My good friend Professor Chawky Frenn is one of the recipients of the Teaching Excellence Award at George Mason University.Frenn is without a doubt one of the toughest political painters of his generation, and his beautiful classical paintings use the brush of the masters to bring forth devastating political and social commentary on paintings often too controversial (as Dartmouth found out a while back) for galleries and museums to offer in a conventional way.
“The classroom is a place of dialog, learning, trust, and growth. I find in teaching an experimental field to develop strategies that promote critical thinking and creative research. At the heart of my teaching performance is the enthusiasm I share about life, art, and the development of self and identity. My comments bridge the understanding of art and life, and my critiques provide intellectual and emotional insights into the purpose, meaning, and value of self-discovery and development through one’s art and work.
I am fortunate to do what I love: teaching and painting. I am also fortunate to work with amazing students with diverse disciplines, cultures, goals, and passions. Their creativity and commitment continue to inspire the best in me.
I present the award to my students, my teachers, my family, and my friends who believed in me when I could not believe in myself. As a teacher, I am a gardener who nurtures and cares for the seeds and passions in my students’ soil. I encourage and help them to develop and grow and bear their finest fruits.”
- Chawky Frenn
I found Chawky Frenn to be not so much a nurturing teacher, but a man of limited range; hyper-critical of any artist whose style differed from his own. In his classes, I was not encouraged to develop my own style, but to try to be more like his star pupils, or preferably like the maestro himself.
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