Where Are They Now? Gordon D. Chase, Art teacher 1971–78

In retirement since 2014, I have been working as an artist full-time in my barn studio not far from the Groton campus. I was fortunate to exhibit recent drawings and large cut-out sculptures at Groton last year from a series titled "The Insanity of Violence," which questions why we do many of the self-destructive things that we do. My work can be viewed at gordondchaseart.com.  

I am happy to be free to make art about the issues of the world, and to add my voice to those advocating for concern about climate change and the threat of nuclear war. I spend summers on Cape Breton Island with my photographer and spouse Marky Kauffmann. I remain committed to the idea that creative thinking is one of the basics, without which nothing can be done well.   

I experienced Groton as a place that wanted its students to be "good people" and not just to succeed as "winners." The school's motto declares this. In the 1970s, creativity and individuality were more important than conformity. To find and use one's own voice fully was a highest good, the pursuit of which elevated us all in a celebration of differences. This was a liberating trend that challenged authority and uniformity.

 

At Groton I got to witness the advent of coeducation, to see the wonderful arrival of girls on a storied campus. This transformation made a lively school that much more diverse and broadened the definition of learning. Two languages were still required but a "language of life" was the more important development. This reflected the social progress in the larger world of civil rights, women's rights, and gay rights, even as the Vietnam War was winding down. As intimate and personal was life at Groton, all eyes were turned to cultural changes beyond the gates and sacred Circle. The Schoolroom may still be adorned with the heads of famous white men, but in the larger world, leadership and opportunity is now open to all. 

 

 

As an art teacher and director of student activities, I got to stage some colorful events that brought some life to this idyllic school isolated out in the woods, including hosting the Ralph Bradley Arts Festival. This annual event during the seventies and eighties brought together over a dozen independent schools for performances, a major art exhibit, workshops, the "art Olympics," and fun activities, one involving a giant inflatable maze of our own creation on the Circle. The culminating Great Chariot Race was a highlight. I can still picture Sanford Bottino '76 holding the reins standing atop a giant, two-headed dragon, with colorful wings mounted on wooden wagon wheels as its heroic human "horses" raced around the football field against an archrival—a welded steel stallion from Middlesex rearing up and breathing real fire as it edged out our dragon in the final heat! Another moment came in a comedic performance from an English course I taught with Bob Parker '57. We staged  a prehistoric version of  the long-standing custom of milk and cookies at recess: students dressed as cavemen came to attack and eat a giant eight-foot-tall chocolate chip cookie, then captured a walking-talking red-and-white Hood’s milk carton! 

 

 

After college at Yale in the late 1960s and influenced by the civil and human rights movements of that era, I landed at Groton. I chose teaching as a "way to give back" over going to graduate school to do my own work in art. All-male Groton was inhabited by a wonderful cast of larger-than-life characters that included people like Corky Nichols, Norris Getty, and Paul Wright at a time when a great cultural shift was getting underway. This propelled me into a forty-year career of teaching art, first at Groton and then at Milton, during which I embraced the theme of "art with a social conscience" and came to passionately believe that art is about "identity." Clarifying one's identity by means of artistic expression led naturally to celebrating diversity for me as a teacher and for my students.