Dean Nimmer Obituary, Death Cause – It was just recently brought to my attention that a much-loved painting instructor at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston had passed away. My alma institution. Dean Nimmer occupied the position of department chair in the Painting Department. In point of fact, I never had him for a professor, and it’s quite likely that he was unaware of my existence. When I was a student, I was extremely and embarrassingly shy Despite the passage of time, though, I have recently found myself reflecting on him because I have come to the conclusion that he was correct regarding an extremely significant matter.
When we graduated, I recall being irritated by him because he arrived to our ceremony gleefully on roller skates, and then he proceeded to skate dance into the commencement. Painters, particularly those of us who studied at MassArt in the late 1990s, took ourselves FAR too seriously. I believe it was a protection mechanism against our working class parents wondering aloud if we’d ever be able to have a career in the arts. They probably thought it was unlikely that we’d be able to do that. I mean, what did we have in our minds, I believe that, deep down, we were afraid that no one else would take us seriously, so we gave ourselves too much credit.
Or perhaps I’m the only one who noticed it. Due to the fact that we had a large number of late-bloomers and career-changers in their 30s, 40s, and even 50s and beyond, I was one of the youngest employees in the department. One of our students was a woman who was 99 years old and was learning painting. Even now, I find myself thinking about her. As someone who continues to create art while simultaneously lightening up and growing less serious with the passage of each year, I can now see that Dean Nimmer was absolutely correct the entire time. I like to imagine that he is currently roller skating into the cosmos, content in the knowledge that he lived a full life filled with being creative, being of service to others, teaching, and being totally present in the moment.
