SUNDAY SELFIE SERIES #78
John Donovan
SUNDAY SELFIE SERIES #78: The beautiful John Donovan. Everyone I know who knows John is at least a little in awe of him, myself included. I’m not sure I’ve known someone so comfortable in his skin. He makes great art for really good reasons - please check out what happening at Buchanan Arts - and his family is poetry in motion. He’s a good one.
What has humbled you more than anything else? Trust from students and support from family. After 25 years of teaching I can still fill a room with people who believe I have something to offer in the way of encouraging the pursuit of a creative career or just learning a process that can lead to personal expression, I still get queasy on the first day of class, it still gives me the jitters, returning to the mindset of “I really don’t deserve this opportunity”. And family support, these amazing remarkable people that I live with, the way that they still express through their words, actions and work (the hard work that they do to help create the opportunity for me to work) that they believe in what I’m doing, that keeps me humble.
Do you feel like you’ve gotten a good education? Absolutely yes, I was lucky at a very young age my parents trusted a local potter enough to just (literally) leave me at his studio after school, an artist who I maintain a friendship with to this day, he moved to Costa Rica right before Covid, before leaving he invited me back to his studio in Florida where I first met clay and I was able to grab equipment and materials, some of which I had used when I was there as a kid, later as a beginning artist/teacher. This equipment is at Buchanan Arts and is getting put to work by new students now. I also received a high-quality traditional education, working with practicing artist professors in undergrad and grad school, teachers who always led by example (doing the work), who took a personal interest in me becoming the best version of myself, but that early start really made a difference. I took it for granted that everyone had access to spaces where creative expression was encouraged, a safe space to make without judgement, it wasn’t until much later that I realized that many people have literally no opportunity to do this, exercise this creative part of what it means to be a person, which is why I’ve made a significant change in direction with my teaching career.
Do you believe that forgiveness benefits the forgiver or the transgressor? The forgiver benefits by being able to move on, forgiving can be an exercise in reducing how much access transgressors are given, how much do you let them in? It’s a decision you get to make, when someone does something that requires forgiveness, often the only way to move on and beyond that injury is to forgive. Forgiveness can free up a big parcel of brain-space that then can be put to better use, resources are limited and should not be wasted on bad behavior. Transgressors benefit too, but only if they can register that something needs changing, that there is a missing element of thoughtfulness or observation or mindfulness in how they behave. In my opinion (one of my favorite get-out-of-jail-free caveats) if being forgiven does not induce some level of self-reflection by the transgressor, then only the forgiver benefits.
What is your proudest accomplishment? At present, successfully transitioning out of the institution of traditional higher-education while finding a way to keep teaching at a level more directly connected to community at Buchanan Arts. That was no simple feat, and is still a tenuous success, and even further it could not have happened without to support, encouragement and WORK of many colleagues, friends and family members who recognized in me more clearly than I did that the path I was on did not lead to a good place, and went further and helped craft a new option. So much had to happen, things that at the time seemed entirely unrelated or isolated, things that went entirely wrong that in the end needed to go wrong, outright failures that allowed doorways to open, people had to be patient, had to trust, had to watch things fall apart in order to get another go around. I get to go in every day and get a classroom studio ready for a group of students, students who have chosen to be there, they don’t feel obliged or expected to be there, they have actually chosen to be there. It’s a lot.
How would you like to live out your golden years? Making art and teaching others about making art. Working working working. Talking (just enough, not too much as to ruin the whole thing) with my wife over coffee & lunch & dinner about the work she is doing as well, then going back to work. If my kids have to figure out what to do with a studio full or works in progress and a kiln full of fired but unglazed pieces… I win (so very very sorry, kids).
