Alumni Association News
From the Alumni Association
President
Dear Alumni,
I’ve been thinking about Montaigne lately.
He seemed mundane and irrelevant to me in sophomore year, but he has informed my life in ways that other teachers have not. I’m not sure why, but I think it has something to do with practicality.
Every day I bump into challenges—some more mundane than others. Each one asks me to think carefully about myself and others, about thought and action, about perception and possibility. These situations also demand that I act, hopefully in accord with my insights and commitments. In the Essays, Montaigne does the same thing, but he does it better. He thinks about the dilemmas of a normal life, makes sense of them in ways that are moving and profound, and takes courageous action.
A practical integration of the true and the useful did not come easily to me. Even with a pragmatic bent and the push of economic necessity, it took me several years to begin to braid thought and action into a graceful whole. In midlife, the task is still far from complete.
I think of this as my personal version of a community-wide challenge. How do we commit ourselves to the highest values while living in a demanding and mundane world? Montaigne can be a guide, but we must work to live up to the challenge as individuals and as the college.
These days, St. John’s is doing much more to help alumni bridge this gap between real and ideal than the college did in earlier decades. For example:
Both campuses offer internships (the Hodson Internship in Annapolis and the Ariel Internship in Santa Fe) to help students and recent alumni experience professional lives that may interest them.
The Career Services offices on both campuses are well stocked with information, and the directors and staff are quite knowledgeable about options for work or further education.
The Virgil Initiative matches alumni with current students to help them understand the issues of transition and find resources to help them thrive.
Association chapters welcome current students and alumni into their seminars and social events to help smooth the way.
As an institution, the college is also making strides to integrate practicalities, performance, and accountability into the life of the mind. For example:
Our new president in Santa Fe, Michael Peters, is attending to the practical issues of the aging physical plant and other matters that shape the health of the college.
A new college-wide chief information officer, Cathy Smith, has joined the community to build and implement information management solutions.
Christopher Nelson (SF70) continues to shape a productive community in Annapolis.
Under the leadership of Jeff Bishop(HA96), the college-wide advancement effort continues to thrive, and alumni support those efforts in a variety of ways.
Friends and foundations recognize the quality of management and administration for the college as well as the excellence of the Program.
Both campuses reach out to prospective students who represent the diversity of the larger community.The growing strength of the college paves the way for new and ambitious goals for tutor salaries, new facilities, and excellent services to support students and alumni.
The college is healthy, and alumni are thriving because we all recognize that the practical and the theoretical are mutually dependent, not mutually exclusive. Even if I didn’t understand that as a sophomore, I certainly understand it now. And Montaigne showed me the way.
For the past, present, and the future,
Glenda H. Eoyang (SF76)
President
St. John’s College Alumni Association
Barr and Buchanan in Bronze
When Tylden Streett, class of 1950, unveiled the busts he created of Stringfellow Barr and Scott Buchanan at Homecoming in Annapolis, there was a sigh of delight from alumni gathered in the Conversation Room for the All-Alumni meeting. Though works-in-progress in plaster, the life-size busts capture the spirit of the two visionaries.
Streett created the busts as a personal tribute to the two men, but also as a way to keep Barr and Buchanan’s legacy at the forefront. “At St. John’s, we are indebted to Barr and Buchanan,” says Streett. “I think some of the young students today are not as aware of the fact that the college’s program exists today because of them. They were, to me, the most important thing about St. John’s. I was very fond of them and the memory of them, because St. John’s changed my way of thinking and the direction of my life.”
A few years ago during a slow period with commissioned works, Streett began to work on the busts. “My years at St. John’s had an enormous in?uence on me—so these portraits were appropriate,” says Streett, who attended St. John’s after a military career as a fighter pilot in World War II.
“I looked into a lot of colleges, but at St. John’s I was impressed with how Barr and Buchanan were educating students by having them read the original works of great thinkers.”
Streett worked from memory and photos to sculpt the busts. Ideally when he sculpts a subject, Streett poses the person once and takes photos from many angles. “For these portraits I didn’t have this luxury,” says Streett, “but I knew them both. Buchanan interviewed me before I attended St. John’s, but I didn’t remember his appearance; I knew Barr when I was a student. Also Barr has a memorable kind of face, an actor’s face—the features are put together in such a way that one easily remembers it.”
Streett, who graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 1955 after attending St. John’s for two years, was invited to pursue graduate studies at MICA’s Rinehart School of Sculpture, where he earned his master’s degree in 1957. A former director of the Rinehart School who still teaches at MICA, Streett has received numerous awards and grants. In addition to his privately commissioned work, he has created public works such as a limestone gargoyle for the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.
Streett starts with a life-size head shaped in clay, “an ordinary head with no distinguishing features,” then sculpts it to look like the subject.”
When it came to Barr and Buchanan, Streett sent those who were familiar with Barr and Buchanan photos of the clay sculptures and asked for suggestions. “Many, such as John Van Doren (class of 1947), were very helpful. I’m still getting comments. Some felt that Buchanan is younger-looking in relation to Barr.”
Once Streett feels the clay stage is complete, he moves on to the molds and castings. “The mold is chipped off and I end up with a plaster replica of the clay bust.” Then comes a mold over the plaster replica and a wax cast of the sculpture is ready. Streett shapes and shades the wax cast, and when he’s satisfied with it, a ceramic mold goes over the wax cast. At the foundry, the wax is melted out and molten bronze is poured in.
When this mold is broken off it reveals the bronze bust, but there is more work to be done. “There are certain imperfections created by the process and the high-temperature furnace which can cause the mold to crack, and wax may flood out. So I do what’s called a ‘chaste’ and go over the whole surface with a hammer and a chisel tool. I might polish the nose, a cheek bone—surfaces where I want to bring up light.” In the final stage, Streett creates a patina using chemicals to change the coloration.
Once the busts are completed—currently they are at a Baltimore foundry being cast in bronze thanks to the generous donations of several alumni—they will be displayed on campus, perhaps in the Barr Buchanan Center. If their presence inspires future and current Johnnies to learn more about the two men who brought a “radical” new concept of education to a small and struggling college, that would be a good thing, says Streett. In any case, he feels that he has done something to honor two men who changed his life.
“I did it for me,” he adds. “They seemed awfully important to me.”
by Patricia Dempsey
Back to The College table of contents
Back to top
