Death and Dying
Art and the Question of Life
I was coaching studio art at a small liberal arts college in the mountains of Virginia. You can’t really teach art, you can only to coach it. Somehow I had gotten roped into team teaching, (team teaching being the academic fad of the moment), a course on Death and Dying with a woman professor from the psychology department. All I recall about her was that she wore black, as well as black lipstick and fingernail polish.
As for Death and Dying as an academic subject, we collectively knew nothing. Creativity being a principal way to cheat the grave, as a painter I was drafted to participate.
We drew up a reading list, Margaret Kubler Ross being our goddess. Then there was Swimmer in a Secret Sea by William Kotzwinkle. It was dark and brooding. Another paperback was about two young boys caring for their failing grandfather. I forget its name, but it was very useful. Many in the class seemed to identify with it. We invited a variety of visiting lecturers with varying results. Everyone had an opinion, and there was no consensus.
It was winter in the mountains, which was a death-like season. The only radio station in the small town, an AM affair, featured the Obituary Column of the Air. The program broadcast daily against the background of organ music while an undertaker-voiced character with a rich baritone delivered details about the lives of the deceased. Everybody got the point.
Many papers were written, but my major contribution was to set up a video camera in a closet of the old building we occupied and have everyone file in and make a short videotape offering their thoughts on dying.
We were all young, and strong, with our entire lives before us. By now, I expect some of that class has, in fact, died. They would be old enough, as am I. None of the tapes have survived and that is unfortunate, but I do recall one young man in particular. He looked straight into the camera and said something to the effect that, “Everyone who has ever lived has died, or is about to. So, what’s the big deal?”
What’s the big deal, indeed. So much about what we think of as art relies on the answer to that question.
William Dunlap
I remember a class, taught by three philosophy professors, and one of the assigned readings was about Gramp. I don't remember the particulars of the story, but it seems like it was two young boys and their dying grandfather. I remember the professors, and how we met up for potlucks around dinnertime once a week somewhere on campus. I loved that class.
Your stories (for me, because of our shared moment of history at ASU) bring back floods of memories. This one is so poignant as we've aged into our ripened years. And the question or acknowledgement that life and death are at the center of each artifact is profound.
True Life Adventure.