one of the most nurturing people i ever met was an art teacher i had. i took a drawing class from him about a year ago. we all had a big drawing due each class and we would gather around, all fifteen of us, and look at each drawing. he would listen to everyone talk about their drawing, even though it took forever and some people went on too long. at the end, he would give each person really meaningful feedback and touch on something they said. it sounds so simple, but the way he did it was so caring and so deliberate. on the first day of class he said, "if you have family problems or other problems... depression... please come see me and we can work it out." well, i did drop out about halfway through the class because of like, all those things. i wonder all the time why i didn't go talk to him, because he clearly would have understood.

another art class i took was an art history class. it was an okay class, but we were required about a third way through the semester to turn in the topic for our term paper (which is stupid, when you've barely learned anything.............. but okay. we weren't allowed to change our topic either). as much as i hated it, i was willing to do it, until he told us that because this was byu and because he had to read all the papers, we were only allowed to write about uplifting topics. no papers on war, discontent, anguish, disagreement, abuse, or anything else that could be construed in a negative light, because reading them made him sad and we had a "unique opportunity" to focus on the light. how fast i wtf'd at that i can't even tell you. that is the EXACT reason why mormons will never make great art, and the exact reason why i walked out of that class that day and never went back. it flew in the face of everything my humanities degree taught me--that we should learn about each other's suffering so we can hold up the hands that hang down, that we should be vulnerable and willing to speak out about our sorrows in case it might help another, that we should look to the heart and not to the (sometimes lying) smiling faces--and i couldn't believe he was the prominent art history professor.