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So long, professor Katz.
6 years ago
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If you are interested in commissioning me, come drop me a line! Let's see what we can make together! https://forms.gle/D5NqAnUiUnHSVsVV9 One of my professors from school, Howard Katz, died today. He had colon cancer. He was the director of the illustration department when I first started, and was the one who let me into the last graduating class of the illustration major without a proper portfolio. I was also in the last class that he taught before his early retirement, a painting class. He was absolutely brutal with students who he knew didn't care, but was gentle and supportive yet firm with students who he knew had the drive to improve.
One of my favourite projects that we did in that class was painting the same image 12 times with different colour schemes, and several students painted their pets. Upon seeing our projects up on display on the walls, his immediate comment was "I'm sorry all of your pets died." When everyone looked confused, he clarified, "None of you painted highlights in their eyes and they look taxidermied."
He wasn't afraid to let everyone know that he had cancer, either. Another project that we did was using several colours of the same value to make swirling patterns in very thin lines to make them look like they were vibrating. When he introduced the project, he said, "I used to grade this project on how nauseous your final made me, but since I'm always nauseous thanks to the chemo, you're going to have to work extra hard!" But he didn't always make light of the situation, he also used it to call people out. When one particularly lazy student complained about the project being too hard and said that he didn't want to do it, he raised his shirt to show him his colostomy bag and said, "Oh, you want to talk about difficult things you don't want to do? I get to deal with people like you who want to waste what little time I have left, rather than putting in the work that you're paying to be here to do." The student tore up his project and walked out, and he just tucked his shirt back in and smiled as he told us that the weak ones get weeded out quickly with little effort.
He was brutal as a professor, which a lot of us needed, but as a director, he fought like hell to make sure that students got the education they deserved. When I had a particularly awful life drawing professor and visited his office about her, he came to observe my class, missing out on a faculty meeting to do so, so that he could see for himself how the professor did an awful job. The entire time he was there, he pretended she didn't exist, except to give her stone faced looks when she tried to joke around with him. To the students, though, he joked, critiqued, asked us how we felt about the class, about the professor, etc. Three weeks later, that professor lost her tenure and her job. Because he cared, and wanted us to have the best.
But, at the end of his life, he was happy. He spent his last year traveling to and from the largest art museums in the world, visiting and revisiting the Louvre many times. I never had a professor like him, and I consider myself honoured that I could be his student, and that he believed in me as much as he did that he allowed me into the illustration major without the requirements.
One of my favourite projects that we did in that class was painting the same image 12 times with different colour schemes, and several students painted their pets. Upon seeing our projects up on display on the walls, his immediate comment was "I'm sorry all of your pets died." When everyone looked confused, he clarified, "None of you painted highlights in their eyes and they look taxidermied."
He wasn't afraid to let everyone know that he had cancer, either. Another project that we did was using several colours of the same value to make swirling patterns in very thin lines to make them look like they were vibrating. When he introduced the project, he said, "I used to grade this project on how nauseous your final made me, but since I'm always nauseous thanks to the chemo, you're going to have to work extra hard!" But he didn't always make light of the situation, he also used it to call people out. When one particularly lazy student complained about the project being too hard and said that he didn't want to do it, he raised his shirt to show him his colostomy bag and said, "Oh, you want to talk about difficult things you don't want to do? I get to deal with people like you who want to waste what little time I have left, rather than putting in the work that you're paying to be here to do." The student tore up his project and walked out, and he just tucked his shirt back in and smiled as he told us that the weak ones get weeded out quickly with little effort.
He was brutal as a professor, which a lot of us needed, but as a director, he fought like hell to make sure that students got the education they deserved. When I had a particularly awful life drawing professor and visited his office about her, he came to observe my class, missing out on a faculty meeting to do so, so that he could see for himself how the professor did an awful job. The entire time he was there, he pretended she didn't exist, except to give her stone faced looks when she tried to joke around with him. To the students, though, he joked, critiqued, asked us how we felt about the class, about the professor, etc. Three weeks later, that professor lost her tenure and her job. Because he cared, and wanted us to have the best.
But, at the end of his life, he was happy. He spent his last year traveling to and from the largest art museums in the world, visiting and revisiting the Louvre many times. I never had a professor like him, and I consider myself honoured that I could be his student, and that he believed in me as much as he did that he allowed me into the illustration major without the requirements.
He sounds like a great person. Thank you for sharing your memories of him. I think that's how we keep people alive in a way, by remembering them.
It is strange, though. The instructors who we hated most when they were our teachers are the ones we love the most when we realized:
They taught us!
I think the people who talk about how school was awful, how they got nothing out of it, and so forth are the ones who didn't have instructors like Prof. Katz - both to stand up for them when they needed it, and also to push them to their best potential. I try to be like that for my students, but I know I have some big footprints to stand in. But beautiful tributes like this one - from students whose lives were affected for the better by particular teachers - always push me to be the best I can be.