Creative Art

ARTIST IN RESIDENCE AT DARTMOUTH

IN the crowded undergraduate life of today exposure to or participation in the creative arts is for most something quite unknown. Aside from those who profit from classroom instruction there is only a small group to whom an acquaintanceship with any of the arts yields a very real and lasting satisfaction.

This seems to be a pattern of long standing, but there are some of us who believe it can be changed. We believe that such a change can result from bringing about a more favorable climate for exposure and for participation - an environment more likely to kindle curiosity from indifference and then perhaps lead to lively interest.

This means bringing about a different attitude toward the arts in the mind of the average undergraduate. Enjoyment and appreciation must not be thought of as for only the initiated few. To look at paintings or listen to good music need not necessitate a special expedition or "cultural" project. It would be good to have such opportunities available as part of a day's routine.

I think of the city of Florence as an ideal in this respect - with opportunity in almost every part of the city to stop in a church and see a fresco, to walk a few blocks in the evening to hear some music, or sit down and rest before a statue by Michelangelo or Donatello. To have been able not only to view a Giotto or a Ghirlandaio as completed but to see them in progress would have been to live in the ideal climate for the enjoyment of painting. In this environment, art becomes a usual and not an exceptional experience.

I believe firmly that participation or doing leads to appreciation. In drawing and painting I consider the fact of the value in the doing to be the basic one in my being here as Artist-in-Residence. My interest lies not in schooling young men for an eventual career in painting, but in guiding them - through their own participation - in the attitudes of judgment and critical taste which are common to both those who create and those who soundly appreciate. In like manner I believe that those who have had to do somewhat with making music are very apt to be the more discerning and receptive listeners.

To bring participants in the various arts and crafts together with their potential public, and to provide a center for their union, is to establish an environment for mutual understanding.

The proposed Hopkins Center is concerned in doing precisely this; and moreover, by including social facilities for all undergraduates, their guests, and visiting alumni, it is thought that the Hopkins Center will effect a congenial and natural meeting of the arts and the general public of the community.

The creative arts are primarily a means of communication. The concept of the Hopkins Center recognizes in this matter ample provision for those to whom the artist may communicate as well as facilities for those who will communicate.

I like the idea of the proximity of the various activities in this building - the theater, woodworking, painting, music, architecture, printmaking. I like to think of them functioning under one roof and in a structure where the whole student body will circulate.

I am certain that the Center's planned use in the various fields of the arts will increase in the undergraduate body an active awareness of their significance and interrelation. My guess is that they will come to be regarded not as specialized enterprises for the few but as what they actually are - quite natural outlets for man's basic need to communicate and express himself to other men.

There is no doubt in my own mind that the values anticipated in the entire concept are at the very core of a liberal arts educational program.

The choice of the architect and artist, Wallace Harrison, to design the complex of Hopkins Center buildings has, to my mind, been already outstandingly justified. His understanding of and enthusiasm for the ideals of the project have yielded a design of originality and beauty, and one correspondingly significant in function and fitness.

I personally am happy with a contemporary rather than a traditional style of architecture. With the exception of the serene beauty of Dartmouth Row, the campus at Dartmouth is not distinguished by either the originality or beauty of its architecture. It should not be overlooked that when Dartmouth Row was built it was an original and creative expression of architecture, and it stands so today. It was not a copy of an outdated period, but a valid expression of its time. It is thus the only example of originality on our campus. It is time we had another such outstanding, creative example - and, moreover, we have the happy anticipation of its being in harmonious relationship to existing structures. It would be a denial of the vitality of the 20th century to erect another traditional building on the Dartmouth campus.

Paul Sample in his studio