October 18, 2012:  A Banner Day
Deborah carried a banner for Art Education in the procession from the old MassArt building on Brookline  Avenue to Evans Park for the pageant to celebrate Dawn Barrett’s inauguration as President of MassArt. “I particularly wanted to be in the procession from the Longwood Building because, when I started working at MassArt in 1982, the college was still located there. ”

Deborah made the banner in the staff workshop last week and finished it with assistance from Julie Blauss,  work/study student.  Using strip piecing techniques from her quilt making days, she glued, rather than sewed, the fabric strips to form the 8-pointed star. “I chose the star motif because it seems celebratory to me, and the many colors and patterns of the fabrics show how all people can shine and be joyful when they have a chance to make art, at whatever level they enter.  When I say, Art Education for All, I am thinking of the seniors Adriana Katzew’s Community class is working with, the adults who take community and continuing education classes like I do, the students at MassArt and other art colleges, K-12 students, and everyone else whose life is enhanced by learning about and  making art.”

Paul Dobbs, the college library director, who formerly taught the graduate History of Art Education course, came to the Pageant as Walter Smith’s book Art Education.  Walter Smith is considered the founder of MassArt and was the first president from 1873 to 1882. An art educator from England, he was brought over to start the new Massachusetts Normal Art School, whose original purpose was to train teachers.  The Massachusetts legislature had passed in 1870 the Drawing Act, which mandated the teaching of drawing in public schools and also free drawing classes for adults and children in all towns with populations over 10,000. Teachers were therefore needed to teach drawing, which was seen as a skill that would enhance American industrial design as well as the manual and intellectual skills of the populace.  More on the history of Mass Art here.