I just got home from class, and on my way I ran into one of the most interesting people I've ever met in my life: Alvin C. Sella. Sella is a legend in the UA art department. I heard about him on my first day in art class as a freshman.
"He'll rip your work up and throw it out the window if he doesn't like it." That was my introduction. Fast forward two years and it was my turn to take his famous figure drawing class. I will never forget walking into this room and setting up my drawing pad on the easel. I was nervous, frightened even. After a few minutes I heard a shuffle and, "you ready girls?" Two girls strolled to the center of the room and dropped robe. Now I had to add awkward to the mixture of feelings. Sella tells us to go and that he wants to see what we've got.
By the end of class, and Sella's infamous criticism, one girl started crying and left, never to return. All I can say is I'm glad that girl wasn't me, even though we had a fallout one day where he tapped me with his cane and scattered by paintings all over the floor. He liked me though and I knew it so I never let it get to me. A year after I left that class I was in the art department and the secretary said I had a message from Sella. It was a W magazine with a page flagged. I opened it up and it said, "Kate, this looks like you." The opposite page which was stark white, he had signed. This was his apology. I know this because he later asked me if I ever got his message and explained. I know to some this might sound trivial, but to me this man is a monument and a symbol for what I always thought college was about.
So today, when I walked into the art department office and Sella was sitting there I couldn't help but laugh. He remembered me and called me by name. We chatting for a moment in Italian after I told him what I was studying, and then he walked away in his red socks holding a bag of Halloween candy.
Hopefully this won't be our only encounter while I'm here.
Sella's website.
5 comments:
I was an art major at the University in the 70's and had almost identical memories to yours. Mr. Sella had a unique way of communicating with some of his students...notes tucked into palms in the middle of class or slipped into coat pockets on the way out the door.
First day of class was the most fun when he would weed out the people he thought were not serious about their art, usually by making them cry over something like their color choice or simply by sailing their canvas off the third floor bslcony (or sometimes both.) I loved every moment of his classes, and he remains one of the most interesting people I have ever known.
Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now keep it up!
I remember Mr. Sella very well too. The legend goes that he had his driver's license pulled when he rammed his car into someone else's car that was annoying him. He would zip around campus on his bike and ring his bike bell when you got in his way. He could be brutal, but at least he looked you in the eye, and if you could take it, you may learn something.
Sadly- I have a report that Al Sella passed away.
I hope you don't mind- but I posted a link to your great blog about him in the facebook I sent out about his passing.
Funeral Saturday at St. Francis- Tuscaloosa 1-2 viewing 2-3 mass.
Carolynn Thomas Jones
I forgot to add- he died on April 8, 2013.
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