An excerpt from the book:

SOURCE: from the Latin surgere, “to spring up, to lift.” The beginning of a stream of water or the like; a spring, a fountain. The origin; the first or ultimate cause. A person, book, or document that supplies information. A source is a point of departure.

I had already finished school when I met my real teacher, Charles Eames. He was not an art teacher; he was an artist who taught-taught by words, films, exhibits, buildings, classes, visits, phone conversations, and furniture. He dropped out or was dropped out of college before graduation. When he was asked for credentials for a teaching job, he got his friend Saul Steinberg to draw a diploma that had lots of writing but no words, complete with seal and red ribbons. Charles had great style in all he did. For his country’s first cultural exchange with Russia he made a seven-screen film—each screen showing still and moving images simultaneously—that explained the American way of life to the Russians. Seven screens, he said, to present more fully the complexities of our problems (and delights) so that all might benefit from our experience without having to repeat our mistakes. After that, one screen was never enough.

When he talked, he often made long pauses in his sentences. It was as if he was stopping midway because new relationships and connections had come in since he had started the sentence and he needed to form the next phase to include those new ideas. He used words that were simple and almost absolutely appropriate.

Charles said that the first step in designing a lamp (or anything) was not to ask how it should look—but whether it should even be. He always started fresh at the beginning. He showed us how to develop principles rather than follow formulas.

When I taught, I could show any one of several of his films to introduce any new project to my students. I have shown and seen some of his films literally hundreds of times. Like Spring, they never bore. The first film Charles ever gave our school was Parade (seven minutes). We showed it that morning seven times in a row, stopping only long enough to rewind. He spoke always with the light tough evident in Parade, in simple words; but his lightest touch was somehow principle. His films will go on teacher forever.

From Eames or from any of his works we learn to drop outworn distinctions and separations and to see new relationships—to see that there is no line where art stops and life begins. He talked a lot about connections.

Of his teachings I can hardly distinguish between what he actually said and did from what he taught me to say and do myself. His teaching is still living in me and I am still learning from that life in me, as well as from students and friends and every single contact with people and things. He taught me that too.

At Berkeley he and his wife, Ray, taught an introductory class to all architecture students. Overhearing one of the students make a derogatory remark about Renaissance art, he constructed on assignment. Each student was to choose a limited time in one culture and find out everything he could about that time and place. What people wore, what eating utensils they used—everything. Digging deep this way opened up the reasons and atmosphere that determined the shape of the things that were made.

I borrowed this assignment for an interior design class. I began the class by asking each student to say what “style” she wanted her home to be done in. then came the Eames assignment. I will never forget the reaction of the student who had chosen “colonial.” She was giving her report with great enthusiasm—describing the look and contents of a real colonial home—when she came to the point of describing the guns hung above the fireplace. It dawned on her that the lived life had a lot to do with how her home looked. I can still see the look coming over her face as she spat out, Oh, I hate you! She had convinced herself against her early choice. She had taught herself a lot. A good assignment can make the student do just that.

Some good sources come naturally out of what the teacher is filling herself with and become part of the bombardment of materials that are a regular part of giving a new assignment or starting a class. Books like Spinster by Sylvia Ashton Warner, which is a splendid novel that describes an inspired kind of teaching, can be quoted from or assigned. Magical Child by Joseph Chilton Pearce, with its plan of how to groa up well, is another excellent source. Enthusiasms of the teacher flow into the class—a sharing takes place and rich ideas are sparked. We are each other’s sources.

Corita