Thomas Rubick, "Return of the Return" - self-portrait ©
I lost my sensei today.
Thomas Rubick was my primary graphic design professor when I lived in Oregon, he was the best teacher I ever had, and he passed away Sunday morning just before 8 a.m. Pacific time. He had brain cancer; he and his doctors thought he had it beat with chemo this past summer, but it came back much worse once autumn arrived. I've promised to always speak of him in the present tense, a high respect afforded only the greatest of artists, but I can do so only when it doesn't end up confusing the timeline.
When he died, it was three hours later here on the East Coast, and what I was spending my Sunday morning doing was -- of all things -- drawing a three-panel cartoon on a bristol pad. I was having trouble rendering an expressive hand gesture, and I was thinking about him. I was remembering a time back in school when I stayed up all night on a deadline and completely screwed up an illustration by putting somebody's thumb where the pinky would be. Thomas made me draw 50 hands if I wanted to save my grade. Twelve years later, wearing through the pad with pencil scratches and eraser snibbles, I could swear I felt pressure coming from over my shoulder.
I didn't find out until much later in the day that he had died.
This wasn't a random spiritual experience or anything. I've been thinking a lot about Thomas for the past seven months, and I wrote extensively about him here back in March. Mostly, I've been racked with regret that I didn't keep in better touch beyond annual three-paragraph Christmas cards (his were always signed, "Your Sensei"), and that I never figured out the proper way to say farewell while I still could. But that's what people do. We're programmed to take things for granted, to forget about things when they're present and abundant, to despair and panic when their scarcity and absence become evident.
"I'm going to say one word to you," he said. "Are you listening?"
"Yes, sir," I replied.
"Watercolors," Thomas deadpanned.
He then dragged me to the art supply store a half-block away and spent over half an hour sorting through the paints and canvases. He brought over a clerk and grilled her about the pros and cons of certain brands. Before we parted company, he made me promise that I'd pick up some brushes and materials once I got back east. ("There's a great future in watercolors. Think about it.") And I promised.
Of course, I never followed through.
As I write this, the news of his passing is still fresh, not even 90 minutes has gone by since I learned of it. I've gone through the stages of grief in rapid and random order, I've thought about standard responses like plastic Livestrong bands or cancer research donations, and I've rewritten these paragraphs several times. But the feeling I keep coming back to is a compulsion to drop everything, and just make stuff.
That's the feeling that Thomas lived with every day, and it defines his spirit. While alive, he constantly painted portraits and drew things, he took photographs, he decorated objects, and he made stuff with computers. Whether people liked it or not, whether they bought it or not, he kept creating either way. When he consumed the world around him -- whether it was paging through The Art of Looking Sideways or curating his giant collection of pictures of "things" (oh yes, he loved slide shows) -- it was always in the name of more production. He passed that joy of creation to many, many students.
There are plenty of powerful forces in our world, like cancer, that destroy without prejudice, and they do win a lot of the time. So if you knew Thomas, or if you didn't, or even if you have no idea what I'm talking about, this is a call to make stuff. Do something in a medium you're familiar and comfortable with, or take on a challenge (maybe even watercolors). Every act of creation pushes back against a consuming darkness, it's up to us.
[UPDATE 7/22: Thomas wrote his own obituary.]
