Massachusetts College of Art and Design - Palette and Pen Yearbook (Boston, MA)

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The story of our class should be unique. Not only has art school stirred the dry leaves of our familiar existence with a new life, but the rest of the world has seen to it that the whirling motion did not abate. While we were engrossed in the tales of Nofretete, and the antics of spirited graybeards, a political axis was revolving, social doctrines evolving; an old man with an umbrella went up in the air, a hurricane blew down, and then came the wars. Even the school itself encountered chang- ing forces. As we look back now, however, all these hectic events seem but incidental variations to the main theme; the

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PHILIP O. PALMSTROM

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leitmotif running through our school days is surprisingly like that of other classes. The mist clouding our memories of those very early days was partly cleared away as we watched succeeding waves of green smocks flood the school to become absorbed in the same routine of pageants, proms, spreads, and picnics. Leaving with our class are memories of Sulphites, Bromides, and Snoopo- paths, and of the Holy Pilgrimages with Thoreau; but still com- mon to all classes is the Freshman resolve that neither empty words nor aped actions could ever suffice for us. The years ran into each other and we knit our whole beings into homogeneous patterns. The more determined the outside world seemed to rock us from our complacency, the more ap- parent became the sieve-like qualities of the school. Only the decent elements seemed to filter through the screen of easels, casts, and forms behind which we spent our days. And the inci- dents of our normal day gained in flattering depth what they lost in variety. Occasionally we did something special, such as going to Pops en masse to sit on the lordly level; but running more with the main current we recall a steady stream of art galleries, sketching expeditions, proven pictures, second bal- conies, and the luxuries of browsing. Those were happy days of careless impecuniosity, rich in art and friendship, freedom, and, of course, conversation. And now, as we try to plumb the depths of all that talk, from the esoteric discussions of our backyard mnSSflCHUSfTTS school of flfiT