Professors serve up good food, good times

For faculty members in the visual arts department, dinner on teaching nights doesn't start until after 11 p.m. Rather than heading home from their studios at 185 Nassau St., they retreat to 17 Edwards Place, a small house not far from the U-Store parking lot.

Most of the faculty live in New York and teach two days a week. Their work hours consist of a three-hour studio class at night and another the next afternoon. To accommodate their schedules, the professors cook dinner for each other and spend the night at the house. After their classes end the next day, they return to the city.

At around midnight last Monday, half a dozen of these faculty members bustled around the kitchen at the Edwards Place house. It was the final dinner of the year. The smell of salmon and chicken wafted from the oven. The dining room was elegantly set, with candles and a white tablecloth.

"Most of our plates and silverware come from divorces over the years," joked Greg Drasler, who teaches painting. The cabinet behind the kitchen was filled with functional, though slightly mismatched, china.

The department pays a small amount of rent to maintain the University-owned residence as a visiting-house for professors, Drasler said.

The furnishings are homey but simple: a couch in the study, a computer, a small television and stuffed bookcases. The only artwork hanging on the walls are two student paintings from the '50s and '60s, pieces depicting landscape scenes with country dancers and farmers.

As the food cooked, the faculty sat around the kitchen and relaxed. Aside from Drasler, who prepared the main course on this night, there was Marc Leuthold, a ceramics teacher; Andrew Moore '79 and Jocelyn Lee, both photography teachers; Dawn Clements, a drawing teacher; John O'Connor, who teaches intermediate painting; and Teresa Simao, a Brazilian-born photography assistant.

Over hors d'oeuvres of crackers, pâté, goat cheese and a dish of kumquats, they explained their unusual dinner dates. Initiated decades ago by James Seawright, the longtime former head of the department and current introductory sculpture teacher, the dinners were first held at a house on Bank Street.

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Since then, the dinners have become a tradition that brings the faculty together. "We hardly get to see each other while we're teaching at 185," Drasler said, adding that the meals reinforce a sense of friendship and camaraderie.

"We never talk about students," said Leuthold, who then smiled and proceeded to discuss some particularly quirky ceramics pieces his students have produced over the years.

Most of the time, though, the faculty talked about how they guide and inspire students and about the strengths of this year's senior exhibits.

Finally, the main course was served: a hefty dish of salmon topped with a creamy sauce and crust. Simao served rice with a rich sauce of red beans and kielbasa sausage. Leuthold offered a giant platter of baked chicken in gravy. And to top off the meal, O'Connor added a bowl of field green salad.

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From then on, the conversation never ceased, except in moments of silent chewing. Though the discussion ranged widely, nearly everything tied back to the group's passion for art.

At one point, Drasler recounted walking from the Dinky station with an alumnus who commented on the peculiarity of the Spelman dorms. "I told him, 'It gives a feeling of a medieval city when you walk through the narrow pathways; you really get a sense of the height and width of your surroundings,'" Drasler said. "He replied, 'I never thought of it that way, but I still don't like it.' "

Others questioned Moore about what kind of atmosphere Princeton had when he was a student. Moore said that he was an independent major, a student of Emmet Gowin, a photography professor who still teaches at 185 today. He described how it was possible at the time to count the number of art students on one hand.

Lee, who is on maternity leave next fall, and Leuthold, who will be taking leave next year, talked about who will replace them as instructors. They discussed their own experiences as art students at places like Yale and Pratt Institute. Most of all, they were concerned with the question of what it means to be an art teacher and what kind of concerns an art student must face.

"Not many students in the program go on to art school," Drasler said with a hint of nostalgia. "Then again, just think about all the choices they have now that we didn't have. Med school, investment banks. Those are different choices."

"Better choices?" someone asked.

"Different choices," Drasler replied.

After a brief intersession during which the table was cleared, Clements brought out the dessert: a homemade almond cake served with a scoop of Ben & Jerry's vanilla ice cream.

As the cake and ice cream quickly disappeared, the others began to wrap up the night by thanking Drasler, who ends his long tenure this year, for his leadership at these dinners. They presented him with parting gifts of crafted glassware, a large orange-and-black striped umbrella and a little Princeton pin.

"I used to blow glass," Drasler said. "And that umbrella, it's something you can only use in Manhattan. And I'll wear the pin tomorrow to class. How about on my turtleneck?"

After the dinner, the faculty retired to the upstairs bedroom. The next day's staff would repeat the ritual, perhaps feasting on the leftover delicacies. "Sometimes I drop by their offices and tease them," Drasler said. "There's a whole lot of chicken sitting in the fridge. Maybe you'll want to check it out."