ART TEACHING

            Professor Chalood Nimsamer was a student in the eighth class of Silpakorn University, but he became the first Thai student to receive a Bachelor’s degree from the university. His mentor at the time was Professor Silpa Bhirasri who was also the Dean and was responsible for the teaching of painting and sculpture. Professor Chalood had expressed his impression on Professor Silpa Bhirasri that

            “Ajarn Silpa loves art so much so that he wanted to establish and lay foundation for the right and modern way of art study in Thailand. Ajarn Silpa will try every effort to make arts in Thailand more developed, whether by teaching, writing textbooks and articles, disseminating his work and knowledge about art, and even contributing his personal savings to help his students. His teaching method is a prototype of good teacher—he know how and when to criticize, to admire, he shows no personal bias on his students and other individuals. It seems that he does not love anyone in particular, but he loves everyone who likes working and who has done artworks”.

            Professor Silpa Bhirasri was teaching several courses in the Faculty of Painting and Sculpture. A number of individuals who graduated from Silpakorn University and Fine Arts and Craft School and used to study with him had been his teaching assistants. Professor Chalood was one of Professor Silpa Bhirasri’s teaching assistants. Professor Chalood was selected to be an art teacher at Silpakorn University when he was studying at the fifth year at the university. He assisted Professor Silpa in the teaching of art composition course on an hourly basis. He helped Professor Silpa with grading and taking care of class attendance and work distribution. After his graduation in 1954 he was recruited as a full-time lecturer in the Faculty of Painting, Sculpture, and Graphic Arts.

            Professor Chalood won a scholarship from the Italian government to pursue his study in Rome. Professor Chalood passed the exam and chose to study on Decoration (the program that emphasizes on art production in fixed locations in buildings such as mural paintings). He also studied intaglio in which he had a keen interest and later brought it back to Silpakorn University. In 1964 he received a grant for a study tour in the US. His main purpose of the study tour was to learn about lithography and to collect all possible data pertaining to the opening of a new program on graphic arts upon his return to Thailand. Prior to the year 1964, the only graphic art subject that was first taught at the faculty was woodcut, which was introduced by Professor Silpa Bhirasri as a minor subject for the fourth and fifth year students. Not until Professor Chalood established the Department of Graphic Arts in 1965 that other printing techniques including block print, silk-screen print, and lithograph were taught. Professor Chalood was the sole instructor on those techniques during the first 2-3 years.

            Later in 1977 Professor Chalood found another department named Department of Thai Art as he saw that a number of his students were particularly fascinated with traditional Thai art and illustrated their expertise in such art, rather than modern art or western style of art production. Professor Chalood thought that the new department might serve as an alternative for those students and he also noticed that sources for traditional Thai art study were still available. Having seen that traditional Thai art became gradually deteriorated and might be gone forever, he deemed that there must be generations of artists who can help preserve and continue the traditional Thai art. Some students in the Department of Thai Art are capable of producing contemporary art with traditional style and Professor Chalood sees that as a progress. The goals of the department are to conserve, continue, and create traditional Thai art. This can be achieved in two different ways; one is by producing Thai art style in current context, and another way is by making modern art but still expressing Thainess.

            After over 40 years of teaching, Professor Chalood comments on the university entrance system for Silpakorn University that the current system of entrance for undergraduate study in the Faculty of Painting, Sculpture, and Graphic Arts is cling much to the general entrance system developed by the central unit at the Ministry of University affairs. For example, he notes that examiners are required to take certain number of tests and time allocation is fixed. He goes on to say that we still lack good evaluation methods to measure whether the examiners are proficient for study or not. The best we can measure is their manual skill, which is not enough to be a creative. Worse than that, we may have students who are not real artists but mere students who pass the exams because they have good memory and talent in copying, but lack creativity. Professor Chalood suggests that students in the Faculty of Painting, Sculpture, and Graphic Arts should be equipped with creativity and constructive ideas, intelligence, and be skillful, and basically knowledgeable.