Dale H West Menu

Written September 17, 2001 for an employee of my company.

Letter to an Understudy I

To the study of self-reliance, I call you to take heed. The lesson bears more importance than any I can impart. To learn from me; learn to be my student, learn to live and create as an intellectual and independent artist, you must do so in the spirit of freedom found only in self-reliance.

Pay diligent attention to your spontaneous impression, even in the shadow of my disapproval. It is only the weak teacher who chooses answers with no alternatives, who questions without listening. Learn to stand up to me in my weakness, without harboring contempt. . My occupation in your education is to introduce you and enable you to discover powers yet unrealized.

You have a capacity of great magnitude you will likely never wholly know or understand. You have already demonstrated great talent, yet you have not opened your eyes to the discovery that talent is in you. What you create bears more than a surface reflection of that talent. Your art, your effort, your silent sculpture is but a pinhole ray of light to the soul deep inside you. Once you have tried, once you have opened your mind to the realization this is your beginning, you will realize the possibilities resident in your spirit.

While today you believe you were drawn to me to learn and for a wage, your future will reveal a greater plan. It is I who am drawn to you: your inner spirit, a spirit I recognize kindred to my own. It is a fresh wellspring of hope - the opportunity to watch you grow in a new pattern of being. It may very well be the predetermined hope of the teacher to find the student who will follow in his path, and lend a guiding hand. Do not take my hand. Turn it away at every instance. As I fill you with knowledge and impart my experience, return my gifts with inconsistency and surprises. Do not be my reflection; reflect my work in your own image.

I look forward to the day you strike out on your own, either as a competitor or as an artistic colleague. I fear neither option. Whatever your chosen path, I know I will look on your future as being a part of my own. Through your art, and the instruction you impart on your future students, my art and I may live forever.