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Residential
College
Commencement 2001
On Making Things New |
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In his very sad poem, "Mr. Flood's Party," Edwin Arlington Robinson describes an evening in the lonely life of old Eben Flood. His days virtually over, Eben sits upon a hillside overlooking his village, empty now of friends and family, observing, in a sense, the wreckage of all that was, and drinking himself into forgetful oblivion. In a perfect image of fear and sorrow and despair Robinson has Eben cradling his jug of spirits tenderly, the way a mother would a child, "knowing that most things break." Indeed, there surely is nothing that is made that does not at some time or other need remaking. Time and use, wear and misuse make inevitable inroads into our best and most innovative work, dimming the original clarity, muddying the carefully crafted detail, eroding precision, and greying color. But by some saving grace not all things do break. Almost seventy years ago a respected Greensboro artist did a posthumous portrait of Mary Foust Armstrong, and it was hung above the fireplace of the residence hall named after her -- this one of course. It was hanging there when the Residential College first located here in 1971, and for a decade Mary's likeness graced the RC parlor. But the years and smoke from the fireplace were unkind to the painting, so in the early 80's Dr. Whitlock, then RC Director, decided to return the portrait to the Foust family for safekeeping. To celebrate the College's thirtieth year, Dr. Fran Arndt, the present Director, hit upon a splendid idea -- the renovation and restoration of the portrait that had witnessed our beginnings and a re-creation of it to watch over our future. Fortunately, Fran (and Mary) had at their beck and call restorer and recreator extraordinaire, Jeanne Aaroe. Over the past several months she has been engaged in the renovation/restoration of the original painting and in the creation of a new portrait, based upon the original. Jeanne tells me that the two kinds of work are dramatically different. Restoration, she says, demands an objective, almost scientific detachment, stringently limited by what the original was. Clearly, the restorer begins with damaged goods, a painting (in this case, an oil painting) whose colors have dimmed and faded, whose protecting varnish has darkened over the years muddying background detail, and whose surface has in places been chipped, damaged by water, and dirtied by smoke and various pollutants. In other words, the restorer begins with a hurt work, in need of healing and patient care. What she must do is fairly straightforward: she must first clean the portrait by delicately removing the old, darkening varnish. Then the surface of the painting itself must be mended -- the chipped places repainted, the background detail sharpened, and the colors generally refreshed and revitalized. But into none of this work may the restorer herself intrude. What she must constantly have in mind is the original painting and the idea it represented. In a sense, the other artist's intent and method must direct the renovation and restoration of his own work. Recreating a new version of the original painting, I am told, is another matter altogether and demands a considerably different sensibility. The recreation begins with a healed original, made as clean and clear as it can be. But other elements may enter the new painting as well -- simple studies made for the original and old photographs, for example -- and, significantly, the new artist's own vision of the subject now revisited. With a recreation it is possible, while being guided by the idea and style of the original, to be daringly creative, to allow, even perhaps demand, personal involvement. A recreation, a new version of the old painting, is a new painting, reflecting within the conventions and discipline of the old, new ideas, a new intention, and the need to speak to a new audience in terms to which it can respond. We have with us today both the original Mary Foust portrait as restored by Mrs. Aaroe and her own recreation of the subject. I draw your detailed attention to them (and to the work they represent), because they stand as instructive images through which to approach the thirtieth anniversary of the Residential College. Thirty years is a long time for an "experiment" to survive, and all that time, and its wear and tear, have inevitably eroded some of the original vitality, freshness, and energy of RC's beginnings. From where I sit (or stand at the moment) renovation seems to have been RC's watchword for the last half dozen years. Some of the renewal has been physical -- the place has been virtually made over -- from this terribly hard-warked room, once shabby and tattered, now quite lovely and pleasant, through the carpeted, freshly painted hallways to the meticulously re-tiled roof. The physical changes are dramatic, but the hall is still comfortably Mary Foust. Other renovations have been subtler, but perhaps even more significant. Externally, the college has been realigned within the university structure, and it has established new relationships with other developing programs on and off campus. Internally, the curriculum continues to be tweaked, new courses added, old ones dropped. Council governance through committees constantly reforms itself. And there are new kids on the block: Faculty faces have changed dramatically over the years, new staff has been added, and each year, of course, there is a cleansing tide of new students. The remarkable characteristic of all this change is that it hasn't subverted what has always been the integrating idea of Residential College. The program is still dedicated to the formation of a rich liberal studies base upon which to build later specialization. It still believes that to educate a student is to educate a whole person. And it continues to think that that sort of education can best be accomplished within a community of caring individuals whose lives are not separate from their learning or from each other. In short, RC, beneath all its changes, remains a program faithful to its original, a program not about numbers or categories or boxes, but a program about persons and values. Nonetheless, in a sense all that is only prelude; it is renovation; the exciting recreative process lies before us and in your hands. It is your responsibility as students, staff, and faculty to take the renewed place and program and make it your own, involving yourself deeply, with energy and at risk, in the shaping of RC's future. I think it is a daunting task, not only because the future, though immensely potential, is both fragile and yours, but because the past has been so extraordinarily rich and belongs not only to you, but to the many who lived it and made it. Demanding or not, daunting or not, it is the challenge that lies open and clear before you -- to create from and within the original idea of this college, one that is uniquely and vitally your own, that speaks to new questions and finds new ways to resolve old doubts. It is a task and a challenge, nevertheless, that you can undertake with considerable hope -- you can look at the thirty years of marvelous life that preceded your efforts as a powerful sign that, despite Mr. Flood's understandable fear, some things just don't break. Or you might ask Jeanne. |
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