In this issue:

Old Hands Creative touches from a trio that

has changed Commonwealth

Revelations in Texas

A Simple Cast

Making Plans for the Future

CMCommonwealth School Magazine Fall 2012

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Why I Made It“StrIpeS and SpatterS”

By Zubenelgenubi Scott ’12

I started doing pottery when I was four years old, alongside my dad in a ceramics studio in Cincinnati. I still have some of the small paperweights and bowls that I decorated with etchings of Superman

and Batman. after we moved away from Ohio, I took a 10‑year hiatus from the art until my freshman year at Commonwealth. Here, I spent every semester working with Jean Segaloff, and sometimes at home on my own.

I threw this pot during my junior year. I was happy with the shape, but I thought it needed an interesting glaze to make it more visually appealing. I decided to experiment and combine a few glazing techniques. First, I dipped the pot into a speckled brown glaze; then I placed it on the wheel intending to paint stripes around the outside in metallic black. after spending a long time failing to center the pot on the wheel I gave up and painted the stripes anyway. even with the stripes I thought it needed something else, so I called upon the four‑year‑old within me and splatter‑painted with the same metallic black. You never know for certain what a pot will look like after the glaze is fired; I was happily surprised by the end result when this pot came out of the kiln. I can’t say I planned it this way, but the asymmetric stripes that fade away on one side worked out well.

I really love ceramics. and finding holiday gifts is a lot easier when you have 50 pots lying around the house. I enjoy working with my hands, and I find it rewarding to create good‑looking, functional objects.

At www.commschool.org/CM: Watch Zuben at work.

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Is Commonwealth a “slow” school? It doesn’t seem like it if you’re trying to navigate the stairs as students rush from one class to another, or when you hear the quips fly during recess. But part of what makes Commonwealth teachers and students unusual is their willingness, as hard as it can be these days, to put aside the iphones and laptops and settle into an extended discussion. We might spend an entire class period rolling a line or two of Shakespeare over the tongue, or months comparing one French impressionist painting to another. and so I think it’s reasonable to draw an analogy between Commonwealth and the “slow” movements in food, books, parenting, etc. the Slow Food Manifesto exhorts humanity to “regain wisdom and liberate itself from the ‘velocity’ that is propelling it on the road to extinction.” By savoring the pleasures before us we sustain them, and ourselves.

deliberation in education brings ample rewards: better writing, a more complete understanding, the chance for everyone’s opinions to be considered, the leisure to make connections—and maturity. In time, the raucous 10th grader becomes a poised, articulate senior, the guy anyone would trust to be a Hancock day head.

these habits, once acquired, often continue beyond Commonwealth. I have no doubt that Sam Slavin ’04, profiled in this issue, has the potential to make breakthrough advances in public health or policy. But he is taking his time to get there, spending many months as a health worker in small Haitian villages, then enthusiastically advocating for patients in and around Codman Square in dorchester, and only now readying himself for medical school. the joy he finds in his work comes equally from the support he gives and from the friendship and trust that develop between him and the people he works with. He helps to sustain them, and they return the favor. progress trumps velocity.

Tristan Davies ’83Director of Communications, Editor

tdavies@commschool.org

F ROM T H E E D I TO R

Issue 3Fall 2012

HeadmasterWilliam D. Wharton

EditorTristan Davies ’83tdavies@commschool.org(617) 716-0239

Associate EditorRebecca Folkman

DesignJeanne Abboud

Contributing WritersEmily Bullitt ’03Zubenelgenubi Scott ’12Matthew Spitzer ’12Janetta StringfellowSasha Watson ’92

Special ThanksJacquelin Harris

www.commschool.org/cmwww.facebook.com/commschoolalums

CM is published twice a year by Commonwealth School, 151 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston MA 02116 and distributed without charge to alumni/ae, current and former parents, and other members of the Commonwealth community. Opinions expressed in CM are those of the authors and subjects, and do not necessarily represent the views of the School or its faculty and students.

We welcome your comments and news at commonwealth@commschool.org. Letters may be edited for style, length, clarity, and grammar.

Printed on recycled paper. Please recycle.

Your Lettersthe new magazine looks great. I think that I am in the photo on the back of the spring issue of CM; I’m not sure, but I think that’s me in braids and a red sweater. [Ed. Note: I’m pretty positive it’s you!]

Cristina (Coletta) Blau ’83

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CMCommonwealth School Magazine Fall 2012 ContentsWhy I Made It 1“Stripes and Spatters,” by Zubenelgenubi Scott ’12

news 4Making the Most of the Futurepresidential HonorsHughes Scholars Study the Worlda Celebratory Season

peering In: Sam Slavin ’04 6Creole opens doors to better health care.

Lots of pluck: Mark White 9the value of improvising with teenagers

Old Hands 10How a trio of art faculty has sparked creative spirits across the entire school.

portfolio 17recent works by rusty Crump, Jean Segaloff, and Larry Geffin ’69

Overheard 22Words and art from the halls and classrooms of Commonwealth

Student essay: “a Simple Cast” 23“When I pull a fish out of the water, its scales shining, its eyes bulging, and its gills throbbing, I am in awe.”

History of a Friendship: Like Stars 24a trio shaped by medical crisis and cups of tea

the alumni/ae association 28news and events for alumni/ae

Class notes 29

alumni/ae perspective: Sasha Watson ’92 36revelations in texas

Cover: Few Commonwealth faculty have been at the school longer than visual arts teachers Larry Geffin ’69 (left), Jean Segaloff, and Rusty Crump. Beginning on page 10, read about their far-reaching impact on Commonwealth; turn to page 17 to see some of their recent work. Photo by Kathleen Dooher.

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sT RaT E g I c p L a n n I n g:

Making the Most of the Future

For the last eight months, Commonwealth trustees, faculty, staff, and alumni/ae have been holding a series of strategic planning discussions. the overall goal is to evaluate the school’s operations: first by

identifying both ongoing strengths and areas where change might make the school stronger and truer to its mission, and then by prioritizing new ideas and putting costs to them.

“Our last strategic plan was put together about eight years ago,” notes headmaster Bill Wharton. “Its priorities of faculty development and student support drove the last campaign, which raised $8.5 million for the school.”

now, Wharton and Board of trustees chair Karen Firestone ’73 felt, a new look was in order. “Commonwealth has had tremendous success in the past ten years,” says Firestone, “especially considering the deep recession and slow recovery of the last four. We need to build on that success. to do so, we began by asking, “What does the school need in the next five to 10 years to become even better?”

Guided by Firestone and fellow trustees therese Hendricks p’05, p’07 and Bob Murchison p’10, committees were formed to examine five specific areas of Commonwealth life.

newscOM MO n W E a LT H

• Academic and extracurricular programs, to study how well the school’s offerings match the current needs of students and to suggest changes.

• Facilities, to examine and optimize the school’s use of the limited space at 151 Commonwealth ave., and to determine how more space might be acquired if necessary.

• Faculty and staff, to ensure that such resources as salaries and professional development continue in the most broadly supportive ways, which will also help the school to appeal to the very best candidates.

• Finance, affordability, and development, to examine in breadth and in detail today’s financial pressures and how the school meets them, a study that is especially important when it comes to mobilizing financial aid funds to support Commonwealth’s founding goal of being accessible to students who might otherwise not be able to attend such a school.

• Technology, to evaluate the growing movement toward electronic textbooks and tablet computing in classrooms across the country, and to determine helpful ways to incorporate technology.

We invite alumni/ae and parents to share their thoughts and comments about the school’s future priorities. Contact Karen Firestone at planning@commschool.org or Bill Wharton at bwharton@commschool.org.

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Presidential Honors

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Eloise Shaw ’12 Asa Goodwillie ’12Alina Grabowski ’12

Such recognition is significant not only for these three young alumni/ae but also for Commonwealth. As shown in the chart below, Commonwealth’s semifinalists represent by far the largest proportion of its senior class in the nation. “Combined with consistently strong representation in the National Merit and AP Scholar programs, it makes for a trio of impressive outside endorsements,” said headmaster Bill Wharton, “a counterpart to the positive words we so often hear from parents and alumni/ae.”

You can read more about the Presidential Scholars program at http://bit.ly/presidentialscholars.

One of the nation’s highest honors for high-school students is recognition by the Presidential Scholars Program, which this past spring named three Commonwealth seniors as Presidential Scholar

semifinalists: Alina Grabowski, now at the University of Pennsylvania; Eloise Shaw, at Harvard; and Asa Goodwillie, at Amherst. Asa and Eloise were selected based on their academic distinction and extracurricular accomplishments. Alina’s nomination followed her participation in the 2011 YoungArts Week. At this gathering of some 150 students from across the country, Alina was honored for her short story-writing.

Tops in National Merit

In September, eleven current seniors, nearly a third of the class, were named as National Merit Semifinalists. Given the size of our class, it is particularly impressive that no other co-ed independent school in the Boston area had more.

Gabriel Antonucci of Watertown, Rachel Hahn of Marshfield, Ruth Hanna of Brighton (daughter of Steve Hanna ’82),

Benjamin Kim of Newton Highlands, Amanda Lee of Watertown, Carin Papendorp of Somerville, Daniel Rubin of Waban, Keller Scholl of Needham, Samuel Shapiro of Boston, Meghan Smith of Marblehead, and Curtis Stone of Boston were recognized based on their scores in the PSAT; among all the high-school seniors in the U.S., fewer than 1% receive this honor.

Percentage of SeniorS named 2012 PreSidential ScholarS

commonwealth School

Governor’s School for arts and humanities, SC

Interlochen arts academy, MI

oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics

Maggie l. Walker Governor’s School, Va

new World School of the arts, Fl

harker School, Ca

Charter School of Wilmington, De

Booker t. Washington high School, tX

thomas Jefferson School for Science and technology, Va

north Carolina School of Science and Mathematics

lincoln east high School, ne

Punahou School, hI

Solon high School, oh

laguardia high School, nY

Cherry Creek high School, Co

northview high School, Ga

Wayzata high School, Mn

Carmel high School, In

adlai e. Stevenson high School, Il

0 2% 4% 6% 8%| | | | |

of the 20 schools with three or more

semifinalists in the U.S. Presidential

Scholars Program, commonwealth

had the highest percentage of seniors

honored, nearly 8 percent. the program

recognizes students with exceptional

academic and artistic merit.

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a YO u n g a LuM n u s : sa M s L av I n ’04

peering Inby Tristan Davies ’83

medical care to its residents. Back in Boston, he took a job at paCt (a partners in Health project based in dorchester) creating educational materials, training community health workers in Boston, new York, and on a navajo reservation, and working with patients himself.

Sam has learned to shape health‑care conversations that address each patient’s social and cultural perspectives. In one client’s life, a series of major disruptions had culminated in a diabetic coma. Her doctor’s orders felt to her like further victimization. they talked, says Sam, and “latched onto an image of these irrigation canals along the roads in Haitian towns, like the one where she grew up. Her family would dig a small channel to let water into their garden. and she saw that taking insulin was like opening the channel.” discussions like these, notes Sam, can “change the whole meaning of medicine” for patients and give them new ways to understand themselves.

sam Slavin plans to be a doctor, but he’s only half‑joking when he says it’s not to heal the sick. For Sam, health care provides a unique perspective on knowing people, their cultures, and the complexities of their lives.

always curious about others, Sam gained focus by becoming a thoughtful reader. “I loved how eric davis set classes up so we would talk about one passage at a high zoom of detail, and then the last question would be something like, ‘so what does this tell you about life?’” Sam’s interest in links between literary thought and the everyday world coalesced at Yale around the interaction of science and society. In a senior essay, he examined how writers from George eliot to Ian Mcewan portray doctors and scientists.

One summer, as he tutored low‑income students, the immediacy of human connection struck Sam: he said bonjou to a Haitian boy who “threw himself on the table in excitement exclaiming, ‘You speak Creole!’ My using a single word of his language opened a door!” So Sam began studying Haitian Creole.

after college he spent more than a year in rural anse‑à‑pitres, Haiti, where he helped bring clean water, food, health education, and

Above: Sam Slavin ’04 poses outside Los Caballeros Market on Washington Street in Dorchester. “Meet people on their home turf and the whole dynamic shifts. You get a more complete story.”

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Hughes Scholars Study the World

This past summer, 13 faculty and staff used grants from the John Hughes Fund to plan new classes, revise existing classes, follow new intellectual and artistic interests, and develop additional resources for the school. A sample of projects:

[Russia] Don Conolly began to study the Russian language as he prepared to teach again the Russian Literature class he introduced two years ago. Don also revised the Latin curriculum to better prepare students for the changes in the College Board’s Latin Advanced Placement exam.

[Japan] Larry Geffin ’69 traveled nearly the length of Japan to look at art (particularly calligraphy). Of course he made a stop in Hokkaido for birdwatching.

[India] Barbara Grant, an avid Bollywood fan and teacher of a class on the history of India, began learning Hindi. She hopes to travel to India during her next sabbatical.

[China] Mandarin teacher Stacy Tan visited Hangzhou to lay the groundwork for school trips and exchanges with China.

[Canada, Guadeloupe, Algeria] A desire to broaden the scope of the French IV Literature class led Bob Vollrath to read books by many non-French francophones including authors from Canada, Guadeloupe, and Algeria.

[Peru] Monica Schilder revised her Spanish 3 textbook, which centers on the history and culture of Peru.

[Washington, D.C.] Susan Thompson produced her play, Unforgettable: Letters from Korea, based on her parents’ wartime correspondence, for veterans and others at the Department of Defense Korean War Commemoration in Washington, D.C. (The Boston College Theatre Department and Undergraduate Research Fellows Program, Annie Malroux, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council also supported the project.)

[Boston] Jean Segaloff and our librarian, Meagan Kane, began compiling a physical and digital collection of artist’s books made by students at Commonwealth.

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A group of Commonwealth students took to the streets in May for the Walk for Hunger in Boston. Organized by Project Bread, the annual event raises funds for community hunger relief programs. The Commonwealth team, led by Carin Papendorp ’13, collected $2,000. Pictured from left to right are walkers Benjamin Kim ’13, Katrina Lee ’15, Amanda Lee ’13, Simon Marshall-Shah ’12, Tamsin Board ’12, Chiara Pandolfi ’12, Sophie Calhoun ’13, and Carin.

A Celebratory Season

Chorus, chorale and orchestra director David Hodgkins’

Commonwealth gig is not his only one. This year he celebrates 20 years as artistic director of Coro Allegro. The 60-voice chorus, regarded as one of Boston’s finest, was formed in 1990 so that the area would have an LGBT chorus specializing in classical music. A season-long commemoration of David’s tenure culminates in a June 2 celebration at the Church of the Covenant in Boston.

Coro Allegro was honored last June with the 2012 Chorus America/ASCAP Alice Parker Award, “for programming significant recently composed music that expands the mission of the chorus and challenges the chorus’s audience in a new way,” as described by Chorus America. Indeed, the ensemble has just released its first commercial CD, which features two works by contemporary western-Massachusetts composers. Awakenings, on the Naxos label, includes “Shofar” by Robert Stern—with soloist David Kravitz ’82—and “Why I Wake Early” by Ronald Pereia, with pianist Darryl Hollister who is David’s accompanist at Commonwealth.

Steps to Help the Hungry

Inkjet Pigment Print by Daniel Benett ’14

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organized the texts and composed, performed, and recorded the musical examples. It was, he exclaims, “much harder than I thought! Choosing topics, settling on the overall structure (which went in a completely different direction from my original plan), and then editing—it was brutally time consuming!”

In a life inhabited by high‑level professional musicians, Mark’s Commonwealth students still fascinate him after 26 years. “It’s interesting and it’s important to see what teenagers are thinking and listening to.” He’s passionate about his role as a pedagogue. “even though students today are more likely to know their way around various music software—they’re very talented—most of them have no reference points

in jazz history. they don’t know the heritage of their instruments.” Mark wants them to learn all of that as well as the skills and discipline they need to engage with challenging, sophisticated material. “the students have to know how musical form works; about improvisation, ensemble balance, and listening. I don’t want them just jamming on simple stuff.”

the jazz band practices only once a week, and Mark knows his students “have hyper obligations, so I can’t push them too hard.” But he admires their youthful resilience. “they’re curious about everything, and they take nothing for granted—including authority, which is more good than not—and for every concert, I love the way they step up to the plate.”

persuading guitarist Mark White to slow down long enough for a conversation can be challenging. We spoke between his spring concerts at Commonwealth and Berklee College of Music and just before a month‑long tour through

austria, Slovenia, and Italy. Indeed, most summers find Mark performing at jazz festivals in europe, asia, and South america. during the school year, he teaches jazz theory and directs the jazz band at Commonwealth; teaches and helps evaluate student auditions as a professor at Berklee; does “a lot of freelance work, from the Boston pops to gigs at a Chinese restaurant”; and is in demand as a studio musician. In June Berklee press published his second book. For The Practical Jazz Guitarist, Mark wrote and

Facu LT Y sp OT L Ig H T: M a R k W H I T E

Lots of pluckby Rebecca Folkman

“It’s interesting and important to see what teenagers are thinking and listening to.”

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Photographs by Kathleen Dooher

With every Commonwealth student enrolled every semester in at least one visual or performing art class, the

arts are a vital part of the school. and beginning 40 years ago, a trio of studio art teachers—Walter “rusty” Crump, Larry Geffin, and Jean Segaloff—has transformed the lives of multitudes of students even as their own lives have evolved and changed direction.

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MAKIng THE TEAM

Rusty was the first. He came to Commonwealth in 1972, replacing printmaking teacher Charles Wadsworth. rusty remembers his very first class. “I had no roster; I was only told ‘expect five or six students.’” ten showed up.

rattled, rusty couldn’t find any extra plates for monoprinting. aaron Fink ’73, a senior who had taken printmaking before, “calmly helped me get organized. then, just as things were settling down, Charles Merrill walked in and asked, ‘How are things going?’ and I thought, ‘Uh oh! this is probably my first and last day.’” But a year later when drawing‑and‑painting teacher Herb parsons retired, rusty took over those duties as well. Since drawing and painting classes met on the first floor and printmaking on the fourth, with several periods overlapping, rusty spent “a lot of time huffing and puffing up and down the stairs.”

“a lot of kids who come to Commonwealth, I think, have very sophisticated language, and they can be very articulate when talking in class or with each other or with teachers,” says rusty. “But when it comes to making art, many of them start out with the language of fourth or fifth graders. I try to help them enrich and build up their visual vocabularies.”

eric Brotman ’06 holds clear memories of conversations over new prints. “What might have looked from the outside like chaos was, in fact, a teaching style perfectly suited to each one of

rusty’s students’ personalities. For some—like me—who thought a minimalist style would be best (or easiest), rusty was always positive, but he helped us to go further and bring the best out of our work. For those who were already very talented, he challenged them and pushed them out of their comfort zone.”

today, taking turns at the 21‑inch‑bed press, students crank out monoprints, linoleum cuts, dry points, etchings, and collagraphs. “they say, ‘I can’t draw,’” says rusty. “and I say, ‘Just make marks.’ and they do. and I say, ‘eventually, you’ll see something in those marks.’ and they always do.”

Larry came next—or, perhaps it’s better to say he returned. Larry first arrived at Commonwealth as a junior, from Mattapan. He found the class and social differences overwhelming. Of his student days, Larry is blunt: “I was a flop. I was given a chance to move from the 10th grade of a large Boston public high school to Commonwealth’s 11th grade, and in those two years, most of the work I produced was subpar. though I had a brain and my public school training wasn’t horrible, what I didn’t have was discipline, focus, or reasons more compelling than girls, fun, and hanging around to make anything of myself.”

after graduating and painting for two years on his own, Larry studied painting at Boston University. Bachelor of Fine arts (but no money) in hand, he got back in touch with Charles Merrill and

Larry Geffin ’69 discusses form and shading with Rachel Hahn ’13.

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began working in 1975 as a janitor’s assistant for John MacIsaac at Commonwealth three days a week, for 12 hours a day, a schedule that allowed him to work on his own art. One day about a year later Larry was vacuuming on the second floor when Mr. Merrill tapped him on the shoulder. He asked if Larry wanted to teach the drawing and painting classes. Larry agreed, and found, surprisingly, that he loved it.

as Meghan Short ’08 put it during her senior talk to parents, “even though the atmosphere in the art room is social, everyone is intent on the work he is doing. at times I’ve been so involved in my art that I’m oblivious to everything around me—‘in the zone,’ as some would describe it—and I am able to draw effortlessly. at other times, my drawing wouldn’t look right, and I couldn’t figure out what I needed to change to make it better. I could always count on Larry to tell me, through some circuitous but invariably brilliant and spot‑on analogy, exactly what I could do to fix it… In that sunny fourth‑floor studio, I learned to draw, I learned to talk, and I learned to think about art.”

Jean began teaching at Commonwealth in 1978. rusty remembers “the day I showed her the ceramics room. It was dimly lit with heavy, gray clumps of dry clay in dusty green trashcans, a few cumbersome kick wheels, and no tools. this petite woman was indignant, as if someone had vandalized her own studio.”

“I always wanted to be an artist,” Jean says. “Growing up, I was always drawing, painting, and making stuff out of scraps I found in my house, in other people’s trash, or on the street—I’ve always used cross‑disciplinary materials.” She read constantly, but aside from art and english she hated school. In her late twenties, Jean was teaching crafts to kids with learning disabilities at a storefront school in roxbury. One day, curious about the ceramics studio around the corner from her apartment in Inman Square, she wandered in. “and that was it! I fell in love with clay.” Soon she opened her own studio, where she worked and taught for seven years. From the start, Jean has kept her workspaces meticulous and taught her students to do the same. Clean spaces, she feels, make for better concentration. “When I make art,” she says, “I feel energized and centered, even if the process is not going as planned.”

emily Higgins ’99 recalls how “Jean taught me to settle down and stop overworking. It’s easy and cheesy to say that sounds like a life lesson, but it changed my perspective a lot.”

What makes this team of teachers so extraordinary is both its span across a wide range of styles and mediums, and its united approach to teaching. as Headmaster Bill Wharton notes, “all three work passionately to engage their students fully in the craft that made them into artists who wanted to teach. For a place that is so intellectually and academically oriented, to have such strength in the studio arts—where kids put their hands on clay, or brushes to paper, or knives to linoleum—keeps life from becoming lopsidedly cerebral.”

All HAnDS On

six students sit at pottery wheels. the room is big and bright with a low hum of motors and conversation, along with the occasional call of “Jean, help!” Shelves are stacked with colorfully glazed pots, bisque ware, unfired forms,

a porcelain dragon, tiles with the imprints of sneakers. Looking carefully over the shoulder of a student, Jean offers a quiet alert and places her hands over his. Miraculously the uneven lump of clay moves up into an elegant cone.

potting is hard; it takes strength, determination, and lots of practice. Says Jean, “it’s a skill that has to be repeated over and over until it feels right.” Her own Japanese ceramics teacher threw 50 saucers every morning just to prepare for her day at the wheel. “I’m not that traditional or rigid in my teaching but I do expect my students to make strong, functional pots.”

“these kids come to Commonwealth with respectable grades and an ego programmed for success,” she continues. “they come to their first ceramics class and discover that all they can make is a mushy Frisbee.” Once her students get beyond the shock of failing—sometimes for the first time in their young lives—they can move on and learn how to make pots, and more. “I think that potting is a craft until a student loves her first pot; then it becomes an art.”

talia Leonard ’11 smiles, “I think one of the things Jean did best was teaching me when to throw out a pot. She knew when to suggest, gently, that maybe I ought to start over. She was always right, and I always appreciated her honesty and her good humor.” emily Botein ’87, who has become one of Jean’s closest friends, adds, “Jean doesn’t hide from anything; she’s all about being present. One minute she’s totally sincere and serious; a second later she’ll be funny.” this quality, emily notes, is a relief. “Life is too hard to be weighted down always by seriousness. It’s better to be playful.”

Louise Harter ’82, a potter with a studio in Connecticut, “got a lot of inspiration from Jean, along with practical ideas about how to solve problems.” as a summer assistant in Jean’s studio, Louise says, “I saw how an artist lives.” Watching Jean’s day—the studio work, the meetings, the commissions, the breadth of her skills—provided Louise with a model, and she decided, “that’s what I want to do.”

“In my room,” explains Larry, “everything that happens, happens because of friction.” He continues: “You have to take a tool—a palette knife, a brush, a piece of charcoal, a pencil—that, when dragged upon a receptive surface, leaves a mark.” the idea of productive friction also runs through the banter between Larry and his students, where the teacher nudges, elbows, or shoves a sometimes‑resistant young artist just a little further; friction can surface as well in the tension between what students want to express and their ability to do so.

In the physical work of painting, students implicitly and explicitly learn to connect their ideas and imagination with technique. “You can’t fool your body,” Larry says. “I don’t care what kind of training you’ve got. If you’re disciplined—that’s really what I teach, discipline—your thoughts and feelings enter through the brush and become part of the brush stroke.”

teaching discipline, of course, requires an enormous amount of trust in one’s students. It is this quality of support at the right moments that gets through to so many of them.

“He wouldn’t say anything at first,” recalls Layla Muchnik ’11, who took Life drawing for two years (and who went from Commonwealth to the School of the art Institute of Chicago). “He let you warm up a little to the model and the paper, and then after a couple of poses he would start giving really precise feedback. He would point to specific areas, like the shoulder or the forehead, where there should be a shift in planes, and he would use hand motions to illustrate that shift.”

For rusty, the give and take between student and teacher—artist and artist—is reflected in the iterative evolution of a printing plate and is valuable even when teacher and pupil believe in different approaches. aaron Fink was already an accomplished artist by that fateful first printmaking class. “He was always making big bold marks,” says rusty. “He had an idea of where he wanted his prints to go, whereas I could get lost in exploring a plate for months before

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finishing it. We had 180‑degree‑opposite views on the process of making a plate.” throughout that year, the two carried on a lively dialogue about printmaking.

eric Brotman remembers discussing prints and photographs with rusty: “He never let me rest on my laurels. He told me where I could make a piece better, but also, always, told me what he loved about it. I never once felt discouraged. I could get involved in something that mattered to no one but me, and maybe rusty, something that would never be graded or handed back covered with red ink, unless of course I had printed it in red.”

“I often learn something new from my students,” muses rusty. “teaching keeps you young and alive.”

nEW WORKS

Openness to learning led rusty to a great change in his artistic life. In the mid‑eighties, with students (led by tom Kates ’87) clamoring for a photography course, rusty started one even though he had little experience in

the medium. “We had one enlarger next to a tub in a fourth‑floor bathroom,” rusty remembers.

after a series of renovations, rusty’s photography‑and‑printmaking domain today occupies the front half of the fifth floor. In this space, photography has flourished, enrolling more students now than printmaking does. Beginners take a film‑based photography class. Old‑fashioned? perhaps, but rusty insists that students learn how to make a well‑crafted print. “photoshop and digital photography provide an infinite number of artistic choices,” he says. “and kids like to go immediately to the ‘glitzy’ stuff, usually with terrible results.” By starting with traditional photography, students who move to digital photography will do so with a more discerning eye.

though not enrolled in any photography classes, Hannah Kaplan‑Hartlaub ’11 (see “rare roast Beef,” CM, fall 2011) asked rusty to be her mentor for a project week in digital photography. “I was passionate about photography,” Hannah explains, “but I barely knew how to use the different features of my camera. Instead of explaining composition, for example, through rules, rusty would examine each photograph and tell me what spoke to him and what did not. By showing me how particular photographs were expressive, rusty allowed me to discover what well‑composed images have in common. this way, any developments in my style were organic and uniquely mine.”

Walk into rusty’s studio and you’ll see an L‑shaped array of computers along the counters lining the left‑hand side of the room, and you’re likely to see students using them to manipulate and print digital photographs. the darkroom is through a curtain at the back. In the center of the room sits the old reliable flatbed press, and to the right are the tables, shelves of paper, brayers, plates, and ink for printmaking. the juxtaposition of the two arts allows students to blur the boundaries between print and photograph with such techniques as polaroid transfers, solarplates, and Van dyke and cyanotype processes. Beyond those, rusty says, “I will let students try almost any idea; whether it fails or succeeds, they always gain something from attempting it. Once a student mixed oatmeal with developer to make a print, and it worked. But when we tried the process with noodles, it was a no‑go.”

What has always motivated his own art, rusty explains, is “working with mediums that allow for the unexpected, what I like

to call ‘controlled accidents.’” His prints often incorporated found objects or toilet paper or “street iron.” In the darkroom, he exposed prints to light before they were fixed. He also painted, wiped, and sprayed them with developer or fixer or bleach. thus, each image was unique.

Soon after he became interested in photography, fortuitously, rusty’s camera was stolen. So he began using pinhole cameras: “they’re cheap and easy to build.” the lens of a typical camera is replaced by a tiny hole that focuses an image on paper or film in the camera chamber. In this low‑tech approach, nearly any container can be made into a camera. these days, you often see strangely shaped student‑made pinhole cameras perched in odd corners of the school. “pinhole photography is wide open,” says rusty. “You don’t have a light meter or a viewfinder, and the photographic negative wrapped around a cylinder gives a ‘warped’ image, so there’s a lot of room for happenstance.”

For Larry, a born storyteller, pursuing the union between image and language has led to his studying Japanese calligraphy for more than 20 years with ranked calligrapher Keiko Kanda (mother of

Rusty Crump inspects a camera with Ben Koger ’12.

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no students came. Jean announced more lunch meetings. For six weeks, she ate grilled cheese sandwiches at travis by herself. Finally one day, through the window, she saw a few Commonwealth students walking back and forth. “I went outside and said, ‘Oh come on, just come in already,’ and we went from there.” as the years passed, “We made banners and marched as a school in the Youth pride parade and the Gay Straight alliances parade. that we’re even visible is important. But here we were with our little group from this precious school, 20 people carrying a banner that said ‘Commonwealth School.’ that was just amazing.”

“Jean is a major reason why Commonwealth has become a place where all kids feel at home being out and being who they are,” says Bill Wharton.

“I remain eternally grateful,” says Keenan.rusty today has become a well‑recognized artist, exhibiting

his pinhole photography throughout the world and with work in collections of major museums. after spending 2001–03 on a Fulbright in pakistan, rusty co‑curated an exhibition of pakistani artists living in the U.S. and Canada. two years after participating in an exhibition of pinhole photography at the Museum of the History of photography in Krakow in 2005, he and Jesseca Ferguson curated a show of seven polish pinhole photographers that traveled throughout new england. the “strangest” photo workshop he ever ran took place at a teheran artists’ center several years ago: “at the last minute, I was told that the officials who oversaw the center would not allow me to set up a darkroom because young men and women would be in it together.”

experiences like these, rusty says, serve his students “because they enlarge my way of observing the fascinating ways different cultures make and think about art. I like the challenge of coming to terms with the diversity and cultural nuance in the places I visit.”

Bill Wharton reflects that “as a school, we don’t consciously set an interdisciplinary curriculum. But when you put a bunch of interesting teachers who are very good in their fields together with the kind of students we have, you discover that the kids make connections, and you can see how their experiences in different classrooms and in the studio cross‑pollinate. It’s exciting to watch.”

In the last 20 years or so, Larry has given increasingly passionate expression, in voice and action, to the idea that, as Keenan puts it, “if a student is good enough to be accepted into Commonwealth then we have an obligation to see that he or she does well.” Moreover, recalls Keenan, from the school’s earliest days into the 1990s “african american students frequently did not do well; many ended up leaving. We had to change that.” Larry says he’s driven by memories of the students he’s seen overwhelmed by the demands of the school and lacking the support systems—be they educational, financial, or emotional—to survive and thrive.” Such difficulties seemed especially prevalent among students of color and those from poorer backgrounds.

a number of students who have needed a hands‑on style of mentoring have chosen Larry as an advisor, and he has become their tireless champion. Lihuan Lai ’02 was one of them. “He was very strict with me. He pushed me to use my study hall hours wisely, pushed me to meet with my teachers, and to dream of a future that I wanted despite my humble background. He pushed me to value myself,” she says. Several years ago, Larry was instrumental in creating entering Commonwealth. this program provides summer orientation, advisors, and other assistance to admitted students who may not have the preparation or the support at home for a smooth transition to ninth grade. Students

Chiaki ’90). “Calligraphy is an art form shaped strictly by rules and custom,” Larry says, “yet within its limits, it’s possible to find an exhilarating freedom. When I begin a new project, I practice it several hundreds of times on practice paper before even considering going forward with a more formal piece. Magically, the brush and paper begin to work in concert with the body, the characters shaped by a discipline I couldn’t even imagine as a kid.” three of his kanji compositions now hang in the stairway outside the library. they translate as “truth,” “harmony,” and “creativity.” “I wanted to draw characters whose meaning is relevant to what my students, advisees, and I talk about. I suppose it would have been just as artistically interesting to have chosen words like ‘falsehood,’ ‘discord,’ and ‘unimaginative,’ but the project wouldn’t have meant as much to me.”

Jean, too, has undergone creative transformations. Sixteen years ago, she turned her own ceramics studio into a space where she could paint and make prints. already adept at pen‑and‑ink drawing, she says “I’d been thinking about being a painter for years. Working in a medium that was portable offered me opportunities outside my studio. I was giddy and nervous, like a pianist who decides to play the piccolo.” She began to paint on the streets of Boston and in the summer on Cape Cod. “I would set up my easel and often sell what I was painting right then as well as images from my portfolio.” Jean now works with several art consultants who sell her watercolors and prints to corporations, designers, and collectors.

then, spurred by her endless curiosity about materials and techniques, Jean began to make artist books “because they offer an ideal way to experiment with a vast variety of skills.” In the course she began teaching in 2007, she described these “books” to her students as sets of small artworks that tell a story or explore an idea. artist books, she told them, are a multidisciplinary means of communication, explored visually and tactilely by artist and viewer. they don’t have to be in the form of paper pages bound into book form—although that is often the first step for beginning students. artist books can take the form of a redesigned traditional book, an accordion book, but also, for example, a mobile, a sculpture, or a container and its contents.

Her students learn printing techniques and photoshop. they familiarize themselves with electric tools. they practice methods of non‑traditional binding. they use paper, pencil, chalk, paint, gesso, and ink, but also numerous acrylic mediums; wax; glue; cloth; metal; rope; grommets; tape; cork; or wood, and, occasionally, words. Jean proposes a subject—“crossing boundaries,” perhaps, or “texture” or “ambiguity” or “mapping”—that imaginative young artists interpret in far‑reaching, surprising directions.

MOvIng OUTWARD

concern for her community took Jean out of the classroom in the early nineties to make a crucial contribution to the school: establishing the Gay Straight alliance. Issues had flared up at Commonwealth, recalls former head Judith

Keenan, and Jean, who was already involved with gay and lesbian rights organizations, “came forward and said that she could direct her efforts toward improving the climate in the school if she knew she had the support of the school. She did, and she did.”

at announcements one day, Jean declared that she was starting the alliance and invited interested students to join her for lunch at travis, a somewhat out‑of‑the‑way diner on dartmouth St.

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who participate in entering Commonwealth are tracked closely through their first years, and less formally as they move on.

Larry also lobbied long and hard to create the Homework project, a voluntary mentored evening study hall that offers students time and a place to complete homework and develop productive study skills. Jessica François ’10, also one of Larry’s advisees and one of Homework project’s first participants, recalls, “Some students like me didn’t have neat or encouraging study spaces at home. I needed quiet, a computer, books, and peers to help me. I really didn’t want to be at school for 12 hours on those days, but the first month of Homework project was heaven sent. I completed my work, got to hang out with my friends, and even had a good little dinner provided by the school beforehand.” In her senior year, Jessica became a student proctor of the Homework project. now a student at Wesleyan University, Jessica says, “at Commonwealth, I knew I was loved by my teachers. I have no words for how much I love Larry. I just knew that he would advocate for me every single second of the day. He wanted to see me and students like me from poor, diverse backgrounds succeed.”

Homework project and entering Commonwealth help ensure that more students master the skills they need and that a more diverse group of students can claim Commonwealth as theirs. Of Larry’s initiatives and the changes he has brought to the culture

of the school Judith Keenan says: “Larry has infinite energy, persistence, and smarts, and he brings them together with such a commitment to the school that it’s hard to argue with him.”

“In hiring me,” Larry says, “Commonwealth gave me a second chance. My special devotion to kids who struggle, especially those without other supports, is because I know from my student days what it feels like to be known as someone who does subpar work. and I think I have some pretty damn good ideas on how to break that mold.”

today, says Wharton, the school works hard and consistently towards active inclusion. “We’re serving all our kids more fully and more effectively then we have in the past. and that’s been huge.” Lai, who came back to work as Commonwealth’s first diversity director, felt that she was very much following in her advisor’s footsteps. “He cares about each student deeply. It’s easy to say ‘I believe in you;’ but it’s amazing how much Larry’s actions mirror his belief.”

By weaving their actions—and indeed, their entire lives—inextricably into the Commonwealth experience, Larry, rusty, and Jean have had a lasting impact even on that majority of students who don’t become artists; their influence on students and the school has reached immeasurably beyond the jobs they were hired to do. and their students, no matter how their lives unfold, never forget the teachers who inspired their creative spirits.

Jean Segaloff helps Matt Costas ’14 center clay on a pottery wheel.

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Rusty Crump

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Jean Segaloff

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OverheardWith thanks to the mostly-weekly Quote of the Week contest

“no, ‘diminutivizer’ is not a word.”

“Do not bring your soft fuzzy things to the AP just to make you feel cozy and happy.”

“So Frederick Barbarossa was like, ‘Hey I just met you, and this is crazy, but I’m your new king, so hail me maybe.’”

“I’ve got 99 problems and they’re all calculus and Facebook chat!”

“This class is undergoing a tangential acceleration!”

“that should be an airport slogan: Keep calm with a carry‑on.”

Isabelle. “Bow chicka wow-wow.”

Mr. DavIs. “Is that a technical term?”

“Are your pants plaid?”

“no, they’re angry.”Collage by Feyga Saksonov ’14

J.p. “Hey thornton, are you

going to the computer lab?”

Thornton. “no, I have work to do”

“What if we filled a hyperbolic plane with mice and then put a huge chunk of cheese right outside of it, so the mice would smell it, but never be able to reach it. That would be hilarious! It would be the Hyperbolic Cheese Hell!”

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Although we have come a long way from the first Homo

sapiens, there still lurks somewhere inside us the drive to catch an animal and prepare it for food. Even if you don’t eat meat, I still think it’s enlightening to

understand this essential part of what being human meant a long time ago. Fishing is one of the techniques we have come up with in order to supply ourselves with food. But fly-fishing is more: ancient in the act, yet modern in the nuance and technology used to entice a fish to bite.

When I fly-fish, I attempt to imitate minute details of nature. With a fly rod, I can (theoretically) have nearly complete control over my artificial fly, letting it fall on the water just in front of a fish’s mouth and giving it the appropriate slight tug that spurs the fish to bite. Instead of relying on the attractiveness of a lure (as in spinner fishing), I must focus on bringing life to an imitation of a fly. The best flies are designed to behave in the water exactly as real ones would, producing the correct vibrations, flashes of light, bubbles, and other effects. An expert fly fisher (not quite me) could catch an almost unlimited variety of fish, since his flies and casting movements would be able to replicate so many forms of aquatic life.

Part of the allure of fly-fishing for me is the beauty and simplicity of casting. You use a special fishing line that is pulled from the reel by its own weight, as opposed to the weight of a lure. This allows you to use a nearly weightless fly that can sit on the surface of the water the way a live fly does.

I found it hard at first to cast with the right combination of movement and timing. For example, at one point the line is straightened out parallel to the ground behind you, and you must give a slight snap of the rod to make the line shoot in front of you. If you flick too early, the line will get tangled; too late and it will fall to the ground behind you, and you will have to start again. A correctly executed cast is a smooth, continuous motion during which the line makes a calming singing sound as it slices through the air.

A SimpleCastBy Matthew Spitzer ’12

Photograph by Emily Kremer-McNeil ’12

ST U D E N T E S SAY

Most of the fly-fishing I have done is for trout on a small river or stream, which is the classic type of fly-fishing. Trout feed on all stages of flies, from the larvae that hatch on the bottom of the streambed to adult flies that have just mated and fallen exhausted (and nearly dead) onto the water’s surface. An accomplished fly- fisher can mimic all of these stages in the fly life cycle with the correct fly and presentation. I have worked with the “nymph” phase (among others), in which a fly has partly undergone metamorphosis and floats on the current. If your fly is to pass for a nymph, you need to cast so as to create a lot of slack. If your line is taut your fly will not move at the exact speed of the current and will look unnatural to the fish. Even with a slack line though, the current moves different sections of your line at different speeds, which also imparts unnatural motion to the fly. To maintain your fly’s illusion of authenticity, you must constantly “mend” your line, flipping it upstream so as to form an upside-down “U.” Experts make this seemingly counterintuitive movement elegantly and effortlessly.

When I pull a fish out of the water, its scales shining, its eyes bulging, and its gills throbbing, I am in

awe. Part of me feels satisfied that I have used my understanding of nature to make my catch. But another part of me

realizes that the fish is of another world, and that I can never truly understand it. Although I am happy to be a successful fisherman, I am aware of how I have disrupted the fish’s life. I feel the need to take special care of the fish when I remove the fly from the side of its mouth and dip it back in the water. As I gently swing the fish in a figure-eight pattern to get the water flowing over its gills, it begins to calm down. It is beautiful to see the fish come back into its element, reentering the water and swimming away as if nothing at all had happened.

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1981 classmates Sarah Goodman, Liz Homans McKenna, and Caroline Hass N’Diaye launch into a spontaneous rendition of “We Are Family”

in the Commonwealth School garden.

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nineteen‑eighty‑one was a good year to graduate from Commonwealth. “We are family,” Sister Sledge sang out, and the three “sisters with different parents,” as they call themselves,

would get up and dance. Liz Homans McKenna, Caroline Hass n’diaye, and Sarah Goodman still feel they were a part of “the best class ever.”

the three women reflect on what has kept them close through grade school, Commonwealth, colleges, graduate schools, children, relationships, and loss. they review a variety of shared interests and feelings: love of humanity, passion for the arts, and curiosity about different cultures and languages. What emerges is a fierce commitment to each other that is based on decades of close friendship and on respect for and devotion to the values their parents laid out for them. even today, they still finish each other’s sentences. “We share the same heart,” says Liz.

By Janetta Stringfellow

H I sTO RY O F a F R I E n D s H I p

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early on, their daily middle‑school routine brought them together—all three were on the “academic track” at Cambridge’s peabody School and were enthusiastic basketball

players. then, in seventh grade, the young friends faced a terrible crisis. Liz caught the flu and contracted reye’s syndrome (a potentially fatal disease associated with aspirin consumption by children who have viral illnesses). Caroline’s father, who was Liz’s pediatrician, was out of town at the time; his partner wisely sent her to Boston Children’s Hospital. Liz spent two weeks in a coma. She nearly died; she was given last rites.

Finally, Liz regained consciousness. doctors discovered, however, that because she had been intubated for so long, she had scar tissue in her airway and needed an immediate tracheotomy. Caroline and Sarah, rather than being scared off by their friend’s illness as many children might have been, visited Liz regularly. the girls cemented their friendship through this intense, frightening time. It was during her recovery that Liz decided to become a pediatrician, and she never wavered from her goal.

When asked about their aims and what one could call their idealism, they cite their fathers as models. Indeed, when they talk about their own or each other’s fathers, it is with awe and pride. Caroline’s dad, dr. Gerald Hass, is a South end legend. as a co‑founder in 1969 of the South end Community Health Center, a

pediatric clinic for low‑income families, he brought healthcare into what was a primarily Spanish‑speaking neighborhood—long before it filled up with expensive shops and restaurants. Last spring, the South end Health Center’s building at 400 Shawmut avenue was renamed the dr. Gerald Hass Center. and while he was bringing vaccines—and ear piercing—to the children of Boston and Cambridge, dr. Hass also brought piping hot British tea to the bedsides of his daughters—and when friends slept over, they got a cup as well! Liz remembers these as her first tastes of tea and the start of a lifelong ritual.

Liz’s father, William Homans, Jr., was a noted civil rights lawyer whose arguments proved instrumental in abolishing the death penalty in Massachusetts in 1975. When he died in 1997, his New York Times obituary stated that he “championed the downtrodden, the oppressed, and the out‑and‑out villainous” with “verve.” Sarah’s dad, robert Goodman, currently a professor emeritus of architecture at Hampshire College, was an urban planner at MIt. He wrote several books on architecture, and worked successfully to keep the Inner Belt highway from cutting through Cambridge, Boston, and Somerville—even taking the cause to Washington. all three women continue to be inspired by these extraordinary men (who just happen to be their fathers) and their work, which, they say, helped shaped the course of their lives. “Still,” says Sarah, “It was my mom—not my dad—who insisted that I go to Commonwealth. She’s the one who typed my papers when I pulled all‑nighters too.” Sarah’s mother, Miriam Goodman, was a published poet even before Sarah got to Commonwealth; she passed away in 2008. Caroline’s mother, terry Hass, is renowned for ceramics and still perfects her designs at Harvard pottery Studios. Liz’s mother, elizabeth Homans, was a painter and horticulturalist who raised orchids in a backyard greenhouse. “Our mothers taught us to appreciate art and beauty, which may be why we all loved rusty and Larry’s art classes. We used to hang out as kids drawing and painting,” Liz explains.

When it came time for high school, the girls stuck together. Liz knew about Commonwealth through her cousins Katy ’69, Margaret ’70 (“Mardo”), and Sam Homans ’78. though Sarah initially wanted to go somewhere “less academic,” she decided to stay with her friends. they describe a “herd” of kids coming across the river from Cambridge. Bonded by friendship, the three now united to meet the demands of high school. they stayed up studying every night; they always felt behind; they complained a lot.

But despite the intensity of the school, which they found “totally hard,” they admit that they all had fun. Commonwealth teachers “were supportive, but demanded a lot.” they “really learned how to write,” and later on, “college was a breeze.” according to all three women, they internalized a work ethic that stays with them to this day. Sarah credits her success as a writer and editor to what she calls “an institution of slow progress that polly Chatfield taught us in ninth‑grade ancient History: first the sentence, then the four‑to‑six‑sentence paragraph, then the three‑to‑five‑paragraph essay.” Liz, who attended Brown University, declares that what she learned at Com‑monwealth and how she learned it helped her immeasurably: “Struc‑ture and discipline got me through the math and science courses I needed to fulfill my dream of going to medical school. even though those subjects didn’t come naturally to me, I became an expert.”

One of their strongest Commonwealth memories is being on the first foreign exchange trip to albertville, France. Liz even went back to visit her French “family” 20 years later. another is dance class—specifically, Jackie Curry’s dance class. along with their fathers and kids, they could talk about Jackie all day.

“Our mothers taught us to appreciate art and beauty, which may be why we all loved rusty and Larry’s art classes. We used to hang out as kids drawing and painting,” Liz explains.

On the beach in Santa Cruz, CA, 1989.

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“Jackie formed us,” says Caroline. “She was the best dance teacher ever.” Caroline has since studied with a myriad of dance teachers, taught dance, and now teaches music at Blackstone elementary School in Boston. “there’s always a dancer in me because of her,” she says. “Jackie was just such a queen—the biggest disciplinarian—but always very professional. She wanted us to push ourselves. We had to have our chests flat on our legs every day. She sculpted us emotionally and physically. Whatever you were doing, you had to do it harder. She’d yell if you weren’t giving your best effort, and she’d stop the class until you perfected whatever you were doing. and then she’d give you praise.”

Other teachers made a lasting impression as well, such as Susan Husserl‑Kapit and paul Channing Jefferson (a.k.a. “H.K.” and “p.C.J.”), the chaperones on their albertville trip. they also reminisce about the Chatfields, the Kaplans, Kate Bluestein, and Judith Siporin. they point out that their graduation marked the end of an era because Charles Merrill, who retired in 1981, left with them. It was also the official retirement year for custodian and work‑crew captain John MacIsaac, whose dedication to the school was formally celebrated at their graduation although he stayed on part‑time for several more years. the three have fond memories of drinking coffee or tea and talking with John in the kitchen before, after, and sometimes during classes. they hung out by the kitchen door eating lemon squares and chocolate chip brownies and developing both a sense of humor and a lifelong caffeine addiction.

In the years since Commonwealth, their lives have stayed so intertwined that it’s hard to keep track of all the connections. For the first three months of Liz’s pediatric residency at the University of California, San Francisco, she lived in Oakland with Caroline, who was working on a music degree at antioch’s satellite campus at Berkeley. and when Liz made that east‑to‑west transcontinental move with a mattress strapped to the roof of her car, she brought Sarah along as a surprise. Later, when Caroline came back to Boston to attend Berklee College of Music, she moved in with Sarah.

not surprisingly, they all figured in each other’s weddings, childbirth labors, and other family happenings. at Liz’s wedding to Jeff McKenna, an otolaryngologist, Caroline and Sarah were both bridesmaids, of course. Sarah’s daughter, ariel, along with Liz’s stepdaughter, Lindsay, both of whom were seven years old at the time (and are now 29), were flower girls. this fall, when Lindsay is getting married, Sarah and ariel will drive across the desert to Flagstaff, aZ, where Liz and Jeff have a home. In 2005, when ariel needed a tonsillectomy, Jeff insisted that she fly to his practice so he could do the surgery and provide post‑op care with Liz and Lindsay for two weeks at their home in phoenix. and back in 1995, Liz and Sarah raced to the hospital for the birth of Caroline’s first daughter. Meanwhile, the trio of friends tries to reunite each summer with all their kids and families on Martha’s Vineyard or in Boston.

Caroline and Sarah have followed their artistic passions. Caroline became a musician and a teacher. She has played saxophone with several african, jazz, and salsa bands for many years, and studied dance in Senegal, where she met and married Mamadou n’diaye; they have two daughters, Moussou ’13 and 14‑year‑old Mariama.

during her senior year at Commonwealth, Sarah somehow convinced Charles Merrill to allow her to take both art and creative writing for full credit. then, after starting a film degree at S.U.n.Y. purchase, she gave birth to ariel, in 1983, and subsequently completed her film studies at emerson College. She worked in clay animation for five years, but “couldn’t swallow the values of tV advertising,” so she went into teaching in order “to build society and not drain it.” Sarah, like her mother before her, is a poet. In 2007,

On the Commonwealth Avenue mall, 2012.

and for Liz, who’s made her life nearly three thousand miles away, they have a saying: “Good friends are like stars—you don’t always see them, but you know they are there.”

while living in peaks Island, Me, she co‑wrote and published a book of poetry, Ferry Ride. today she has resettled in Jamaica plain and works as a textbook editor at pearson Inc. in Copley Square.

Liz, true to her childhood vow, achieved her dream of becoming a pediatrician. She moved to arizona where she and Jeff raised Lindsay and their two younger children, Keifer (18) and Will (17). She practices with a group of multi‑lingual women pediatricians in Gilbert and Chandler, aZ. She is also the medical director of the Medical Home project, a community program that helps provide health care to the underserved.

Forty‑three years after meeting in the peabody School classroom and 31 years after graduating from Commonwealth, these three women are as close as ever. Caroline and Sarah meet every Saturday to dance—lately at a Zumba class in Somerville—always followed with a “dirty soy chai,” (a chai‑espresso‑soy‑latte blend) at a nearby coffee shop. and for Liz, who’s made her life nearly three thousand miles away, they have a saying: “Good friends are like stars—you don’t always see them, but you know they are there.” all three describe themselves as “teachers even when not teaching.” they are also students, constantly absorbing new ideas and experiences. “We’re still all kids at heart and have kept our idealism our whole lives. We’re alive, and we want to learn.”

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cWsa a The commonwealth school alumni/ae association

FROM THE PRESIDEnT

Hello once again, alumni/ae! as I write, we are preparing for—and very

excited about—the Commonwealth music festival in november. We have also begun planning next spring’s Merrill Series event. In the meantime, I’d like to introduce you to the members of the association’s board:

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Emily Bullitt ’03, president of the CWSAA

Jeffrey Schwartz ’96 has spent his career in finance and currently works in the private equity group at Bain Capital, focusing on healthcare investments.

Jonathan Sheffi ’99 works in the biotechnology and software industries. He earned his M.B.a. at Harvard Business School, spent a year at novartis diagnostics in California, and returned east this year to join a genomics startup in Kendall Square.

Alisha Atlas-Corbett ’01 is the manager of special events and donor relations at Horizons for Homeless Children, a non‑profit in roxbury that provides early education, support, and advocacy for homeless children and their families.

Abbie Cyr ’03 is a research assistant at MIt in the laboratory of John Gabrieli, who studies human cognition.

lilly Bogis ’04 is at Cambridge associates, an investment‑consulting firm, where her work centers on non‑profits. after Commonwealth, she danced with the Boston Ballet before studying economics and art history at tufts.

as for me, I am a librarian at Babson College. after graduating from Grinnell, I came back to Boston to get my M.S. at Simmons and pursue my dream career. (no joke! I played “library” growing up.)

It’s a great group. We hold meetings several times a year, and they are productive and a lot of fun. We would love to welcome alumni/ae from the ’60s and ’70s. If you’re interested or would like to suggest someone, email me at ebullitt@gmail.com or call Janetta Stringfellow at (617) 716‑0232, and thank you!

Then and now: The LibraryTHEn n no professional librarian.

n an idiosyncratic collection of volumes representing the founder’s and faculty’s tastes.

n Honor system for circulation.

nOWn Librarian Meagan Kane (who is also athletic director).

n 7,000 volumes on hand and access to a statewide network through interlibrary loan.

n access to dozens of online scholarly databases in the sciences, arts, and humanities.

n emphasis on information literacy through a structured program that teaches students to find, evaluate, and properly use sources.

Josh Berlin ’82 is an educational consultant and tutor. Since the mid‑’90s, he has been Commonwealth’s go‑to partner for academic support.

David Kravitz ’82 trained as an attorney, but now splits his time between singing (he was a great pooh‑Bah in The Mikado earlier this year!) and his work on the Blue Mass Group website and as a frequent political commentator.

Tristan Davies ’83 is the communications director at Common‑wealth. He married classmate Janet encarnacion, and their son, eli, wants to be a Commonwealth 9th grader in four years.

Julia (Hewitt) Holloway ’81 is the CWSaa representative to the school’s Board of trustees. after 16 years at Sun Life Financial, she recently joined Mass Mutual.

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Several years ago, I took a trip to Marfa, a tiny town in the Chihuahuan Desert of West Texas. The artist Donald Judd moved himself and much of his work there from New York in the 1970’s, and today, it’s an oasis of art, film, and

writing. I went for the art; it scarcely occurred to me that I might meet a Texan or two. At the time—October 2008—Texas had a prefix: ‘ugh.’ As in the “Ugh, Texas,” that seemed to punctuate every political conversation in my blue-toned world. I’d never questioned the image of swaggering intolerance that came with it.

A friend told me to call his friend Liz when I got to Marfa. “She’s a big, loud Texan lady,” he said. “You’ll love her.” I wasn’t sure about that, but I did call her, the evening I arrived. “You can go ahead and cancel your motel,“ she barked. “We’ve got plenty of room.”

Half an hour later, a red 1969 convertible Mustang roared up to the only coffee shop in town. Liz, six feet tall, wearing zebra-striped glasses, a purple scarf, and a crimson dress, seemed to be out of the car before it had stopped. In the course of dinner I learned a little about her. She’d been a federal public defender for coming up on thirty years, and her politics, which she wore like her clothes, with no apologies, were bluer than mine.

Liz told me about her boyfriend, who was waiting for us at his house. “Mike’s a real Texas rancher,” she said, “And that means Ree-publican.” She winked. “See that?” The Mustang’s bumper wore an Obama campaign sticker. “I put that on there last week, and now Mike won’t drive it. It’s his car!” Liz roared with laughter, kicked the engine into gear, and we took off at high speed.

Mike, tall and skinny, in blue jeans, boots, and the requisite hat, was quieter than Liz, but he made a point of displaying his affiliations. Not only did he refuse to drive his own car, but he also had a McCain sign on his lawn. Liz pulled it up frequently and trashed it, after which he’d set it up again.

Like Liz, Mike wouldn’t hear of my staying in a motel, and in his sprawling ranch house I began to understand Texas. Crowded

bookshelves held Landman’s Handbook of Basic Land Management, Ancient Life in Mexico and Central America, and, intriguingly, A Texan in England. One shelf had only Bibles. The walls were covered in paintings and photographs: 19th-century women in their finery; Mike as a teenager sitting on a fence, grasslands stretching away behind him; some early 20th-century cowboy with a rifle in his hand standing next to a wolf strung from a post. Delicate, handmade lace placemats lay on the wooden dining table, and antique pedestals and desks displayed rare and beautiful objects. Mike was away for a few days; when he returned, I had many questions for him. Mildly, kindly, he answered each one.

One afternoon, Liz hosted a fundraiser for the Democratic Party in Mike’s living room. Mike stayed away for the main event, which drew a crowd of ranchers, artists, and local businesspeople. Once it was over, he sidled into the kitchen where a few of us were cleaning up and singing the praises of the future president.

“Oh, Mike’s just gonna hate us,” one of the organizers called out. “There are too many women in my kitchen right now, I will say

that,” he grumbled. “You love it, Mike O’Connor,” cried Liz, swatting his arm. Mike

escaped, head down and hiding a smile, as laughter filled the kitchen. Liz and Mike are two of the most tolerant human beings I’ve

ever met and, while they don’t speak for all of Texas they are, indeed, the real deal. I was surprised—and then embarrassed to be so surprised. I saw some great art in Marfa, but my real discovery was Texas, as complex and beautiful as any place I’ve been.

Sasha Watson ’92 has written for Slate, the Daily Beast, the Los Angeles Times, and ARTNews. Her first novel, Vidalia in Paris, was published in 2008 by Viking/Penguin. She teaches English at Harvard-Westlake Upper School in Los Angeles.

A lum n i /A e P e rs P e ct i v e

Falling for texasBy Sasha Watson ’92

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MaKe a dIFFerenCe

Three Ways to Contribute to Commonwealth

For more information, contact

Janetta Stringfellow

Director of Development

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jstringfellow@commschool.org

or visit www.commschool.org/give.

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