Dean C. Graf's Uploads

I am an art teacher with a master’s degree—trained by brilliant professors who believed that art could do more than decorate walls. I offer safe spaces for teenagers to grow—nourishing soil where their imaginations can take root. And yet… I am assigned to hallway duty. This is compulsory education, after all. So I sit—posted like a sentinel—watching young lives stream past. “Get to class,” I say with a smile and a nudge. The system wants attendance; I’m hungry for presence. Armed not with a whistle or clipboard, but with a pen— my scribble’s soft insurgency. The hallway stretches out like a geometric hymn. Columns and corners chant structure. Teenagers swirl past—half-formed galaxies of limbs and laughter— their orbits chaotic, their gravity pulling time forward. I begin to draw. Not their tardiness, but their motion. A shoulder. A blur of sneakers. A tilted head chasing freedom. Feet flickering like seconds. Each mark a pulse. Each smudge a breath. My paper becomes a seismograph of seeing— trembling gently through the mundane. This isn’t about making art for a frame or a feed. It’s about refusing to leak away in the fluorescent hum of obligation. It’s a quiet mutiny against the clock. I do this on long car rides, too (passenger side, mind you). Letting the lines grow wild, jagged, and unapologetic. Not for polish— but for presence. This is how I remember I’m still alive. Still growing. Still watching. Still choosing to see. Because sometimes mental health looks like a piece of scrap paper, a moving pen, and the simple, sacred act of marking time with wonder.

It has been a delight to share with my students the incredible resource of people. Over the years, I’ve had the great privilege of connecting them with inspiring individuals such as Lois Ehlert, Dave Nice, Gregory Martens, Colette Odya Smith, and—as seen in this “Behind the Professor” sketch—Dr. Gaylund Stone. There’s something powerful about the presence of someone who lives their craft with humility and depth. In moments like these, my students are reminded that more is often caught than taught.

A Brief Pause at the Edge of Becoming It seems I am always seeking a place to sit— not just to rest the body, but to settle the soul. Yet even in stillness, Gary Brecka’s words whisper: “The quickest way to old age is the aggressive pursuit of comfort.” So I do not stay long. I walked until I found a picnic table beneath a canopy of bare-limbed trees, branches like open hands waiting for green. The blue spruces nearby— stoic, unchanged, whispering that some things endure. I sketched. Not perfectly. Not for anyone’s praise. Just a mark to say: I was here. Alive in this in-between. Waiting. Listening. Not for leaves— but for something truer than comfort. Thank you for joining me in this small noticing. A moment borrowed from the rush. A table. A tree. A thought. A gift.

This portrait of Mr. Joshua Anderson—our resident Shakespeare whisperer—was drawn by student artist Covey Garrett as part of a school-wide tribute to our teachers. Students photographed, gridded, and drew 18x24” posters of their teachers, each paired with a favorite catchphrase. Mr. Anderson’s? A classic: “Hint, hint. Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge.” We think the Bard would approve. "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely teachers..." (okay, we may have paraphrased a bit).

A quick sketch from a memory of an encounter on a visit to Maine.

Pencil. Waiting for my daughter to complete her shopping at forever 12... I mean forever 21...

What is your relationship with a Higer Power like? A friend of mine mentioned to me that a Rabbi Friend of his suggested that God likes a good argument. I thought that was funny. The self portrait is G2 .o5 on bristol board with marker for the added color.

Gouache experiment.

A wonderful reflective poem from Wendell Berry entitled "How to be a poet" is a fantastic foundation for an art curriculum. The last of three stanzas reads as follows: Accept what comes from silence. Make the best you can of it. Of the little words that come out of the silence, like prayers prayed back to the one who prays, make a poem that does not disturb the silence from which it came.

It's hot. No air in school, so we took to the shade and drew trees. I drew students drawing trees.

I use to take students to museums. COVID has altered much. We adjust now. So much is virtual.

A value study sample for students. Grey out the paper. Erase light areas. Darken shaded areas. Refine. Lots of success on this one.

I drew my school using vector tools in PowerPoint.

This quick sketch of an impressionist painting is a reminder to me of how we cannot see anything until we are taught to see it. I was enjoying the painting because of the way Tarbell captured light, when a man and his wife joined me. The man said to his wife: "This is a wonderful painting, but I wonder whose lap the baby is on.". I was shocked because I was not able to see the baby till he mentioned that there was one. I noticed that it was indeed difficult to tell whose lap it was on. It was a transformative and humbling experience.

What happens in your life that causes you to be surprised? I have a friend who told me that no one is blind-sided. I also have a friend who tells me: 'The greatest lies we tell are the ones we tell ourselves'. It is easy to filter in a certain kind of lie that support these ideologies. I have a very valued friend who tells me that we live in an upside-down world. What is real? What is upside-down? Draw what you see. draw what you know. Be authentic. Peace.

Learning to see through drawing. It is a form of therapy.

4 year old Henry engaged fully with thick applications of watercolor and oil pastels. He said it was a stormy sea with a small boat. This was at the onset of the pandemic, when we were all a bit uncertain and confined to our homes. I was reminded of an insight by Kierkegaard written in the early 1800s: “When the sailor is out on the sea and everything is changing around him, as the waves are continually being born and dying, he does not stare into the depths of these, since they vary. He looks up at the stars. And why? Because they are faithful – as they stand now, they stood for the patriarchs, and will stand for coming generations. By what means then does he conquer changing conditions? Through the eternal: By means of the eternal, one can conquer the future, because the eternal is the foundation of the future.”

The tables were covered in white paper. Crayons, pastels, and smooth sticks waited quietly. Then came Lucy’s glittery purse—her 8-year-old hands had filled it with stones to pass along, one by one, to the strangers around the table. We traced them. Pushed them. Held them. Then we let the colors lead: -Red for emotion. -Yellow for curiosity. -Blue for memory. Each color came with music, with story, with space. At the Museum of Wisconsin Art, we made marks not for meaning but for presence. Thank you to Ann Marie and MOWA for the invitation and trust. And thank you to the participants—some new friends, some old students—for showing up and making lines that listened before they spoke.

How do you teach someone to draw? I like to draw my beautiful and curious kids when possible.

The mall is busy. Kids are shopping. I am hiding in a chair, drawing a chair.

HB pencil.