art/vision/voice - Maryland Institute College of Art

case study: xavier university of louisiana 55
I didn’t know that I was going to be a teacher when I left Xavier,
because I figured that I was the dumbest kid in New Orleans when
I graduated high school. When I got out of high school, I had, like,
a D average. I was like third to the last kid in the class at Walter L.
Cohen [High School]! So I had to get special permission to come
to Xavier, and my counselor brought me here to meet Scott the first
time and show my work to him. And then we had to meet other faculty
members, and I was basically let in by special permission. So that
gave me my opportunity. The first year I had to, in retrospect, I had
to take courses before I could actually get credit for them. I had to
sit in art history class every time it met. Whatever my experiences
were prepared me for what I’m doing now, so with my kids, I’ll
go the extra mile. That’s the part that I pass on; where I know I have
to go deeper.
When I had all kinds of hassles and troubles and issues, I knew
that they got addressed here, so that I was becoming a person, a
human being, I wasn’t just becoming an artist. I may have had that
as my focus, but what I think is that it shaped the whole person. It
shaped a personality. When I think of all the hats that I wear now,
it’s amazing. Once I got in the community and started rolling up
my sleeves, I realized that this university, this experience that I had
here, prepared me for all of that.
I had kind of a mentor my senior year at Walter L. Cohen, Pat
Jessie came and taught painting, she was an artist-in-residence, and
that got me really interested in doing murals in the Orleans Parish
school system. So when I got to Xavier . . . I’d had exposure in a lot
of different areas. So Scott, I used to say, he was just like me, he had
all of these other interests that I have and so, when he was doing
sets, when we did Purlie Victorious, I was right there with him until
three o’clock in the morning. I made sure that I was there.
john We used to do all of the sets for the operas they did at Xavier.
richard And that kind of exposure led me to also doing set design in
the New Orleans community. So I made use of everything that I got
from here. And a lot of times, I feel myself speaking, talking like
this man, and I say that’s what made me smart. Somebody used to
say, it doesn’t matter what you know when you get to college . . .
john When you boil it all down, it’s really about the extended family in
the black community. When I went to high school, they sent me to
[Joseph S. Clark Senior High School]. I did not want to go to Clark. I
had heard about Albert Jean at Booker T. [Washington High School],