I learned it from my kids

I can hear it now.  “McAbee’s gone soft!”

At least once a year I hear a student complain that I’m being too easy on the younger class of students in the Sculpture Studio.  Early in my teaching career I would dismiss these groundless claims but after a few years of repeated complaints, I decided I needed to take a moment and see if I had really changed.  It turned out that the reason they were saying that had more to do with their biased memories of how mean I was to them.  The pressure always seems worse when you’re in the class.  I’ve taken the time to explain this to a few students over the years and most have reluctantly agreed.  

After 24 years of teaching college classes, I do understand that I’ve changed how I teach.  I was probably a lot more strict with my students early on.  I know I held them to a very high standard and I could give you a list of names of currently successful arts professionals who benefited from those high expectations.  When I changed schools, I kept my high standards as much as possible but did have to make some exceptions because I was in a different environment teaching a different demographic.  

Since then, our degrees have changed and I’ve added a lot of classes.  We’ve also been through a pandemic and adjusted to a generation of students who relied on Individual Education Plans in high school and had a COVID adjusted educational experience.  So yeah, I’ve definitely had to adjust my tactics over the years.  My expectations remain high, though and the quality of education I deliver is also high.

I remember (and I think I’ve mentioned it in a post in the past) coming back from quarantine and having a conversation with a friend about how much students needed hugs.  I genuinely believed that their lack of physical contact and any real sign of affection had negatively impacted their mental and emotional health.  I decided that I was going to fix that by offering hugs to all my students when they returned.  I chickened out.  But there’s this other thing I didn’t chicken out on and I wanted to tell you about it.

My “teaching face” is that I’m an emotionless art machine.  I tell my students that they need to work all the time and that we can separate ourselves from our emotions and from things that might be going on in our lives.  I have often said that we can check our worries and anxieties at the studio door.  As a teacher, I know that I must practice this daily.  When you have a job to do, no one cares what’s going on in your life.  You still need to show up and be excellent.  Always trying to practice what I preach, after I held my dad’s hand for the last time ever, I drove home, got a couple of hours of sleep and was back at school early the next morning for class.  That’s exactly what he would have told me to do.  

It really doesn’t matter what kind of morning I’ve had or how I’m feeling when it comes to being an effective teacher.  I need to be able to give my all to my students if I’m expecting my students to do the same.  Two Augusts ago my art persona was in jeopardy.  My son started attending the school where I teach and every now and then he would come by my office or the studio.  I loved it and always wanted him to feel welcome.  I figure it was a bit of a comfort for him as he got used to life away from home.  The thing is, Blue has always been really great at this one thing:  telling you he loves you when he leaves.  I’ve always respected and admired him for this.  On that very first visit there were students around who only knew me as an emotionless machine.  When it was obvious Blue was about to leave, I had a moment of tension when I realized that in every other situation he would say “Bye, I love you” as he left.  I wondered if he would still say it with people around.  He did.  So much respect.  

My graduate mentor was very similar.  He was all business, all work, all the time.  He had no interest in your little feelings, he only wanted you to make great work.  The first time I saw him interact with his adorable toddler daughter, my world stopped spinning.  Who was this human man who was baby-talking with this adorable child?  Surely this couldn’t be the same professor who had just shouted in a wonderful British accent at an entire class of slacker students…possibly even cursing at us.

As Blue walked away, I rightly responded, “Bye, I love you too”.  I could feel the confusion in the air as students tried to process how my body had been snatched and had been replaced by some alien who clearly didn’t know who I was.  

Slowly and quietly, Blue and Violet (because she had learned the same habits from Blue) were teaching me that it was important to tell people you love them.  

This academic year I started to wonder if my students knew I loved them.  (You can find a recent post about this topic.)  When it became clear to me that some students did not know that, I decided to take a cue from Blue and tell them.  When I would finally gather my belongings at the end of a long day and walk through the studio, there would be a number of students working.  I announced I was leaving and said “Bye, I love y’all!”.

The response was interesting.  That first time, only a couple of close students were brave enough to say “Love you too!”.  Quickly, though, others followed suit.  After a few months of this happening regularly, I’m sure there are still some who just listen and don’t respond as I leave, but I smile knowing they still have to hear that they are loved.  

Soft you say?  Dude.  Anything but.  Pick a student and ask them if my classes or projects are easy.  They’ll tell you I yelled at them and demanded that they put in double digit hours in the studio outside of class time.  They'll tell you I told them to quit their job and break up with their person.  They’ll tell you this is their hardest class.  They’ll tell you I’m mean.  And I’m ok with all of that as long as they also tell you that they are certain that I love them.

Looking back on the former years of teaching, I wonder if those students knew I loved them.  I was really tough on people like Scherini, Sarah Gregory, Logan, and Molly at Winthrop and Ali, Emily, Armir in the early Lander days.  I was tough on them precisely because I love them.  It’s easy to not care.  Loving is hard. Surely they knew.  Right?  Surely.  

love, really

 

Last Thursday morning, a group of my students grabbed a stack of handwritten signs and stood out in the plaza as their peers hurried to their 9:30 classes.  They stood there, smiling, and holding signs that read “I love you”.  

I watched as students we didn’t know walked by.  Some paid no attention at all.  Some looked and called out “I love you too!” as they moved on.  Many others read the signs, tried to hold back a smile and continued walking.  

This has been on my mind for many reasons.  In the last few weeks, I’ve written several potential blog posts that have been fueled or at least inspired by the nonsense going on in our political and quasi-religious landscape.  Those writings have just been sitting around on my computer and the longer they sit, the less likely I am to post them publicly.  I hate politics and I don’t want to be one of those internet naggers whose posts you skip because you know they’ll leave you feeling more rage and unrest in an already stressful day.  But, dude, there’s something in this that just won’t leave my brain.  I may end up posting this one.

Those students stood there on Thursday with numb fingers from the cold and declared to every human that walked by that they were loved.  They didn’t just say they loved the art majors or the white people.  They didn’t just say they loved the ones who believed what they believed or used the old fashioned pronouns.  They stood there and said that they loved everyone.  

You know who’s not doing that these days?  Christians.  Ok, I’ll be nice and use quotation marks.  “Christians”.  There’s at least a large number of “Christians” who are supportive of declarations, votes and initiatives that treat other humans unfairly.  Pick your favorite one, there are some that single out trans people, some that single out the handicapped, some that single out non-white people, some that single out women and some that single out just about any group of non-male, non-straight, non-white people.  Pick an executive order.  Pick a hot-button topic.  Yes, this is politics on the surface, you’re right.  I understand that political parties will pick these “issues” to defend or deny and sadly, I’ve grown to expect as much.  My problem begins when “Christians” get involved.  

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it:  Love your neighbor as yourself.  All the law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”  Matthew 22:37-40

I’ve seen Bible references used for all sorts of things, usually completely out of context and with no regard for the culture in which they were written.  But this one, spoken from the mouth of Jesus, seems to often be overlooked, along with the numerous other verses about loving others.  How we love other humans is directly tied to how we love God.  That’s not an interpretation of the quote, that’s what it says.  Everything else in our lives depends on love.  That’s what it says.  

If you call yourself a “Christian” then you believe  in the Imago Dei.  Your church doctrine says that you believe that humans were created in the image of God.  If you actually believe that humans were created in the image of God, you would never be ok with humans being treated unfairly and without love, respect and honor.  You would not be able to support taking away free meals from students to save money.  You would not be able to support non-citizens being shackled and put on planes to send them back to countries where their lives are in danger.  You would not be able to support laws that say humans don’t get to decide what happens to their own bodies.  If you believed in God, you would believe in love for everyone who walked by.  You would want all humans to be treated with the same love, kindness and respect.  

If your religion believes in tough love, conditional love and people needing to qualify to be loved, it is not Christianity.  Your religion is probably Capitalism and it will turn on you just as quickly as it turned on others.   

Oh, you came here for the art stuff?  Well, this is actually it.  Every work of art I create contains messages to help the people who see it.  Not certain people with an MFA or just the people who go into galleries.  It has always been important to me to create art for everyone at every level.  This is why public sculpture and murals are so important to me.  Public art has the ability to stand in a public place and hold that sign.  It has the power to let all humans know they are loved.

I invite you into a little self-reflection.  Would you be able to hold that sign and stand in a busy plaza and mean it?  Or do you really only have love for people who are like you?  

I’ll also invite you into a conversation.  If you believe you have a sound theological reason to support the dehumanizing that has recently been espoused by our government while also honoring God, I’d love to hear it.  

the most powerful thing

I was struck by something that happened today and I wanted to share it.  Normally I like to take some time and carefully consider things before sharing.  I don't think this one can wait.  Who knows where it will go.

I am a lucky guy.  Lucky, blessed.  Whichever word best suits your worldview.  As an artist it's always been easy for me to see the world through the lens of a Creator and the created.  It certainly explains my instinct to create.  But things have been good for me in really big ways.  There are lots of very, very important things in life that have come to me in positive ways.  This is a way of saying that I have much for which to be grateful.  And not just "I'm grateful for coffee and chocolate", which I am...I'm talking about the really big things.  

I honestly try to pay attention to those things and not take them for granted.  I spend time every day taking note of these things and sometimes saying them out loud.  So they're on my mind and I know they're important.

But then this thing happened today.

I arrived at school and was quickly greeted by someone who handed me a cookie.  This shook my entire day.  It wasn't a check for a million dollars, it wasn't a cure for an illness, it wasn't even a beach house.  It was a cookie.  I was stunned.  It made my morning and I've thought about it all day.  

I imagine this person also eats cookies.  I imagine they could have eaten this cookie.  It would have made a lot of sense.  But instead, they wrapped it up and thought of someone outside of themselves.  Someone who they thought would really enjoy a cookie.  Then they walked out of their way, carrying a cookie that would have been delicious if they ate it, and brought it to me.  

I've thought a lot today about why this touched me the way it did.  It may have something to do with the Lenten season and me trying to be more in touch with random acts of kindness.  It may even have something to do with a Netflix show I stumbled upon called "The Kindness Diaries".  In this reality/documentary type show, the host travels around the world with no money and survives completely on the kindness of strangers.  He asks for gas money in every town, he asks for meals every day and each night he has to find a place to stay for free.  His theory he's setting out to prove is that people are not the evil, horrible beings you see on the news reel every night.  He believes that people are really kind.  The show more or less bears that out.  

And maybe he's right.  

There's this movie I love called "Stranger Than Fiction".  At the end of the movie there's a line that goes, "Sometimes when we lose ourselves in fear and despair, in routine and tragedy, we can thank God for Bavarian sugar cookies.  And fortunately when there aren't any cookies, we can still find reassurance in a familiar hand or a kind and loving gesture or a subtle encouragement or a loving embrace or an offer of comfort........and we must remember that all these things, the nuances, the anomalies, the subtleties which we assume only accessorize our days - are here for a much larger and nobler cause.  They are here to save our lives."

I'm becoming convinced that the world is not to be changed with large actions and gestures.  There's something about love that always seems to work in exactly the opposite way we expect.  I'm becoming convinced that it's those small things, those cookies we give people, that have the power to change the world.  One small act at a time.  

You wanna be powerful?  You wanna do something important?  Go do something small for someone right now.  It's the most powerful thing you can do.  


Thank you for the cookie.