STA News
Doors
With Form II on the cusp of entering Upper School, Mr. Brown offered a chapel talk on transitions and perspective.
When I studied abroad in Florence, Italy, I took a class on Dante Alighieri, the poet who wrote the Divine Comedy. Dante was from Florence, and in his epic poem he referenced many specific places in Florence. My professor, himself Italian, took us around the city to the places Dante referred to in his poem, and very often, very subtly, high above the street, were engraved excerpts from the poem referencing that very place. I would have never have seen these without the help of my professor, and I felt in tuned to a centuries-old conversation that happened in and around buildings. This was an eye-opening moment in my education; it instilled in me a curiosity, and it trained me to look more closely at things. So, I always try to keep my eye out for things of this nature.
Lo and behold, just as you walk into the True-Lucas Building, a small plaque above the threshold reads “Bless those who pass through this portal. They are our future.” I noticed this my first year at St. Albans, but I fell victim to the mindset of “I’m too busy,” so I stowed it away within me, until today.
Often times there are messages or stories above doorways because doors commonly represent a transition of some sort. After noticing the plaque, I thought about other examples where this may exist, and the Cathedral came to mind.
The west facade entrance of the National Cathedral has a story to tell if you can read it. The scene above the central west entrance is Frederick Hart’s relief sculpture Ex Nihilo, which is Latin for “out of nothing.”
For many of you, your St. Albans journey begins with you walking through these doors and it will end with you running out of them upon graduating. This clearly is an important portal for a St. Albans student.
I have to admit that I didn’t like the work of art above the west facade doors or know much about it. I thought it was ugly, and it just never spoke to me. Once I learned more about this artist and his work of art, however, I appreciated it so much more because I saw it with new eyes and a fresh perspective.
Frederick Hart was born in Atlanta, Ga., in 1943. His father was a heavy drinker who had served in the Navy during World War II. Hart’s older brother, also named Frederick, died as an infant. Hart’s mother contracted scarlet fever and died in 1945, when Hart was two. So at a young age, Hart experienced losing loved ones.
As he grew up, and his relationship with his father suffered, Hart became known as a troublemaker. He was sent to live with his maternal grandmother in South Carolina. Hart’s father remarried and had a daughter with his new wife named Chesley. The family moved to Washington, D.C., in 1947 and Hart joined them. Although his relationship with his father continued to deteriorate, Hart and his half-sister Chesley became very close.
Hart was an avid reader, but a troubled student. So he enjoyed learning, he just hated school. After failing ninth grade, he was sent back to South Carolina to live with his grandmother and to repeat the school year. The principal was almost certain that he would fail out of school, so he challenged Hart to take the A.C.T. to show how little he knew. When Hart achieved a near-perfect score, the principal was stunned. And, in 1959, he helped sixteen-year-old Hart gain early admission to the University of South Carolina in Columbia, S.C.
At this time, the Civil Rights Movement was gathering strength, and the campaign to desegregate South Carolina’s school system began. African-American students led a protest march against racial segregation. Hart was the one and only white student to join them:
“I was just walking by,” Hart said. “I happened to know some of the demonstrators. I went over and started talking to them. That irritated the volunteer police. They told me to move along. At that point, I decided to join the demonstration.”
Hart was expelled from the University of South Carolina, thrown in jail, and then chased out of town by the Ku Klux Klan. That’s when he returned to Washington, D.C.
In 1965, Hart’s sister, Chesley, was diagnosed with leukemia. The next year, when she was just 16, she died.
In the turbulent period after her death, Hart “stumble[d] into a sculpture class at the Corcoran School of Art, and [was] blown away.” Art, and creativity, was the response to his pain. As he said: Art must “give hope to the darkness.”
In 1967, Hart took a job as a clerk in the mailroom at the Cathedral. He did so for the specific purpose of bothering Roger Morigi, the legendary master carver, an Italian immigrant who had carved the iconic frieze of the United States Supreme Court Building. “Highly respected, [Morigi] was a temperamental perfectionist who didn’t tolerate incompetence and wasn’t shy about sharing his opinions.” Hart wanted Morigi to take him on as an apprentice. In time, it happened. Not only that, Morigi became a father figure to Hart, long been estranged from his own dad.
“Working at the Cathedral was the best experience of my learning life,” Hart said. “It taught me ‘how’ to work. I wanted to know and feel the discipline—the mastery of stone carving—and I learned that in the hours of working up on the scaffolding in the heat of summer and through the winter.” When reading his story, Hart’s intellectual development occurred here on the Close, much in the same way as with our students.
I found Hart’s story fascinating. The misunderstood student who experienced a lifetime of pain and loss before graduating high school, ended up overcoming failure and channeled his personal pain to create the seminal work of art at the National Cathedral. I was eager to learn more about his work.
Ex Nihilo has eight human forms emerging from a void into being. This scene is about creation; it presents a snapshot of creation in process, with figures emerging from darkness and ignorance to enlightenment—a fitting message for those who pass through that threshold as a C Former and those who exit it as a senior. The spiraling forms that recur throughout Hart’s Ex Nihilo suggest the spirals that are found in nature—in sunflower heads, nautiluses, hurricanes, and galaxies, which gives the piece structure while giving an illusion of chaos. This work also represents evolution—and to evolve is to be human; so Frederick Hart’s message is a timeless one—it’s a message that applies to any person at any time of their life.
Form II, as you transition to Form III, exiting the Lower School and entering the Upper School, you might be tempted to rush out these doors and into the next ones. But I urge you to slow down and look around. Now, I didn’t necessarily do this when I was your age. When I was younger, I had a narrow life view and took things for granted—especially my education. I was caught up in that fast-paced stream of people consumed by unimportant things. But this is what it means to be young, and to tell you not to act this way falls under the ever-present umbrella of cliché. But wouldn’t it be great if you could “see” these things now?
Now that I know Frederick Hart’s story, I appreciate his art work so much more. When you know the story behind something or someone, you have a different perspective and a stronger understanding, a more mature outlook. As you transition to the next phase, I hope you take this information with you and the lessons that I learned about developing a deeper perspective through understanding. When you slow down, listen more, speak less, think deeper and understand others—that is the process of maturation. And, as we learned from Frederick Hart, creation spawns maturity and maturity is evolution.
Located in Washington D.C., St. Albans School is a private, all boys day and boarding school. For more than a century, St. Albans has offered a distinctive educational experience for young men in grades 4 through 12. While our students reach exceptional academic goals and exhibit first-rate athletic and artistic achievements, as an Episcopal school we place equal emphasis upon moral and spiritual education.