brand new adults: graduation 2016 or the four year hug

 This week we said our farewells to another great group of artists and sent them out into the world.  This group really bonded together as a family during their 4 years as Lander Visual Art majors.  And with their big personalities and truckloads of talent, they also bonded together with their professors during that time.  The photo above is from the Senior Exhibit reception the night before graduation.  That's Lee, Tara, Laura, Erica, James, Megan, Caitlin, Oscar, Krysten and Braden looking proud.

 The next morning they all walked across the stage and became official adults.  After the ceremony, we always gather to take photos and offer our official goodbyes.

 My beard protected me from feeling emotions.  I sent Metal Megan off with a smile.  Not having a heart comes in pretty handy in moments like this.  It also helps that she'll be working in Greenwood so she not really leaving us completely yet.

 I think Rashaad was feeling all the feelings though.  He didn't say so, but he's the only member of his "Firesquad Family" who has one more semester with us.  His goodbyes were probably even harder than ours.  But 'Shaad always plays it cool as you can see from this pic I got.

jon wasn't able to be at graduation this time, but here's the rest of the Dream Team.

 That's Oscar.  We like Oscar.  I like Oscar.  Heck, I like all these goons more than I'll let them know, but this was a very special day for Oscar and for me.  

I have space issues.  I don't like people touching me or getting in my space.  But if I'm the South Pole, Oscar is the North Pole.  He's a hugger.  A chronic hugger.

Four years ago as a freshman, Oscar tried to hug me.  (About 400 times.)  Each time he tried, I repeated my rule to him.  "I'll hug you at graduation".  That's the rule.  Sure, there may be the very rare exception to that rule...like leaving the country for a year or winning a super great award, but that's the rule.  I'll hug you at your graduation.  Not a moment before.  

Of course, there are plenty of students who don't care and they'll slip by with a smile and a wave and we can both feel good about that.  But there are others who come to feel that with their four years of blood, sweat, tears and lack of sleep, they have earned not only a diploma, but also a hug from the non-hugger.  

Oscar has literally chased me around campus trying to hug-attack me.  I've had to threaten to fail him multiple times.  I may have been forced to wave a hammer at him (joking).  But he didn't get a hug.  Not before graduation.  That's the rule.  

The Oscar hug has been building steadily over time.  This semester you could see the hug wave building higher and stronger with each passing month.  Oscar and I both started working out to get ready.  I've been doing arms and abs for months to prepare.  Friday night at the Senior Exhibit we gave each other a knowing look before we left.  Oscar whispered under his breath, "Soon McAbee, soon."

Saturday after graduation we all met near the art building.  I dropped my hat and program on the ground and started stretching.  Oscar gave his phone and camera to designated photographers.  Family, friends and professors gathered with their recording devices to capture the moment.  When everything was perfect, it happened...

 That was a hug four years in the making.

Thanks to Singletary for capturing the still pictures and sharing those with me.  This was an epic moment.  Oscar really did earn his hug.  

And yeah, everyone got a hug.  Congrats to them all.  

end of semester shenanigans

The end of the semester brings loads of work and stress for students and faculty alike.  Apparently these are some of the ways we cope...

 Singletary had a birthday.  For months we planned and schemed to lure her out to one of the local Mexican restaurants for a celebration.  And by "months" I mean we literally planned this while she was on the way to the restaurant.  We made a birthday card out of a napkin and made her wear the birthday sombrero while the staff sang to her.  Chelsea, Armir, Asger, Lindsay (Buttermilk) and Elizabeth(Mini Me) all had Singletary and me for classes this year.

 My whiteboard is like it's own little micro-Twitter.  People post things there to be read by everyone who enters the room.  My hatred of cats is well known.  This was one of several cats that appeared during the last two weeks.

 This is Sydney (Syd Vicious).  One morning I walked into class early and witnessed her using the class hair dryer to dry her hair.  Yep, that's Syd.

 One of the cool things our department does each year is a spring cookout for the students.  It's always at the end of the semester when stress is high and deadlines are looming.  This is a fun thing we can do to get everyone's mind off the work for a few minutes.  Esnipes was ready for the beach so jon made her a mini beach to enjoy.

 We declared the cookout to be "black tie casual".  No one had ever heard of this so it was open for interpretation.  This little guy came dressed in his tuxedo.

 Pano shot of the entire group.

 Everyone was taking photos.  Megan brought her selfie stick and James got this one of most of the group.

 I think these photos came from Oscar.  Esnipes wore a little black dress with pajama bottoms.  I wore my Mona Lisa tie with shorts.  Singletary wore the giant tie I made for Gumby a few years ago.  Kaitlin joined us to pose for Oscar.

 Jim wore his black tie with his Steelers jersey.  jon never misses a chance to wear a wig.  And he had lime green furry boots.

 I offered to let my first early morning exam bring food to the studio clean up time.  They had a better idea.  They suggested we clean the studio and then adjourn to Cracker Barrel for a quality breakfast.  Since this was our last meeting together, we took over one side of the restaurant long enough to poorly reenact Da Vinci's Last Supper for a photo.  Kristen (Dread) played the part of Jesus.  The disciples were James, Haley, Sam, Taylor, Armir, Buttermilk, Jessie, Jamie, me, Jamea, Asger and Mini Me.

 Clean up day often provides stress relief.  When students consider the possibility of moving their projects home or trashing them, the idea of smashing them with a hammer usually sounds pretty good.  Jamaica was one of the happy hammer-ers this time.

 We dug holes for the better part of last week to install public sculptures.  I'll have to tell you about those later.  But while digging one of the tougher ones (or having Olivia dig it) I got a call inviting us to lunch.  I told Olivia to dig faster and after we wiped the red dirt off our clothes we dragged Megan out of the sculpture studio and met the rest of the group at a different Mexican place.  

I told Olivia about Singletary's Mexican birthday the week before and she confessed that her birthday was in two days.  So we quickly went to work on a napkin birthday card.  Singletary found an old AA battery in her purse so we wrapped that up as a gift.  She also got the sombrero and song treatment.

 And you know how teachers bring their laptops in to give a presentation and the students respect the privacy of the teacher and do not bother the laptops while the teacher is helping other students?  Yeah, me neither.  When I walked into the next room Buttermilk and Syd Vicious stole my computer and launched Photobooth.

 Sadly it took a week for me to find the huge series of photos they left for me.

 Lesson learned.  Never leave your computer unattended.

 The Senior Show reception was a big, roaring success.  We took photos of the group for 10 minutes.  After each photo we realized someone was missing.  I think this was the last one so hopefully everyone is in it.  There's Sam, Jessica, Rachael, Emily, Cassie, Logan, Hunter, Stacy, Paige, Boddie, Daniel and Mia.

 After that many photos things started to get weird.

Almost as weird as my hat.  Or Logan.  (Just kidding Logan!)  I'm going to miss all the funny things you say.  Especially when you don't know they're funny.  And for the rest of you who are not Logan, we know that she'll read this because she's a known internet stalker!  Kidding again Logan.  But I will miss you.

 jon holloway is amazing.  We all know his photography is award winning and life changing.  We all know he's super smart and he has Olympic level social skills.  But did you know he's a world class bowler?  Check out that form.  After our year end faculty dinner the other night he gave us two choices.  We could all jump a train or go bowling.  Bowling was fun.  

 The next morning it was time to see this group of seniors off.

 Those faces.

 That face.

 Jeremiah's proud family.

 Another proud parent behind Logan.

 More faces.

 The art faculty dream team.  Minus Chrystine who was saving us a spot at The Dixie for lunch.

 And almost everyone in all their royal robes.  Good luck y'all.  Come back home anytime to visit.

my people

Four years ago I started teaching at Lander and we welcomed a huge group of freshmen.  These new recruits were the first bunch to get a taste of the new Lander Visual Art department faculty. 

The program was tougher and more rigorous and those foundations classes were especially rough.  And the projects...the projects were out there.  When they checked in to their freshman dorms they had no idea they'd soon be wallowing in plaster, welding, making public sculptures, getting permanent sculpture commissions, winning awards, getting news stories written about them, getting on the tv news, Skyping with famous designers, getting to know a darling of QVC, changing the campus with their artwork and playing racquetball with their professors.

It was such a great group of students and over the years very few faded away.  Those same faces I saw in that first 3D Design class mostly stuck it out for the entire four years.  Some of those students enrolled in three, four or five of my courses during that time.  Some would come visit from time to time when they didn't have my classes and some would even visit regularly.

There are a number of things that make Lander's Art Department great but one of the more important ones has to be the students.  

Spring semester of their freshman year.  Plaster pouring day in my 3D Design class.  KJ, Abby, Colleen, Tylan, Rion, Ashley.

Fall semester of their second year.  My ceramics class on Raku night.  Cessquatch, The Tavmanian Devil, Josie, Elizabethe and Abby.

 Fall semester of their third year.  1st day of Sculpture class.  KJ, Fred, Mean Megan, Whitney, Cessquatch, Kelsey, Other Megan, Abby, Bennell, The Tavmanian Devil, Katertot, Ashley, Sean.

Graduation day, last Saturday.  The whole gang of hoodlums.

Mean Megan was fussing at me about something as usual.  The Tavmanian Mane in the background.

Katertot, Jim, me, Sean, Singletary

This is the pose I got when I said, "OK, look smart."

And this is when I realized they were leaving me forever.  Cessquatch, Tavmanian Devil, Sean, Katertot.

 We offered to fail a few of them to keep them around longer.  Some of them considered the offer longer than they should have.  The Tavmanian Devil, Mean Megan and a couple others begin the MAT program in two weeks and I'll teach them yet again in the fall (Lord help us all).  The others hit the bricks this week looking for jobs and preparing to begin their professional lives.  

It's been four years of laughter, creativity, learning and silliness.  You'd be hard pressed to find a better bunch of hoodlums.  


I'm not a big fan of people, but I'm a big fan of these people.