Charles Bergengren accepts the Viktor Shreckengost Teaching Award at CIA’s 2012 Commencement. Skip to 2:20 for the start of Charlie’s speech.
That’s the advice professor Charles Bergengren gave students on commencement day 2012 at the Cleveland Institute of Art.
That’s my alma mater, and Charlie is my old professor. He passed away very suddenly and unexpectedly just two months after giving this speech. In the void of his absence, I realized just how much he has influenced me as an artist. As an expert in folklore and vernacular art, he’s the one that made me think of food as art for the first time. I did my first piece of culinary historical writing for him. He advised my thesis work and inspired me to walk 500 miles across Spain after I graduated.
I miss him.
Watch this video (skip to minute 2:20 for the start of Charlie’s speech). In five minutes, he’ll make you a better researcher. And he may even inspire you to do something radical.
As an estate gardener who works on an estate 3 miles from CIA and a ceramic artist this was WONDERFUL. Thank you so much for posting ….. Will be pondering in the studio today..
I’m so glad! It changed the way I looked it things, as Charlie always did. I hope you make some great work because of it!