It may be that mentoring the young doesn’t fit into the five year plan when time and money are such numinous obsessions. After all, there are businesses to run, clients to serve, overhead to manage. Fend for yourself, kiddies.
—Sanjay Khanna, Communication Arts, March/April 2004
My freshman year in college was horrific. I went from a tiny, suburban, football-obsessed high school to a university in upstate New York with over 20,000 over-achievers. I sat in badly lit amphitheatre-sized lecture halls with several hundred other freshman listening to a myriad of professors either barking out loud or talking to themselves about “rhetoric and communications.” I ate alone in the cavernous dining halls with sociology and philosophy textbooks piled in front of me (requirements in my liberal arts education) and squinted as if somehow looking at the material differently would increase my odds of understanding the content of the pages. In a word, I was overwhelmed.
I went from having a nearly all-A’s high school record to barely scraping by that first long and lonely year. I remember one particularly gruesome evening calling my dad in tears informing him that I was quitting college and was taking the next bus back to New York City, where he lived. It didn’t matter that it was 2 in the morning—the buses ran all night. As the bus pulled into Port Authority at 5 am, I saw my dad before he saw me. And I saw by the look of his furrowed brow and the deep circles under his eyes that he was genuinely worried. It was one of the first times I ever felt that I objectively saw my father, and that vision has never left me.
Somehow, he convinced me to get back on the bus the following day. I struggled my way through the rest of my freshman year, and after spending the summer back in my suburban home working at a supermarket as a cashier and in a factory putting mascara brushes together, I reluctantly made the trek back to the dorms.
My sophmore year began differently, as I was able to take more of the courses I was ultimately going to major in: art and literature. I walked into my second-year art history class and came upon an unusual sight: a chubby woman in jeans and a sweatshirt sitting crossed-legged on a desk with a thermos of tea in front of her. She had a lovely, exotic accent and encouraged all of the students to come closer. Then she took a sip of tea and started to laugh. “My, my,” she said, “don’t you all look so serious! Let’s try and have some fun.” There was only one rule in this professor’s class: everyone had to contribute. The previous year I spent in lecture halls hiding behind a stack of textbooks, praying that no one would notice me. Now I had to call attention to myself—she demanded that we participate.
We were studying painting by the “New York School.” Pollack, DeKooning, Rothko. I had never seen a Rothko painting before. It made my knees weak. I thought that his paintings were blueprints for love and longing and loneliness and loss and hope. I still sat rather quietly in this class, but was rapt with attention for this engaging, funny, smart-alecky, quirky and happy professor. One day, she called on me and asked: “What did Rothko mean to me?” I looked up at her, nearly paralyzed. I remember thinking: how I could I adequately describe how much I loved this artist and his paintings? How could I tell her that they made me cry? I don’t remember what it was that I stammered, and I know that it was not terribly eloquent or meaningful, but she waited until I was done rambling, looked at me and told me that what I said was wonderful. That she liked my point of view. I was shocked. I felt happy. And this is how it started between us. My professor would ask me questions, and slowly but surely, I came out of my shell. She encouraged me. I flourished. I became more confident. And this newfound confidence seeped into my other classes. It got so that I would continually have my hand waving in the air. I started to love being in university, and ultimately, that never waned.
This professor profoundly influenced my life and shaped the adult woman I was to become. Through her, I saw what encouragement and hope and respect could do for a person. I saw that inspiration was as important as perspiration, and way more important than brow-beating. Now, twenty years later, I am teaching. I consider my college professor my role model.
Last year, the New York chapter of the AIGA sent out an email to their membership about their mentorship program with the High School of Art and Design. I had vaguely remembered some years back getting a gorgeous brochure in the mail illustrated by Maira Kalman, inviting participation. It piqued my interest, but busy-ness and life got in the way and the brochure went into a file. The email jolted me. It was time to give back. It was time to fully realize what my fine professor had given me. I responded to the email. A small, terrible voice somewhere inside me said, Debbie! What are you doing? Do you know what you are getting into? The time alone! But I pushed it away, and when the co-chairs of the program, Kris Angell and Emma Presler responded, I confirmed my attendance and went to the kick-off. There I met my “mentee”—15 year old Alexandra. Alex who is so, so cool and lives in Harlem and is incredibly talented and loves anime and horror movies and her friends, and has one of the most extraordinary sketchbooks I have ever seen. She’s had a vastly different adolescence than I had, and I find that I am learning a lot from her. I wonder if she feels that way about me.
Mentoring is more than just giving back. Mentoring is learning about yourself and the world. Mentoring is hard work and great fun and a big responsibility. I believe that mentoring is necessary. In this month’s issue of Communication Arts, there is a provocative, compelling article about mentoring by Sanjay Khanna. In it, he poses tough questions about the role that experienced designers have (or don’t have) for young designers. One of his key issues is this: “Young designers need encouragement. It needs to be reinforced that as young people they have a unique way of seeing and that they carry the images, hopes and fears of their generation within them. They are intrinsically important and their vision requires a good measure of support from their elders (us).” And in the same article, Paula Scher states, “I hire students from my classes as interns. I teach, hire and mentor them, closely observing their progress. I stay young because I get to borrow their eyes. In fact, I get more out of it than they do.”
So here I am twenty years later trying to “do” for someone what someone did for me. I hope I can come close. I haven’t kept in touch with my professor, but every now and then I Google her to read about what she is doing. Many years ago I went to London specifically to see the Rothko retrospective at the Tate. I was so moved after I saw the show I called New York information and asked for my professor’s home number. She was listed. I called and left a message telling her I was in London looking at the Rothko exhibit, and that I wouldn’t have been there if not for her. And I did something I am not sure I had ever done: I thanked her.
Yeah, I know—this is one wicked-long post. But I need to know: What about you all? What do you think of mentoring? Did I just get lucky back in college? Has mentoring—either as a mentor or a mentee done anything for you? Anyone out there hiring and fostering interns? Do you think it is a responsibility we have as practicing designers and graphic artists to influence and inspire design students? Can we really make a difference to the generation of designers following us? And should we?
Great post, nicely written (since we are talking about writing and such).
I haven't had a mentor. There was one teacher at college that really made a difference and opened my eyes a little bit. He taught product and industrial design and I took his class the last two semesters, I was the only graphic designer to have ever taken a product design class at my college (yeah, that says a lot doesn't it?). So, the teacher was quite intrigued and paid a bit more attention to what I was doing. It was the first time somebody talked to me about design as a general discipline, rather than design as only graphic design, which was what I was getting at my other classses. It was cool, but it wasn't exactly a mentorship relationship.
As far as being a mentor, I would love to. Maybe in five years or so, when I have more experience. If possible, I would love to have a great internship program in my future, hypothetical design firm.
Slightly related, last month Bryony and I were invited to give a workshop at Marwen with the AIGA to 30 teenagers… man, I was scared. Teenagers are a tough crowd, however the feeling that we were showing them something new, that was very close to us was very rewarding. So, I think I can take on one teenager/young adult at a time, not 30.
On Mar.30.2004 at 10:55 AM