David Driskell:

This whole notion of being able to inculcate all of this, or to bring all of these things together, it was part and parcel of the HBCU tradition, the historically black college and university tradition, because you couldn’t get a job at most HBCUs, unless you could teach several things, because sometimes you were the only art teacher, mm-hmm. And when I went to Talladega in 1955 and, uh, succeeded an artist with the name of Claude Clark. And, um, so they said, can you teach, um, art history and humanities? I said, yes. Uh, and I had minored in art history at Howard. Um, can you teach printmaking? Yes. Can you teach drawing and painting? Yes. Can you teach ceramics? Yes. Although I hadn’t had a course <laugh>. So I got my books out and stayed a bit ahead of the students, developed a liking for ceramics that then got me involved in the chemistry of glazes and things of that nature.

And, um, so sometimes when you have to do those things, you do them, right. But I’m so happy that I did. So, I brought that experience to Maryland. And then I brought the course that Lenny Bontecou had introduced me to at Skowhegan, methods and materials of, of painting. And I’m sure we were one of the few universities teaching fresco, painting, mm-hmm, <affirmative> encaustics, and egg temper, and so forth. And my colleagues that I, we was able to limit the class to no more than 10 students. And my colleagues would always say, are you still teaching that luxury course <laugh> but it all fitted in and I was trying to wear all of those hats.  Yes. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, uh, at one time. Right, right. And, um, they didn’t always fit me well, but, uh, my family was tolerant of my moving about and doing this and, and, collecting. And as I said, along the way, sometimes, um, robbing out two daughters of milk to buy art.