Retiring from teaching—but not from painting—following their Guggenheim sabbatical year, 贝塞默谈到了他们在学院的时光, “西方学校给了我一个可以茁壮成长的生活”
琳达Besemer
詹姆斯·欧文艺术与艺术史特聘教授
在十大正规网赌平台的学习年限:36年
In 2022, you became the eighth Oxy faculty member to receive the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship. 这个团契对你的工作有什么影响? 能成为这项奖学金的获得者是一种巨大的荣誉. To be acknowledged by and earn the respect of the top professionals working across the country in the same field is truly empowering. The fellowship has given me time and money to 研究 ideas and experiment with new techniques that are helping me in the development of a new body of paintings. I’ve also been able to buy tools, machines, and materials I could not otherwise afford.
你会怀念在教室里的什么? 两个字:学生. 自从我1987年进入十大正规网赌平台以来, I have had the great privilege of working with thousands of brilliant and extraordinary students. I loved sitting one-on-one with a beginning student working on their first painting—struggling to transform inchoate blobs of colored goo on their palette into a recognizable image on the canvas. 我会提出意见和建议, 甚至可能为他们描绘一个问题, 然后看着他们的画有了自己的生命. 他们可能并不都是艺术专业的, 但他们都把自己的观点带到艺术创作和视觉表达中.
我最喜欢Oxy学生的是他们丰富的跨学科知识. 学生带来他们的学术兴趣, 政治和社会正义意识, and critical thinking skills from all their other experiences into their paintings’ themes and processes. 例如, 同样的作业提示可以激发微生物共生的图像, 对宝莱坞电影中潜在女同性恋形象的批判, or a philosophical discussion on phenomenology and affect in non-representational abstraction. 这总是令人惊讶的，我能从他们身上学到很多东西.
幸运的是，我和许多即将毕业的学生保持着联系. I am happy to say some are now art world peers with successful teaching and exhibition careers.
你的退休计划是什么? 我将不再教书，但不会不再画画. 相反，它正在从一个重点转向另一个重点. 我一生的大部分时间都在教学和艺术创作之间徘徊. 我现在每天都有机会画画! 换句话说，成为一个全职的，所有时间的艺术家. 然而, 我将继续在其他学校进行展览和客座演讲, 博物馆, 艺术机构, 所以并不是完全脱离了学术界. 在我今年的古根海姆休假期间, 我发现我有时间为乐趣而阅读, 研究, 想想看. 我有足够的空间来处理一个想法，让它深入人心，形成并改造它. This luxury is almost impossible while fulfilling the many roles of a full-time faculty member.
我和我的伴侣还计划带着我们的金毛猎犬去旅行, 杰克逊(以杰克逊·波洛克命名), 还有我们的大比利牛斯山, 艾玛(以艾玛·戈德曼命名), 无政府主义的, 她名不虚传).
你还有什么要补充的吗? 我从纽约搬到西方学校教书. There, I taught as an adjunct at multiple schools and painted houses to make ends meet. I lived in a fourth-floor walk-up railroad flat with five other people and had a tiny studio in a very sketchy neighborhood. 西方学校给了我新装修的教学工作室, 一个私人工作室来做我的工作, 做研究的时间, 旅行基金, 住房(pre-tenure), 帮我抵押了第一套房子. 西方学校给我的不只是一份工作，而是一个可以让我茁壮成长的生活.
最后，但并非最不重要的是，我会想念我在西方大学的同事们. Like my students, I also benefited from being at an institution that encourages interdisciplinarity. Having colleagues within my department and across the college who supported my teaching and advancements at Oxy and generously shared their 研究 and intellectual interests with me was a tremendous gift. 我由衷地相信我不会做我所做的工作, 没有取得我的成功, had I not been at Occidental surrounded by a vibrant community of vital scholars, 科学家们, 诗人, 艺术家, 和音乐家.
“我想成为像琳达一样的教授.”
Tucker Neel ' 03: 我在西方学校的第一个月, 我有幸被琳达·贝塞姆邀请去做他们的助教. We were in their campus studio and 琳达 was wearing sneakers caked with so much paint they were practically clogs. 毫不犹豫地, 我答应了琳达的提议, 结果证明这是我做过的最好的决定之一. 我很快就被派去整理文件, 把幻灯片, 并学习如何帮助琳达创作他们迷人的画作. This involved me applying masking tape in hundreds of parallel lines to layers of acrylic paint 琳达 would eventually free from the wall to create pieces that boggled the mind and challenged the patriarchal legacy of Greenbergian abstraction. 这是重复的工作, 但我喜欢它, 尤其是因为这意味着我可以和贝塞姆教授一起玩, 听他们的专辑, 宠爱他们的狗, 并了解一下成为一名真正的教学艺术家是什么感觉.
琳达很直率, 问尖锐的问题, 在课堂内外都要求诚实的回答, 然而，他们的教学理念是植根于爱和同情. I still remember one overcast day 琳达 surprised our drawing class by filling the center of the room with hundreds of fragrant, 绚丽的花朵, 说, “如果你必须把所有的时间都花在画画上, 这也能让你开心.” I’ve seen their contagious passion for art turn clueless frat boys into feminist abstract painters and war veterans into committed watercolorists. 在奥施康定的第一年结束时, 在看到他们对学生和艺术的投入之后, 我意识到我想成为像琳达一样的教授.
大约一年以后，琳达给了我一幅他们的画, a floppily rainbow-striped rectangle of pure acrylic paint punctured by metal grommets. 由于安装实验出错造成轻微损坏, 这幅画不适合在美术馆展出, but it quickly became one of the most important objects in my life and has hung over my bed ever since. Every time I look at it, I think about how much 琳达 has meant to me and countless other 艺术家.
琳达对我生活的影响超出了我在奥施康定的时间. 他们帮我进了研究生院, 把他们的作品借给我策划的展览, 教我如何在艺术界找到自己的路. Their advice about how to navigate academia has routinely saved my sanity and my job. 距离他们在工作室的第一次会面已经过去了近四分之一个世纪, 我现在是奥的斯艺术与设计学院的全职副教授, 如果不是我的老师，我永远也做不到, 导师, 和朋友琳达·贝塞默.
Neel is an artist, writer, curator, and educator living and working in 洛杉矶. He completed his MFA from the Otis College of Art and Design in 2007 and has taught at the college since 2010.
“I can’t recall what I believed painting could be … but it has never been the same since.”
佐伊沃尔什 ’ 11: 在2009年春天，我参加了我的第一门课程与琳达·贝塞默中级绘画. 琳达提供了严格的, 独特的, and accessible lens into contemporary debates around form and politics in painting. 就我个人而言, 作为一个酷儿学生, 琳达’s presence and teaching were formative in my own coming into self and understanding how my political subjectivity could be applied to my work. 我想不起在2009年之前我认为绘画是什么, 但我知道，从那以后就再也不一样了.
I sought out 琳达’s instruction frequently and unabashedly throughout the rest of my time at Occidental, and 琳达 was always available as a guide into my own work and next steps beyond school. 毕业后, I worked as 琳达’s assistant and was able to witness firsthand their devotion to the practice of painting, 愿意重新开始和修改, 以及出色的实验制作. 无论是教学实践还是绘画实践, 琳达总是保持着一种具象化的顽皮感.
琳达’s guidance has continued through my graduate school education and early career as an artist and teacher. I have been the beneficiary of 琳达’s support in the form of endless recommendation letters, 关于潜在展览的建议, 当我开始在工作中使用新技术时，甚至是生产辅助. 琳达 is a model of dedication to a lifelong art practice and ethical commitment to opening doors for future generations.
琳达, 我非常感激您教给我的一切, your patience over the years as I showed up to work perpetually 10 minutes late, 你的驾驶, 你的阅读建议, 你对艺术史的长远看法, 还有你对今天绘画的先见之明. 谢谢你对我的生活产生了不可估量的影响.
沃尔什拥有耶鲁大学文学硕士学位. They have held solo exhibitions at the Fondation des États-Unis in Paris as well as M+B Gallery and Pieter in 洛杉矶.
Top photo: Besemer, working with a straight edge on a lift at their studio in 2022.
