discovered glass from all over the world. I was fascinated by the different techniques and the different types of glass, the variety of textures and colors. And what kind of glass did you decide upon? Well, I used about ten or more types of glass from different manufacturers. I started with the glass from the local factories where I was working on the project, in Oregon. I visited the Uroboro and Bullseye factories in Portland and I saw how they made the glass. In fact, one of them was in the very next building where I was working. It was a pretty exciting and interesting process. I also used glass made by Lambert in Germany, Krosono in Poland, Fremont and Spectrum in Seattle, and Kokomo in Indiana. The finished work contains over 7,000 pieces of hand-cut glass in about 80 different colors. So tell me why art is so important to the Jewish community. I don't know if I can answer that question. I just want you to try. You want me to try. Yes. I don't know. The same reason that art would be important to anybody. Yes, I know. I mean, that's a question. Yes. So last Saturday I attended a panel discussion of African and African-American art and I was surprised—I guess it made me remember how important paintings, African art, African-American paintings are in the black community. And then today to have the privilege to come out to see you RDA 11-29-2014; 2nd rev. 2-26-2015 Page 10 and to see your art that is for everybody and then certain pieces geared to the Jewish community, it's just...l guess I've just been thinking about art recently. So let's leave it there. I'm just curious now probably about art more than I've ever been curious before. Well, that's good. With regard to art appreciation, my interests are very diverse. I have been exposed to a great variety of art through travel, studying art history, visiting museums. African art, Asian art, and most indigenous art expand my heart and mind. And I feel very lucky, by the way, that I've been able to learn about and appreciate the artistic endeavors of many cultures, because I think it helped me as a teacher - it gave me an appreciation of individual approaches and sensibilities. I tried to get into that aspect of each student so that I could encourage them to find their own voice and their own creativity. Simultaneously I taught methods to develop skills so the students would have the ability to use tools and media in a way that would help them realize their goals. An important part of my teaching was creating interdisciplinary courses with the sciences, and exploring nature, and so I started to team teach with the geology, physics, and botany departments. I did that for many years. And the students were very open to experimentation and the field trips we took, and their excitement showed in the art that they were exhibiting in both the UNLV art gallery and in the science department. They were just very much into discovery of themselves and their environment. Our investigations and the interdisciplinary resources helped to develop visual perception and stimulate creativity. Earlier you mentioned one student, only because the studio that I happen to have been in last Saturday was Vicki Richardson's studio and she was one of your students. Yes. And she could either confirm or negate what I'm saying. She would be a perfect person to talk to about this. I know she took my drawing and color theory classes, and I believe she took some of the interdisciplinary classes. She was an impressive, memorable student. RDA 11-29-2014; 2nd rev. 2-26-2015 Page 11 Tell me about the work that you considered your first success whether you were three years old or thirty. What piece was that? You're going to be very disappointed. No, I'm not. Yes, you are, because I don't think of my work that way. I mean I have completed works all my life without judging them as successes and failures. I don't read them that way; I just read them as "onward." I want to explore, challenge myself, be constantly changing and discovering. Good. But today is there a piece that's more memorable, more meaningful than other pieces? In the sense that it may have taken me the longest or it's the heaviest. So I would say in that case Hidden Pass would be the most challenging one, because it weighs twenty-two tons and it's made of two-inch steel plate and took five years. It necessitated working in a steel plant with overhead cranes. Twenty-two tons. It's the biggest so far. So I would not have said that if you didn't corner me into saying something. Good. I'm glad I did. Tell me some of the major changes, those periods where you made a major change, something in the evolution of your art. It's ongoing. I think you can see that from the work. And it's still happening. I also always wanted to work in bronze as opposed to fabricating steel or some other metal. The bronze takes a long time to do: the initial form, then casting, metal pours, finishes, and patinas. It requires foundry equipment and specialized workers' participation in the technical aspects. A lot of traveling back and forth to foundries. It has been a whole new experience because I usually work by myself and it's a form that requires a group or at least two or three people to enter into my purpose. It has been very challenging. I have learned a lot from the people I've worked with, especially Bill Weaver, and I'm still learning. RDA 11-29-2014; 2nd rev. 2-26-2015 Page 12 Talk about teaching art. Can you teach art to someone with no real artistic talent? What does a teacher in a classroom do? The teacher in the classroom—and I can only speak about my own experience. I don't know if you can teach somebody how to teach. It has to come from the personality and commitments of the individual who does have training or experience; it has to come from them. To answer for myself, I try to observe each student's direction and development, and at the same time introduce them to diverse media and tools, and help them develop, above all, visual perception. They have to be able to see what they're looking at. I mean see it, not just look at it, but to learn what's happening spatially, to study and envision relationships. Drawing from the model allows you to see relationships and recreate space, form, and depth, and the dynamics of movement. I always enjoyed beginning classes because I could see that light emerging in the students' work in six weeks, and it was a joy to be able to trigger that kind of perception, and see skills developing using different media. I also taught painting classes and color theory. So even if I'm not a talented artist, there's probably something in the classroom I could still do and do well. Because the classroom environment is not going to be threatening to you. It's not going to be critical. It's just going to be encouraging. There's no such thing as making a mistake. That was an approach that I learned was a necessity in order to stimulate the students to experiment, explore, and gain confidence. So explain your process of creating a new work of art. Whether it's a painting, a sculpture, what is your process? I'm quiet because I don't think there's just one process.