From Aron’s Desk

Friends,

When I arrived here, I did not expect RFU’s students, staff, and faculty to have such an energetic artistic culture, or at least I could not tell there was so much artistic activity from the website as I scoped out the university last summer. It has become obvious to me that art is an important part of our intellectual culture, as it should be. This week, I visited the RFU Photography Club’s “Lost and Found” exhibit. I was struck by the quality of the photography and the emotion and relationships they convey. A hidden joy of the works is the artists’ written description of their process and thoughts that accompanied the exhibit. Several of the descriptions included poems, which are not things you get as much as they get you.

I think doing art, of any sort, helps keep our humanity accessible for those times when we need it. Health education and training can be intense. The scholastic work is significant, and as training progresses and we pick up more clinical responsibility, the emotional effort increases. Art, and particularly creating art, helps us re-site our priorities and humanity. The members of the photography club told me about their group walks, when they go somewhere together to take pictures, talk to each other about the pictures, and generally share in the effort of creating their art. What a human and lovely endeavor.

Our time is not the first to be frightening and convulsed. Interesting times are common, and art you thought you knew well can teach you new things. I think there is a natural impulse for people to turn to art as our jobs and communities change. As mass production took off in England and the US at the turn of the previous century, the Arts and Crafts movement developed to explore and celebrate how things are made by people. Now as AI pushes on everything, perhaps we will celebrate the oddities of human creation…and spelling. Not for nothin’, our ghoti tales may tear and strain at spelling and grammar rules to prove, however briefly, that a person was involved in their creation.

Sometimes interesting times are personal — many of the photographs in the “Lost and Found” exhibit were explicitly related to events in the photographer’s life. We all have losses and findings. We are all steeped in the events of the times, and art can help us make sense of our experiences. In my first weeks, I attended the SNMA Sip and Paint, and each of us painted a pumpkin. No pumpkin was in any way the same. Since then I have been to “Art from the Benchtop,” the Black History Month Showcase, done origami at Lunar New Year, listened to the music club’s band, watched Dean Chatterjee crochet, and our graphics team made Dr. Dabrowska’s Rosalind Franklin Polychromatic into a large art piece for my office. Our folks will host an exhibition of T-shirt art by community members impacted by sexual violence April 2-10, and Synapses, the humanities journal published by CMS, opens its exhibition May 12 at 2:30 in the Scholl Gallery. I am indebted to all of you who bring your creative selves to Rosalind Franklin University each day.

Improving the wellness of all people with you,

Aron