Dear ArtEd Students, Staff, and Faculty:

I’m clearing up in preparation for the holiday break, following a wonderful week of reviews. It is so rejuvenating to see and talk with you about your/our students’ work. It makes us all very proud — we learn so much from you and are lifted by the promise of your entering our artist-teacher profession. You remake the field anew, again and again. It is a privilege to work with you.

On a sober note, though, we’ve all been tormented by the horror of the shootings in Connecticut last week. As more information and stories come out in the news, it just seems to get more painful. I’m grateful that our President is taking up the related issue of gun control and hope he’ll also move forward on access to quality mental health care in our communities. But even that seems beside the point when I think of you and your students going into schools everyday, and when we are in a public college everyday. We are all deeply pained.

So, as we do whenever things get hard or go wrong, we want to hold you close and encourage you to reach out and hold each other, too. We need to support one another at times like these, and it gives us all courage to remember that we still have one another. I recall a story about making a trip in the dark — all we have on dark roads are our headlights and the ten or so feet of illumination they offer before us. Yet, that is enough to travel safely for the whole journey. Let us use the small lights of ourselves for each other as we move ahead in these next days and weeks.

I hope you have a restful and refreshing break. We look forward to greeting you soon in the New Year!

Warmly,
Lois
Chair, Art Education