The Artistic Temperment

Due to forgotten departmental turf wars waged decades past, Religious Studies was somehow stuffed into the same department as Fine Arts. As a consequence of that decision, I've spent part of my time as Chair interacting with and getting to know artists. This is my first prolonged exposure to the artistic temperament and it’s been an interesting education. One of the more memorable encounters I had occurred a few years ago.

It was a busy day, to be sure, but most days are. I was sitting in my office working on ways to slake the thirst of our Administration for various reports, rubrics and requisition approvals. There is a never ending shuffle of papers from Liberal Arts to the Admin building and I often feel like I’m just barely keeping up with it all. I was pulling out small amounts of my remaining hair follicles when Pat walked into my office unannounced.

Pat looks just like Jesus. Or at lest the way Jesus would’ve looked had he lived into his mid-forties. Pat’s brown hair is shoulder length and provides a striking contrast with his piercing blue eyes. Pat has taught painting as an adjunct for us for the last decade or so, predating even my own arrival on campus.

He’s also a sweet, nice guy. Pat's exceptionally well mannered, sometimes frustratingly so. I’ve known him for four or five years as faculty, but he continues to address me as Dr. Taran, despite my constant reminder that we are colleagues. His life is very simple. He paints, lives in a small apartment over someone’s garage, and makes very little money as an adjunct. My predecessor helped him to open his first checking account so that he could deposit his first semester’s paycheck. He also helped him with the process of buying his first car, even though Pat was in his thirties at the time. As the Colonel once described him “Pat is like a duck, every morning is a brand new day.”

Pat came into the office and waited for me to look up from my stacks of papers. Then he softly said “Dr. Taran, you need to come to my class for a minute.” I felt my heart rate increase slightly at his statement. Whenever a faculty member calls me out of my office and to their class, it’s usually for a pretty big reason. A part of my time at work is spent trouble shooting, something I enjoy a lot. But statements like that get the adrenaline pumping.

As we walked out of our building, Pat deflected my attempts to find out what the problem in his class was. Then he surprised me when we walked not to the art lab, but rather to a small grove of trees near our building. There are several benches in the area and several of his students were sitting there with their sketchboards drawing out pencil sketchings of the trees, squirrels and other elements of nature. They were working on outdoor scenes and I didn’t see a crisis in sight.

I started to ask Pat what the problem was, but he was already back into instructor mode. He had walked over to one of the seated students and was offering some constructive criticism of their work. Since Pat was busy, I (somewhat awkwardly) waited in silence. The day was warm, but not hot. The students were all quietly working on their drawings. I stood there for a moment and enjoyed the peaceful tranquility. There was no telephone ring or email chime. No secretaries were in sight. Things could be worse than standing outside, surrounded by nature, and teaching students. Finally, I sat down myself and enjoyed the warm afternoon.

I continued to wait while he finished up with the student. As he started to walk to another of his students, I quickly stood up and reached out for his arm.

“Pat, what’s wrong?” I asked.

He looked mystified at my question.

“Nothing.” he replied.

Somewhat surreally, I said “But you told me I needed to come to your class.”

His confused expression broke into a grin and he said “Dr. Taran, I told you that you needed to my class because I saw you in your office and you looked like you NEEDED to come outside.” He then turned away from me and went back to his students.

Somewhat surprised by his response, I thought for a few seconds before I realized that he was right. Then I sat down on the bench and enjoyed the rest of the class period watching the squirrels and students.