Annual
Perspectives Nears 25th Anniversary
 Drabness
was the mother of invention for avocational artist Fred Beaufait,
who also happens to be President of New York City Technical
College. Soon after his arrival on the faculty at Vanderbilt
University in Nashville some years ago, the bare walls of his
office began to weigh on him. Finally, "desperate to put
some life into the place," the struck up a collaboration
with some Pratt & Lambert semi-gloss. In short order his debut
creation—on masonite particle board and titled aptly by
a professor of civil engineering "The Matrix Organization"—was
on the wall.
Beaufait's attitude about his journey into the art world is
wittily self-effacing. He remarks that "in this endeavor
it helped that I had only one person to satisfy, myself," and
he also recalls one major break-through moment: "Without
question, the biggest surprise was when my wife suggested one
day that we hang some of my work in the house." Alluding
just possibly to his day job, Beaufait remarks wryly, "Unfortunately,
I have not found it very convenient to paint since moving to
New York City.
"An interview with the artist, along with nine brilliant
color reproductions of his works (many of which hang in his
City Tech office) is one of several fascinating features included
in volume 24 of Perspectives, a journal of the faculty and staff
of City Tech featuring authors who teach in every College discipline
(with occasional off-campus contributors). A detail from Beaufait's
painting titled "Paul"(acrylic on canvas, 1996), which
shows an influence of the Spanish artist Joan Miro that Beaufait
acknowledges, is the cover art for Perspectives this year; the
other work seen here is untitled.
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| Fred Beaufait's “Untitled”
(1999, acrylic on canvas, 33"x 45" |
A bracing serendipity is the mark of Perspectives,
which has been edited for the last eight years by English professor
Richard Patterson, who has good reason to know where to find
contributors. He has been at City Tech since 1967, first as
an adjunct and, in 1980, becoming full-time. The gamut is run
from an essay on the stage comedy Tony and Tina's Wedding with
the apt title, "A Little Song, A Little Dance, A Little Ziti
Down Your Pants," by English professor George Guida, to a paper
on "Efficient Computation" by mathematics professor Zhao Chen
that could give the math-impaired bad dreams, to poems by a
few dozen different authors.
Of particular "educational" interest in this volume is the English
Department's Patricia Rudden's essay, "Melville Goes to School:
Tracking Down the Transcripts," which discusses recent discoveries
clarifying the New York classroom whereabouts of the author
of Moby-Dick. He attended not only the New-York Male High School,
it appears, but also the grammar school attached to Columbia
College. (We also learn that the mailing list for the thriving
Melville cyberspace contingent of scholars is called, superbly,
ISH-MAIL.)
Among other features in the latest Perspectives is the editor's
essay on the fiction of JosÖ Saramago, several poignant memorial
poems for College colleagues by Lou Rivers of the Humanities
Department (and, Patterson says, a "mainstay" of Perspectives
since its inception), and the acrostic poem "Candy Dish"by
Carolyn Jones of the African-American Studies Department:
L ike an unanswered question I remember the first time Candy
sweetened my lips O pened my eyes to color R aised my consciousness
I nternalized my feelings C oncocted dreams of rapture E scaped
with perfect memories
K neeling at my bedside I pray for instant mercy D eep down
in my soul S inging a freedom song.
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