Commencement Remarks 2011
Culture Makers and Builders of a Handmade Life
Thomas Manley
, President
Pacific Northwest College of Art
Welcome to you all.
There are many themes that run through a ceremony such as this. First and foremost there are the themes of celebration and appreciation. We are here to recognize and celebrate the accomplishments of our new graduates. We are here also to congratulate and thank their families, friends, mentors, and fellow students for the steadfast support and encouragement you have given to help our graduates reach this exciting day.
But throughout this ceremony and in the days that follow I think it is important to consider how the work you have done, graduates, prepares you for a vital and important task upon which we all depend. That is the task of being culture makers, of living a life that is keenly aware of what you put into and take from, a shared world.
Barnaby Keeney, the former president of Brown University once said:
“At college age you can tell who is best at taking tests and going to school, but you can’t tell who the best people are. This worries the hell out of me.”
Today I will give more than 123 reasons why we may worry less about our future. And they are sitting in front of me (points to the graduate section).
Graduates, in your time at this College you have developed your voice and vision and your technical capacities to bring these two things together to make something new.
It occurs to me that the very creative process you have worked hard to develop and personalize here at PNCA provides a metaphorical map for your future.
In whatever comes after, in whatever directions you go, jobs you take or careers you pursue—continue to live a handmade life, continue to persist at things to which you bring passion, and above all, continue to be culture makers. And do so with mindfulness and care for what results.
Class of 2011, I speak for everyone here in saying we are more than proud of what you have accomplished and we look forward to the almost certain news of your success in the years to come.
Let me say parenthetically that today is historic for another reason, as it marks the graduation of the first class of students from the MFA in Applied Craft and Design. That program is the result of a collaborative partnership between Oregon College of Art and Craft and Pacific Northwest College of Art, inter-collegiate degree program that we believe is the first of its kind among art schools.
Representing OCAC today is its Dean Kate Bodin. Thank you Kate and thank you OCAC.
Conferring of Honorary Degrees
The conferring of honorary degrees like the funny robes, hoods and hats we are wearing has its roots in medieval Europe.
An honorary degree is given these days as a way of recognizing a recipient’s distinguished contributions to field of study or to society in general.
Today on the recommendation of the College’s faculty and with the approval of its Board of Governors we are awarding three separate doctoral degrees “Doctor Art Honoris Causa.” We will signify the granting of these degrees with a diploma and a doctoral hood, that, in keeping with the spirit of our College and the nature of the honor, have been designed and handmade for the occasion by artist and PNCA staff member, Ruth Waddy.
Arlene and Harold Schnitzer, Recipients of “Doctor Arts Honoris Causa” (Honorary Doctorate of Arts)
The first of these degrees go to Arlene and Harold Schnitzer.
(As many of you know Harold Schnitzer passed away only a few weeks ago and while Arlene very much wanted to be here to accept both degrees, she was not feeling well enough to join us this afternoon. Instead, we agreed that I would tell you why we are giving these awards and that Arlene would come to the College in the fall to receive them.)
Arlene and Harold have each achieved great things in their own rights so that I might speak about them separately, yet because it has been through their shared purpose, care and long partnership that they were able to multiply so profoundly the impact of their culture making and community building, it seems only fitting that we tell their story and present their degrees together.
Arlene Director was born in Salem, Oregon and was raised in Portland. She met Harold Schnitzer, who was a native Oregonian as well (earlier vintage than Arlene, I should add), in 1949 and after their first date she reportedly told him “I’m going to marry you so you better get used to the idea.” Harold said, ‘I like a woman who knows what she likes. So three days later I accepted her proposal.” That was the beginning of their 62-year partnership in community building through business, the arts and philanthropy.
Harold Schnitzer graduated from Lincoln High School and at age 17 enrolled at MIT, where he did nothing but study so that he could graduate in 3 years with a degree in Metallurgy. He spent time in the military during WWII applying his degree and later traveled for his family business before returning to Portland. Soon after he launched his own enterprise, which would eventually become one of the largest privately held real estate companies in the western United States.
A number of years after starting her family with Harold, Arlene decided to enroll at PNCA, then the art school of the Portland Art Museum. She told her friend and fellow student at the time, the painter and former PNCA professor, Lucinda Parker, “When I walked into Mike Russo’s art history class. I felt like I had come home, that I was where I should be.”
In 1961, while fully enrolled at the College, Arlene established the Fountain Gallery of Art, which would quickly become Portland’s flagship contemporary art space, simultaneously raising the professional bar and nurturing the development of an artists’ community without which the lively exhibition and gallery culture we have in Portland currently would not exist. Nationally innovative programs like PCVA and TBA trace their roots to the Fountain Gallery of Art.
It was through the school and the gallery that Arlene developed lifetime relationships with artists who became her friends and her gallery’s mainstays and her lifetime passion for art, one that she began to share with Harold and passed on to their son, Jordan Schnitzer.
It was this passion that led Arlene to purchase a work from every one of her galleries exhibit (and I am told Harold’s love for Arlene that led him on many occasions to place a buyer’s dot secretly along side other work).
It was this passion that eventually drew Arlene and Harold to their remarkable trusteeship of the Portland Art Museum and to their endowing a program and curatorial position that will support the development of regional artists in perpetuity.
And it was this passion (and love for this College) that prompted Arlene to intervene at a critical period when the Museum was considering closing PNCA.
(I should say that Arlene finally decided to withdraw from school because the demands of running her gallery business made doing both to her standards impossible. In 1988, she was awarded an honorary degree from the College in recognition of her accomplishments and service).
When I think about Arlene and Harold I remember something that Thomas Jefferson once said:
“I prefer the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.”
I cannot think of two individuals who have done as much to support the dreams of others and who have done so in a manner that is as deeply thoughtful, deeply respectful and deeply generous, as Arlene and Harold Schnitzer.
At the root system of all Arlene and Harold’s business and philanthropic activities is a concern for their community and its dreams.
And so we should not be surprised that when they established a charitable organization to direct their philanthropy they called it the Harold and Arlene Schnitzer Care Foundation.
Please join me in thanking and congratulating Arlene and Harold Schnitzer for being such exemplars of care and community service.
Albert W. Solheim, “Doctor Arts Honoris Causa” (Honorary Doctorate of Arts)
Albert W. Solheim, Al to his many friends and business associates from across the City and State, is one of Portland’s legendary real estate developers and great supporters of its arts community. Al is a native Oregonian and avid hiker who has traveled the state widely (and picked up a few speeding tickets along the way, I’m sorry to say). He is a graduate of the University of Oregon, where he majored in Sociology, and worked for a time in the Bay Area as a broker before returning to start a family. (Al’s daughter Katie came up from the Bay Area and is here with us this afternoon).
His career in property development has been remarkable in so many ways, but not least for the role he has played in creating one of the most successful urban transformations in US history—the redevelopment of a largely derelict zone of old warehouses and train yards into an energetic new neighborhood known as the Pearl District. To integrate this new district into the city, Al has served on many boards, associations and commissions, including importantly the one that brought Portland its nationally praised street cars.
Along with his mentor John Gray, it was Al’s early involvement in a number of warehouse conversion projects and his belief that the sum of the parts could become a greater civic whole that earned him the tile of “Father of the Pearl.” Through his work Al saw early on the catalytic power of art and artists to shift the equation of livability on a street and throughout a neighborhood. Eventually he developed this into a sort of mantra: “Nothing transforms a neighborhood faster than artists and street trees.” But before the mantra came many years of helping artists and their organizations, including PNCA, to find free or inexpensive space to work, study, perform and exhibit.
Al Solheim was one of the founding board members of the Portland Institute of the Art, or PICA. His Machine Works property served as the site for the TBA works and a make shift studio for Malia Jensen and other artists. Joining the PNCA board in 1998, Al became its chair in 2004 and in his seven years in that position helped to preside over the most significant growth in the College’s 102-year history. His commitment to the school in terms of his time, wisdom and his philanthropy has provided the equivalent of an “artists and street trees” formula.
Like Harold and Arlene Schnitzer, Al Solheim has viewed his success in business as something that enables him to give back to the community in a manner that grows culture with a distinct sense of place. His volunteer service, philanthropy, and quiet political activism are deeply felt expressions of his care and sense of stewardship for the quality of cultural and environmental life in Oregon.
And so, having helped to make a neighborhood and nurture a college’s growth as an important component of that neighborhood and of the city’s future, Al Solheim is being acknowledged today. While he will be stepping back from his role as board chair this summer, I am delighted to tell you he will remain on the board to help build that future.
It has been my great, great privilege to work in partnership with as a governor and Board chair of PNCA during my eight years as president. It is therefore an equally great pleasure to award him this degree on behalf of the College’s faculty and Board.
Portland, Oregon, May 22, 2011
