Jared Seff takes Habersham students beyond
paper and pencils, teaching each one to express thoughts and ideas in a truly
beautiful way.
Often, when
someone visits her high school three years after graduation, she will find that
not much has changed. I, however, cannot claim this experience. When I walked
into The Habersham School this February, I was walking into a different
building, run by a tripled staff, and filled with an ever multiplying student
body. The school now has two campuses, with the Rhetoric School hosted by Habersham
Hall--a tall, slim structure, complete with a tower and courtyard. The class
period is changing as I climb the steps to the art classroom, and the staircase
is teeming with students grabbing different books from their lockers—I spy a
few carrying portfolios and follow them into the third floor art studio.
On
the last day of the trimester, Studio Art I students are busily completing
final projects, and hanging their stunning drawings on the lime green wall.
There is a sense of cheerful camaraderie in the room, as freshman, sophomores, juniors,
and seniors work together to finish their tasks. At the center of it all is
Jared Seff, the Visual Arts Instructor; an unimposing man, wearing a fleece
jacket over his shirt and tie, his long dark hair pulled back tightly, as his
sharp eyes take in everything his busy students are doing. He never gives an
order, and yet every student listens attentively to his instructions, which are
framed as friendly suggestions. I have found the source of the camaraderie in
this room.
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| "Jailhouse Courtyard" David Miles, 10th Grade |
Seff, who
received his BFA in Painting with a minor in Drawing from Savannah College of
Art and Design, is constantly approached by students wanting his opinion on
their work. He gives each his undivided attention; it is this patient and
caring attitude of his that has inspired the hours of hard work by his students.
An accomplished artist himself, his portrait of President Bill Clinton hangs in
the Clinton Library, and his portrait of Sir Paul McCartney was signed by the
man himself. Seff has an infectious enthusiasm for what he teaches, inspiring
every student that comes through his class--even the ones who “don’t like to
draw.”
Jack Gibney, a
senior, was one of those students. “He was a joke when he came in!” teases Seff
“He was like ‘I stink!’ and then look what he did—things that don’t stink!”
Gibney then showed me one of his drawings from the class—his friend’s hands. He
had poured hours into that piece and was eager to share what he had learned. He
explained: “Art is very meticulous, and it takes a lot of patience. Hands… you
take them for granted. You don’t really appreciate the hand until you have to
draw it, and study the hand, absorb it, take in all the detail. You start to
see the objects around you better…It’s a good way to appreciate God’s creation,
and to see how things come to life.” Other students have had similar
experiences. When asked what she would take away from the class, freshman
Elizabeth Reed told me: “I’ve started to see things in more depth, to notice
how complex something is, to think about how it was created.”
Truly, Seff is
teaching something deeper here than methods of creating Visual Art. When I
asked him why we should think Visual Art is important for every student to
learn about, his eyes lit up. “That is his very favorite question to
answer—look—he’s like ‘Yes! I was waiting for that!’” quips Gibney, glancing up
from his drawing. Seff grins at him, and turns back to me. “Classical education
is an education that forms the whole person. We live in a visual world, full of
visual stimuli, and if visual art is taught appropriately it teaches us how to
order visual things—not only that, but how to appreciate beautiful things. It
teaches us to slow down and observe things more completely. Visual art is
inextricable from beauty, and they both find their source in God.”
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| "Blues" Francis Langley, 11th Grade |
It is made abundantly clear to me how The
Habersham School’s mission (to teach students to question, investigate,
dialogue, and create, with all teaching rooted in the immovable truth of
Christ,) has made its mark in every class it offers. Daniel Copetillo, a senior
who has attended The Habersham School since it opened its doors in 2012, gave
me his take on the value of visual art. “We’re surrounded by art, and God is
the ultimate artist, the ultimate architect who created everything around us.
So much of what we draw in our art class, in any art class, is creation. Beauty
is something we can understand better through art—really what makes us humans
is our ability to create beautiful things. Animals can create something, but
part of what makes us human is intentionally creating something beautiful.” All
of this was explained as Copetillo put the finishing touches on his detailed
drawing of Habersham Hall’s bell tower. Observing the detail that went into his
work made me pause and give the tower a longer look on the way out.
As I prepared to
leave, I paused to look at the newly decorated wall of final projects the
students had carefully hung. I saw several drawings of the bell tower, of
hands, and a variety of still lifes. These are not the hastily done sketches of
students trying to get an A—they are beautifully, methodically, intricately
drawn works of art. All done on heavy professional paper, with sharp white
borders cleanly taped off, they hold a variety of different mediums—Daniel’s
tower in pale watercolor, Jack’s hands in sharp graphite pencil. These students
have indeed created something beautiful, that expresses these ideas they have
so eloquently explained.
