School and the lack of it. (Part 2 of 4)
I should clear up a common misconception: the Ringling School of Art is not in any way associated with the Ringling Brothers Circus. Seems like everything in Sarasota is named after John Ringling, the multi-millionaire founding father of Sarasota. He kept his famous circus here because the elephants could enjoy the warm weather year-round. He founded the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art which hosts some of the most remarkable Peter Paul Rubens paintings in the world. In this town there are bridges, roads and dry cleaners named after him. The old black and white Tarzan movies, starring Johnny Weissmuller, were filmed in nearby Silver Springs precisely because they had access to Ringling’s elephants. And for many years there was, and still is a circus school here in Sarasota, but the Ringling School of Art has always been an independent institution. It was originally founded in 1931 as a branch of Florida Southern collage before becoming autonomous. John Ringling allowed the use of his name to add greater recognition to the school.
On my first day at Ringling, I was blindsided by my color and design teacher, who every year unmercifully picked on an unsuspecting new student. Thirty years later, through a random conversation with a Ringling alum, I learned that this was the modus operandi for this instructor. Today, he’d be fired and brought up on discrimination charges, but back then we kept our mouths shut out of respect for our elders and the institution. I guess that he understood the principles of Winning Through Intimidation, because I was too intimidated to protest. On the very first day of my color & design class this teacher read our names out and we were to raise our hands and say “here.” When my turn came, the teacher looked up at me sardonically and accusingly barked, “You, you’re a smart ass!” That was that, and he held that point of view toward me for the entirety of the course. That was my first day at the world-famous Ringling School of Art. Accused, judged and convicted all within one minute on the first day.
After class, I walked up to the teacher and I said, “It’s obvious that you have pegged me, but you have pegged me wrong.” He said, “We’ll see about that!” There was never a more sincere student to attend that school than yours truly, but the highest grade I earned in that class was a “D.” Most of my submissions earned me an “F.” I suffered his brutal sarcasm, belligerence and disdain for the remainder of the course.
Fortunately for me, the administration of the school decided, for some reason that will remain a perpetual mystery, that all of the students whose surname fell in the last half of the alphabet, would have all of their classes switched over to different teachers at the mid-term. For the last half of my first (and only) year at Ringling, I earned nothing but “A’s” in color and design. Was I an “F” student or an “A” student in color & design? Depends on the teacher. The grades meant nothing to me. Couldn’t care less about them. I wasn’t after a degree; I was after knowledge. Also, because my teachers were all replaced in the last half of the year, I discovered that the very same class could be approached differently. There was no one way to accomplish the goal. My first figure drawing teacher insisted that we begin every drawing with a quick gesture sketch. My second teacher insisted that we always begin our figure drawings at the pelvis and work out from there. Whose technique was right? Did these differing teachers have teachers of their own who taught them in the manner they were passing down to us? I suspect so.
Whether in scholastics, tribal protocol, religion or most anything else, we are expected to conform. Conform or be shunned. The fine arts department at UCLA doesn’t teach traditional painting technique. They are all about abstract art…as though that can be taught. I wouldn’t be allowed into their program. Nevertheless, if one graduates and earns a master’s degree, one will be able to teach in an accredited school. That’s fine if one’s ambition is to be a teacher, but if one wants to make a living producing art, I question the value of an M.A. after one’s name. At least I never saw any value in it for myself, and apparently, neither did my patrons.
One day, I stayed late at school talking to my figure drawing teacher. He offered me a ride home to my bungalow. Curiosity got the better of him and he peeked into my flat. He asked who did all of the paintings that were on display. When I told him that I had done them, he was shocked. Word spread amongst the teachers that a budding oil painter was in their midst. Hearing about this, my color & design teacher…the one in whose class I always earned “A’s,” came by for a look. This visit resulted in him calling my parents (my mother and stepfather) and requesting that they come to the school to discuss the “situation with their son.” They thought that I was in some kind of serious trouble, so, with great apprehension, they drove across the state.
