Our long-time Education Coordinator, Lisa Wolkow, is retiring this December after close to 40 years at Guilford Art Center. Our Executive Director, Maureen Belden, composed some thoughts about Lisa’s tenure here at GAC, and what she’s meant to the students and staff.
FROM MAUREEN
Lisa Wolkow is one of the most quietly effective people I have ever known. This includes eschewing fanfare when warranted. I’m sure she’s not happy with me for insisting on writing this. But we need to tell people she’s retiring, after close to 40 years at Guilford Art Center. And I think she knows I need to explain a little bit how much we will miss her, and what an impact she’s made.
Lisa has led the GAC ceramics studio since the late 1980s and has taught an innovative Ceramic Sculpture class with a legion of devoted students (we’re happy she will continue to teach this class.) She also served as Education Coordinator, working with faculty to create our class curricula for the past three-plus decades. It’s not an overstatement to say that her work making the arts available to our community has influenced generations–tens of thousands of students have passed through our doors during her tenure (some are still here.)
Lisa once mentioned an idea she encountered in graduate school at the prestigious Cranbrook Academy of Art: “Teach by not teaching.” It stuck with me; it sounds so unorthodox and counter intuitive. But it made sense of her impact in the classroom. Stepping back (quietly, effectively), the instructor encourages the student’s own confidence in their creativity, their ability to imagine and explore forms and concepts.
As her colleague for close to 20 years, I can say Lisa has quiet sway outside the classroom too. We work with art and with people here, and she has influenced my aesthetic sensibility (with her terrific eye and unerring good taste), my understanding of human nature, and the assurance that less-is-more when it comes to verbiage (I’m still working on that). In addition, you will find no one more knowledgeable about a fabulous array of niche topics that include: European shoes; “Curb Your Enthusiasm;” Turkish soap operas; useful Yiddish-isms; and the best hamburgers in the world. I’m sure she will now be adding more.
Thank you, Lisa, for being such an important part of the Guilford Art Center history and legacy. We wish you all the best.
Maureen Belden
GAC Executive Director
