Transart Institute Commencement Address
August 1, 2008
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The German painter Adolph Hitler, who grew up here in Linz, Austria, wrote:
"Anyone who sees and paints a sky green and field blue ought to be sterilized."
This intolerance for color-blind people might explain not only why Hitler was a failed artist, among other obvious shortcomings, but also why it's important to be the kind of artist that, say, Anne spoke about in her talk yesterday: someone with an open mind and heart who plays, investigates, experiments, and sees the world in new and different ways. For a Masters in New Media program, Transart really isn't about new technologies at all -- but rather what makes us human and how we express that humanity as artists.
I have to confess that the label of being an artist used to make me very uncomfortable. This was exacerbated immensely by my participation in an American television reality program called ARTSTAR that I was in right before Transart. I was one of several artists chosen to exhibit at the Deitch Projects gallery in New York and to meet with various curators, critics, and art dealers. The Deitch art world is one particularly preoccupied with celebrity, commercialism, and what's fashionable at any given moment.
Carlo McCormick, the senior editor at Paper magazine and one of the TV show's judges, said to me facetiously, "If this ARTSTAR television program keeps just one child from becoming an artist, then all of our efforts will be worthwhile."
Transart, on the other hand, resists this kind of cynicism and exists for the exact opposite purpose. Cella's first words to us, in fact, were: "Transart is not here to create artstars. We are about helping people create sustainable, informed, and meaningful art practices."
And in looking at all these amazing artists sitting here, I think we've done just that. Over the past three summers, in particular, we've worked very closely together to collaborate on various projects and to plan new ones.
Sometimes this process does goes awry, of course. For example, last summer over lunch at the Crocodile Cafe, Gwen said to me that her project plan would be to "write a course" at Goshen College where she teaches. I distinctly heard that she was going to "ride a horse" and though I thought that was kind of weird for an art and research project, I tried to be supportive and recommended that she read Donna Haraway's "The Companion Species Manifesto" and maybe look at Gregory Colbert's work, if you were into that kind of thing. Sorry about that, Gwen.
And just last week, David Dunn was telling us about dolphin echolocation emissions that range from frequencies of 100 to 200,000 hertz. Monika asked him, "So, have you done work with dolphins?" And David and myself both clearly heard, "Have you done it with dolphins?"
And to our surprise, David spoke with great erudition on the intensely amorous nature of dolphins, and he did share his indirect experience with this kind of transpecies interaction. Suffice it to say, the story we heard would make a visit to Sea World significantly more traumatic. And for the record, young children should not be allowed near dolphins. You will have to speak with David directly for all the sordid details.
As we're about to become Masters of the Fine Arts, many of us have been thinking about the key people and events that have led us here. As with Arturo's grandmother, Jeannie's grandmother, and Cati's mom, my own mother inspired and supported me in becoming an artist. She is a classical Chinese painter who didn't just instruct me on her well-honed technique. She taught me how to examine the world with criticality as well as empathy.
About four years ago, my mother was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, which was a large brain tumor behind her left eye. She began to lose her vision. As an artist, she was profoundly sad, but she gritted her teeth and said to me one day:
"Well, if I can't paint anymore, then I will simply learn how to sculpt."
That's the kind of artist and person my mom is. After a particularly frustrating day at the Hospital, I told her that I was sorry for not becoming a physician as she and my father had perhaps hoped. "What good is an artist," I asked, "When you have a brain tumor?" She immediately grabbed my hand, looked me in the eye, and said:
"Medicine keeps us alive. But art is about why we live. Always be as proud -- if not more proud -- of being an artist as you would of being a doctor."
So, my fellow graduates, as we are about to hold our degrees in our hands ... or at least these xerox transcripts that I think we're getting today ... I am proud to call myself an artist. I hope all of us are proud of being artists. And that we will paint the skies green and the fields blue and continue to make a positive and critical contribution to our common cultural discourse.
Thank you very much.
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