FACULTY AND STAFF FOCUS

Frank Lind, M.F.A.’74

Professor, Fine Arts
Former Dean, School of Art and Design
 

How does it feel to be teaching again after 10 years as dean of the School of Art and Design?
To be teaching again is a joy. In administration, one tends to see only problems. Now I can enjoy working with the wonderful students we get at Pratt.

What accomplishment do you take most pride in during this time?
I believe I was accessible to students, faculty and staff; I was a full-service dean, as it were. As a strategy, and knowing that resources are always finite, I devoted much effort to identifying, hiring, and then empowering good people in key positions throughout the school. Empowering meant acknowledging the virtues of these people and then trusting them to do their jobs. It also meant creating, through persistent effort, assistant personnel positions to make good education possible. I tried to create an administrative culture of respect and support. And for a long time, I succeeded.

How do today’s students take to your “slow painting” approach?
So far, so good. The response from students has been very encouraging. They can see the results.

What’s the most important thing you want fine arts students to learn from you? 
Have a strategy, then acquire the knowledge and skills to implement it.

Your seascapes and studies of the human form reflect a deep familiarity with the art of the past. Do you encourage students to follow your example by visiting museums? 
I am forever talking about permanent collections and shows in the museums and galleries of the vast resource that is New York. I also bring to class books, catalogs, and other reproductions of good art. One of the outside assignments in my classes is to make a copy, in oils, of a master painting.

What has most inspired your own creativity in recent years?
Seeing great paintings, working directly from nature and the figure, being in an environment like Pratt where art is recognized as important, and being married to someone who is a protean artist herself and who supports my work.

Do you believe the type of realist painting that you do will always have a future, even in this post-modernist era? 
Of course I do. People will keep making music, writing, cooking, making love, and painting, among other things.

What would we be most surprised to learn about you?
I am the proud stepfather of Chad Vader. (Google him.)

Photo: Andrew Yonda