Memories of Arthur Healy from His Students

Anne Stringer DeCoster, ‘55: As soon as requirements allowed it, I signed up for Mr. Healy’s watercolor class.  Sophomore year, I think.  I loved to watch him demonstrate how to go about it, and for years to come followed faithfully his procedures for building a painting.

It was a natural way for me to work and I was sorry when the year was over.  Taking the class again, or continuing on another level was not an option.  I painted anyway, and won the New England Watercolor Society prize, receiving a small stipend. I used it to buy a Healy watercolor.  He was kind in adjusting his price, and I’ve enjoyed it for these many years.

I was majoring in The Arts (art, music, and drama) and Mr. Healy was my advisor. Unfortunately for me, he had a sabbatical my senior  year, and I had to proceed without him.  I wanted to take only four formal courses instead of the usual five, painting for credit as the fifth course.  This required permission from my advisor, so I wrote to Mr. Healy in Italy and asked him.  His answer was “No. You will always paint,“ he said, “and the fifth course you study will be much more valuable to you in the long run.” 

This is something I’ve thought about often since that time.  Middlebury is a liberal arts college, not a training ground in a particular skill.  The skill grows with practice and helps us express the thoughts and experience which have broadened and deepened through our lives.  Middlebury offers an education that focuses on having something to say rather than how you say it.

Gayl Braisted, ‘59: Ah! Arthur Kelly David Healy -- truly a legend when I was at Middlebury College. It was his reputation which sometimes upset him in his down periods for he feared people took his courses for the wrong reasons. He was indeed funny and had great stories to tell about local characters as well as his acquaintances from The New Yorker magazine. I studied Art History as well as watercolor painting with him and, of course, the watercolor class was held in the Spring so we could go outside and have natural water sources. I suppose you could have taken the course just to spend time outdoors on a Spring day but most of us truly wanted to learn watercolor techniques. Obviously he used a lot of black in his work and once commented to me that my work had a signature because I did not use black. He did not know that the bookstore was out of black when I went to buy our assigned colors. I still don’t ever use black.

His studio art grading system was interesting.  He asked “What is your overall average my dear Miss Maxwell?”  By some strange coincidence that was also my watercolor class grade.

Joan Pokorney Sommers, ‘51 (1924-2013): “Joan Pokorney Sommers, after her marriage to Bill Sommers in the fall of 1950, came with him for his last year at Middlebury College.  Because of Joan’s artistic training – having graduated from the Chicago Art Institute with a major in painting– she was offered work as an assistant to Arthur Healy, the famed Chairman of Middlebury’s Art Department.

Joan was deeply touched by the surroundings of the College and particularly those relating to the view of the village itself.  During her stay in Middlebury she found many sources of inspiration for painting.  She also received encouragement from Arthur Healy, who was in approval of her artwork, and she considered him her mentor.

The first painting depicts a part of Middlebury as seen from Chipman Hill, near their home. It is early fall, showing the oranges and reds of the maple trees, and in the background, the Adirondacks. This watercolor has been reproduced a number of times for family and friends.

 The second one is a remarkable view, well upstream from the bridge at the center of Middlebury, showing both the river itself and yet, back far enough to include the iconic steeple of the Congregational Church in the center of town. “Not sacrilegious!” noted Arthur, when he reviewed the painting.

The third painting shows a dilapidated sugar shack, one of the many rural efforts to produce maple syrup, and this one, having seen its best days, projects a sad feeling of the end. Joan had painted this from a series of sketches made during a drive around the nearby woodlands with a group of friends.

These paintings are a selection of Joan’s early work that have remained in the Sommers Family all these years, and we are pleased to show them once more in the area where they were created.”

(Remarks by Bill Sommers, Middlebury, ‘51 and Alison Sommers Kennedy, ‘73)

Ken H. Delmar, ‘63: It's been a long while, but I will try my best to paraphrase teachings of Arthur Healy:

"You work way too hard, Delmar. That would be great if we were paid by the hour. Your job is not to render everything in its entirety, but to suggest it. Try to capture your subject with the least amount of drawing, least amount of brushwork, least amount of color, least amount of work."

"It's trite to paint things that are inherently pretty. Tackle things that are not pretty, and make them aesthetically engaging by your art. Try painting a cemetery and make it look like a lovely and inviting place to be. Don't paint a pretty face, paint a weathered old crone. Don't paint a perfect rose, but a wildflower clinging to a rock."

"Don't overcolor. Undercolor."

"Whenever you are standing there looking at a perfectly gorgeous scene, turn around. You will often find something much more compelling and challenging to paint. Maybe something that has never been painted before."

I hope these Healy words of wisdom add to the mix.

Nancy Taylor Stonington: The most indelible memory I have of attending my one watercolor class with Arthur Healy is his insistence on our using these three colors:  Alizarin Crimson, Cadmium Yellow Deep, and Payne's Gray.  While I resisted that palette at the time, I have found that 50 years later I always think fondly of him when I explain the large black pile of paint at one corner of my palette to my students.  Payne’s Gray has stayed with me through the years, and I love its mysterious depths, and battle its tendency to lose the mystery as it dries - something many artists object to.  Although I spent many of my class hours with Mr. Healy outside in the fields, I will always appreciate his fierce, and sometimes eccentric, energy.

Pat Todd: I just remember him taking us outside to paint at water and quarries - his favorite subjects back then.  He had a great sense of humor, smoked constantly, lots of enthusiasm.  We always had fun in his classes.  He gave me my only D at Middlebury College!  I had written a paper on the Transcendental Symbolism in Ming China (or some such "profound" topic).  He noted that the paper was excellently written, but I had totally disproved the premise I had presented in the opening statement!  You can be sure that was the last time that happened.

Sabra Field: Mr. Healy taught The History of Art Course with slides and a set of ancient black and white photographs and the Gardner text which included not one woman artist in the 1000 years it covered. He made the career of artist seem so seductive and so admirable that it never occurred to me that I should not try to be one.

His course on Greek Revival architecture in Vermont was a classic: long rides through the countryside, on one of which he screeched to a halt at a 19th century house being dismantled and purchased a wooden Doric Column for his garden.

His watercolor course was a gift. I could not possible imitate his style which is probably a good thing. I had to find my own.

When I passed my final “Major in the Arts” comprehensive exam (which included music and drama and the memorable question “What is a chest of viols?”) he began to treat me like a friend, calling me “Good Old Harwood” and taking me on little shopping excursions in the town. I remember we bought him a pink button down shirt and for me, a copy of Cheever’s “The Wapshot Chronicles” which was just his sensibility.

When I graduated, I learned he had awarded me departmental honors and that made my parents very pleased.

10 years later he arranged a one person show for me in the basement of the art building, little Carr Hall, and for that exhibition I created the “Decade Suite”, a stretch for a young printmaker.

I had a few more contacts with him such as the time we were the jurors for a bicentennial medal for Vermont.

When I had to tell him my oldest child had died he comforted me.

His teaching contract was not renewed. Then he had a terrible automobile accident one very cold night which left him an amputee.

One night a few years after that I heard on the 11:00 news that he had died. My heart contracted with sorrow.

Each morning I wake under his watercolor of Otter Creek in March.

I only hope his joie de vivre and his passion for picture making somehow come through my own work and will transfer to that of others.

I love to use his answer when asked “How long did it take you to do that?” Arthur K.D. Healy would be asked that question by onlookers when painting out of doors and characteristically achieving perfection in a short period of time. “57 years”, he would say, if that were his age. Whatever age he was that would be his answer: impish, accurate, Arthur.

Tom Johnson: When I came back to Middlebury College for my junior and senior years after a four year hiatus serving in WWII, my faculty advisor recommended I take Professor Healy’s Art History class my senior year. I did. At the end of the first semester, Professor Healy asked us to come see him bringing our class notes. We thought we were going to be graded on our note taking caliber. No. He was looking for males who had done any drawing in their notebooks. I had. He was looking for boys to take his watercolor painting class. Many girls apparently readily signed up for it. He wanted male companionship in the class. He told us that we would go out to various sites to paint one afternoon a week or work in the studio if the weather was inclement. He said there were no quizzes or exams and everyone received a grade of A. I had never gotten an A at Middlebury so I signed up immediately.

I became hooked on watercolor painting. We were allowed to use the studio whenever we wanted, so I did. After graduation, I attended the Breadloaf English School. Professor Healy came up there one time to go out painting with me. When the director heard about this, he called me in and asked if I wouldn’t like to display some of my results. Professor Healy then loaned me some mats and put my effort on display. As a joke, I put prices such as $3, $5, and $6 on them. To my surprise, some sold. I have enjoyed watercoloring ever since.

The summer of 1949, Professor Healy arranged a scholarship for me with a friend of his, the watercolorist, Xavier Gonzalez, who had a summer school in Wellfleet on Cape Cod. Another student and I were overseers of the studio. I enjoyed that summer of painting too, thanks to Professor Healy.

Vcevy Strekalovsky: Probably my first conversation with Arthur grew out of his judging of the Middlebury Winter Carnival poster competition my freshman year. Summoned by the Committee, headed by Arthur, I was told that my entry had been selected but that it should be improved. I commented that I had reworked it two or three times, to which he responded that I should “rework it a hundred times”! Later, in architecture school at the U of Penn, I often recalled this emphasis on self criticism and follow through.

I had grown up painting outdoors, but in doing so with Arthur came to understand that the subject is the painting, and, though based in nature, is actually about line, shape, value and color.  He admired John Marin immensely. In recent years I discovered Marin’s plein air oils, and came to realize how exceptional it is to see and paint nature this way.