The Hood Museum has reopened, inspiring us to wonder, What reflections do the ’82 art majors have about their undergraduate experiences? Here are their reports. Marrin Robinson, a painter and academic success coordinator at Arizona State University, wrote: “Professor Ashley Bryan was a wonderful inspiration, and I’m still in touch with him. He is still publishing books at age 90-plus. We write regularly, and I’ve visited him on his island in Maine a few times! Painting with Jonathan Marvel and Jay Mead in Italy on our art history study abroad was great. The camaraderie of all the ’82 art majors was wonderful. Dartmouth prepared me for getting a Fulbright grant to Portugal the year after I graduated and propelled me into grad school, where I had a full tuition scholarship. I started teaching as an art professor right after that. Now I’m advising dance and theater students at Arizona State University, which is a lot of fun. And I have a studio in my home in Sedona [Arizona], where I paint. Would love to see anyone passing through!” Jim Mott, best known for his passion, “the itinerant artist project,” shared: “In retrospect I’d have to say the camaraderie among the art majors—and, within that, the sense of shared, earnest purpose as artists—was the most valuable thing about my art experience at Dartmouth. It helped to fortify me for the journey ahead, which is so often about holding onto faith in art’s value as a way to articulate a vital sense of meaning while navigating a path between the seeming indifference of the public, on the one hand, and the ironic indifference of the artworld game players on the other.” Leslie Fleming, now residing in Hawaii, reminisces: “The Hood was built after we left Dartmouth. They were planning for it our senior spring. The architectural firm was on campus then, and I remember helping them do some measurements for their plans. I had taken two architecture courses earlier that year at Dartmouth and felt quite honored to do this. There weren’t too many art majors in our class so we were a pretty tight-knit group. My favorite class was an advanced painting class with Ashley Bryan. We had class in a building near the steam plant and were able to paint at all hours of the night—unlike at the Hop, where we were booted out at midnight. I still think of Ashley when I paint now, which is not often enough, as I am more likely to be teaching art to elementary school students through the Honolulu Museum of Art (where I first took art classes as a child!).” Carol Davis,our class newsletter editor, wrote: “I was an art history major who ended up going to law school. Thirty-five years after graduation I am training to be a docent at a local museum in Hartford, Connecticut, and am very much looking forward to (finally) putting my major to use. Can’t wait to see the new Hood!”

—Jenny Chandler Hauge, 3506 Idaho Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20016; jchandlerhauge@gmail.com; David Eichman, 9004 Wonderland Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90046; dme4law@sbcglobal.net