IDEAS
What I’ve Learned Walle Conoly, professor of Art, St. Edward’s University, age 74
As told to Hannah M. Hepfer
I was 28 years old when I started teaching art at St. Edward’s. I won’t tell you what I got paid, but they promised me a studio that I still maintain now. And they fed me. Kids today are picky about campus food, but I was grateful. I had a 1965 red Volkswagen bug and a small apartment with its own garden that cost me $51 a month. Man, I thought I had it made! Art has the power to move the hell out of you. My wife sings opera, and I’m not even a huge opera fan but some arias can simply bring you to tears. You can’t help but respond. I wish young artists would not be so hard on themselves. I appreciate students who aren’t art majors and sign up for a drawing class. Most work very hard at it and appreciate how difficult it is. They show up with the attitude of, “Here I am, mold me.” They’re not too attached to the outcome. Some strike out, but they do it lovingly. I ’ve seen students who possess exceptional talent — the kind that can’t be taught — but who don’t excel because they’re not willing to do the work that it takes to develop their craft. Their grandma told them they had talent, and that’s good enough for them.
8 ST. EDWARD’S UNIVERSITY
It takes a special kind of student to become an art major. You know parents are wondering how their kids are going to pay the bills after graduation. You have to be careful not to become too much of a pal to your students because you have to grade them. I tell them it’s like the mafia: It’s nothing personal when I give you a bad grade. It’s just business. I took two semesters of life drawing taught by sculpture icon Charles Umlauf. He was very tough. He said, “When you’re drawing, you’re not touching paper; you’re touching the skin of your model.” To create art, you can’t focus on anything else going on around you. One of the sweetest moments in teaching is when I connect with a student, and we realize we both appreciate the same nuances in a piece of art. It’s that feeling that our love of art is affirmed by one another. You want to run around yelling, “It’s valid! It’s valid!” The great thing about art is you’re constantly searching. There’s that carrot dangling out in front of you, and you don’t understand why you’re chasing it. But through the creative process, it becomes clearer.