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Sidewalk Sam to SFA grads: Everybody needs art

By David J. Craig

During the last century, artists in the West seemed generally to subscribe to the view of "art for art's sake" -- that is, that expressions of beauty are valuable regardless of whether they convey useful social or political messages.

	Bob Guillemin (SFA'68), the famous Boston sidewalk artist better known as "Sidewalk Sam," told School for the Arts graduates on May 20 that "in an age of advertising, of spin, and of lies," artists must "pursue truth with every grain of insight" they are capable of. Photo by Andrea Raynor

Bob Guillemin, the famous Boston sidewalk artist better known as "Sidewalk Sam," would like to help reverse that trend. The featured speaker at the School for the Arts convocation ceremony on May 20, Guillemin (SFA'68) declared that artists today are too divorced from the concerns of everyday life. He challenged the school's graduates to assume the moral responsibilities that come with being an artist and to strive to enrich all members of society, not just the elite who have access to fine art.

"I have learned from people on the street that the audience for what you do is vast," Guillemin said. "Literally everyone seeks beauty in their daily life. Society's need for beauty is awesome and profound. Society cries out for expressions of beauty, decency, love, and goodness, not just in churches or halls of culture, but everywhere."

For the past 35 years, Guillemin has been in a unique position to judge the needs of ordinary people. A painter who turned his back on the "polite world of galleries and museums" early in his career -- after studying at BU and the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris -- he has made downtown Boston his canvas ever since. There he creates renderings of famous paintings and classically influenced original drawings in chalk on sidewalks, buildings, and bridge underpasses, places that he thinks are most in need of something beautiful. His murals have appeared under the Southeast Expressway, at City Hall Plaza, in school yards, and on streets in the North End. Often his work addresses issues such as homelessness and poverty.

The most important message of Guillemin's art is not found in the human faces he frequently depicts, however, but in his unique method. By creating in public spaces chalk drawings that get washed away within hours of when they are completed, tens of thousands of people view his work in a single day.

While talking to passersby, he told the SFA graduates, he has learned that his drawings provide a powerful inspiration to people who on any given day might not otherwise be touched by art.

"Everyone wants art," said Guillemin, who is paraplegic and has been confined to a wheelchair since he slipped and fell from the roof of his Newton home in 1995. "I've learned that public spaces are the temples of democracy. They deserve to be filled with music, art, and poetry -- in train stations, parks, and office buildings."

Declaring that the "great new job" for artists in the 21st century will be to give art a greater presence amid people's daily routines, Guillemin predicted that municipalities, corporations, "and other standard bearers of society" will reward artists who find creative ways of taking the arts "out of the theaters and concert halls and galleries, out of the prestigious role it normally plays" and into "the arena of daily life where it can serve people better."

After all, he said, "society pays hundreds of billions of dollars to police, firefighters, meter maids, and public works departments to make daily life more agreeable. . . . These professions establish a minimum level of well-being on the streets, but so much more needs to be done to make public spaces reflect society's dignity and purpose.

"I don't suggest that you all join me on the sidewalk and become street musicians and the like," he told the graduates. "But I do suggest that you think of expanding your audiences to include many underserved populations in places where the arts have been less active."

It is important for artists to reach people in all walks of life, Guillemin said, because unlike in the 20th century, when the art world revolted against society and chastised it from the fringes, artists today need to lead people "back to commonly held values and reestablish harmonious norms that we can all live by together.

"Society, led by machines, directed by bureaucrats, controlled by out-of-touch regulations, shaping everyone to be consumers, for that society you graduates can provide divine inspiration. . . . You can define society's higher purpose and rally society to an awareness of its destiny."

The moral value that artists are in a unique position to express, Guillemin said, is truth. "Another lesson pedestrians taught me was said best by the poet John Keats: 'Beauty is truth, truth is beauty,'" he said. "We artists are responsible not only for beauty, but also for truth. In the age of advertising, of spin, and of lies, the arts must be a beacon of truth. You graduates must pursue truth with every grain of insight you are capable of."

8 June 2001
Boston University
Office of University Relations