Let's not sell ourselves short on visual arts

It has been interesting and a little surprising to see how the dust and not a few feathers have flown in the wake of my critique of the Lucy mural being prepared for the River Campus, Southeast Missouri State University's school for the performing and visual arts. I did not mean to give such offense.

I do not think that Cape Girardeau is a cultural backwater. I only fear that the mural may create that impression in the minds of people who do not know her. Between the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri, the Southeast Missouri Regional Museum and private galleries, a fine diversity of visual art is represented here. If one big, conservative statement overshadows all that diversity, it will be a shame.

It is also disheartening to see how some people will rush to sell themselves and the region short. We are not so far from St. Louis that a project the size and scope of the River Campus can escape comparison. The Contemporary Art Museum of St. Louis was built for a little over $5 million, about what is budgeted for the museum portion of our project.

Sedalia is another medium-sized Missouri town not much larger or different than Cape Girardeau. The Daum Museum of Contemporary Art is proof positive that a first-rate arts institution can grow out of humble soil. All that is needed are a few people with high aspirations.

I have watched and helped Southeast Missouri State University's Department of Art grow out of the aspirations of its faculty, including those who were here before me and those who have come along after. I hold all of them and Cape Girardeau in high regard, and I trust the process of growth and maturation will continue vigorously long after I depart.

By the way, my emotions toward the mural, though mixed, do not include jealousy. I have my own international success as a painter to be content with, thank you very much. Neither am I disgruntled. The university has bestowed on me some of its highest honors. I work with many talented students, some of whom go on to master's of fine arts graduate schools, including the one at Washington University.

I worry that the mural's conservative image may be misinterpreted as characteristic of what we teach here and, in consequence, inhibit future students' aspirations and opportunities. I do not presume to tell anyone what to like or not like. Regional and local tastes in art, food, music and most everything else will and should be whatever they are the world over. University professors of art, and the institutions they are tenured in and at the heart of, have a higher calling. Our responsibility is to prevailing critical scholarship and to truth.

Ronald Clayton is an art professor at Southeast Missouri State University. He is represented by the Gwenda Jay/Addington Gallery in Chicago, where his most recent work can be seen in a solo exhibition that runs through June 1.