Dear Isabel (and Portfolio Center Students),

How amazing your realization of the value and the difference of your education. How did you put it—“Hank, William Faulkner and our class…this is amazing stuff, a complete affirmation of all that we have working on these past weeks. I thought you would enjoy.”

Thank you, Isabel, for sharing your enthusiasm and William Faulkner’s Nobel speech.

As I begin to respond to your note, I realize my comments to you should actually be shared with everyone, particularly as everyone is working so very hard right now to approach their critique this coming week and celebrate all they have been about in this quarter. So I will include them.

And, yes you are very correct; it is analogous to what is going on at Portfolio Center and in your education. I know of no education exactly like it anywhere on Earth.

How true, how inspiring, the testimony of William Faulkner… and if you are ever over in Oxford, Mississippi, at the Univ. of Miss., as I was there giving a speech at Ole Miss several years ago, do go by Off Square Books, one of the best books stores in the country. There you can see under lock and key all of the original books of Faulkner in the bookstore- over on the left hand side as you walk in.

As you’re beginning to realize by way of what has been going on in this quarter, perhaps now the realization is if you do not reach for the stars you will never touch the sky… and once you realize you can reach for those stars, you will— will, will, will never stop—ever again.

And, with an attitude like that, you might come to see it is about what you commit to share, and it is through your voice that things in this world can be.

You might remember back to day #1 of the class when I read you the statement about design and democracy and said then that it would be several months of being with me before you understood and could realize the importance of that quote from RitaSue Siegel, “The Mission: I will make the world safe for Democracy… er, Design.”

For you and your peers it is about attaining a goal, your success. It takes perseverance, and it takes a lot of commitment and patience.

And, yes you pay a price for it. You have to if you wish to win. But what you gain is worth the price.

To be the best and at the top of the game- to have the best opportunity, you have to simply pay it.

And, hopefully, you come to understand—this is not just about this class, but it is about doing and being the attitude every day, all the time, into the rest of your life. It must become a habit… because winning is a habit.

The world is changing, and the spirit you and your classmates embody already is the spirit the world will come to be. We are living in the time of a creative economy that is driven by design, a best time, but as the change of mechanization shifts to other countries and it is necessary we shift our own economies to reflect the advantage of knowledge and information… then how important to have a voice.

There is no room for further homogenizations within the industry of this country—or anywhere— for the margins are already slim. Rather, we have to be bold and willing to take chances, chances that may lead to failure— but they also might lead to victory. Either way, they will be about excellence… I counsel, take that search for excellence; be bold, be brave.

What you all are experiencing is difficult. One of my favored philosophies comes from the master Micelangniolo Buonarroti… *”Dauicte cholla fromba e io choll’archo.” In a time when economies shift it seems a positive objective to learn to think, to reason, to create, to voice your imaginations, to use the brilliance of your minds.

The path of no resistance is an easy one, and you and I both know it leads nowhere. The tougher path is the one that winners take.

I once told this to a student who did not understand—a thought from Machiavelli: “Win and the means will be deemed honorable”. If you think about it in a most pragmatic way, every year 40,000 students graduate from art and design schools— go figure.

Your education, therefore, has to offer you the best opportunity; and, I am a firm believer that education has to fulfill the promises it makes.

It is a competitive world out there, within industry, within life… and it takes competitive players.

For when your opportunity comes, it is imperative that you be ready. As you go along, and you and your peers get your chance to compete, you’ll be ready to go at it… and then you’ll see how valuable the discipline you’re developing now is, and how it’s the difference between winning and losing…

Goethe, the German philosopher, imagined, “In art, the best is good enough.” As you share your personal values, interpreting truth as you see it, and by your voice influencing others by your very passion, you are drawing others into a shared narrative where they may feel the spirit you are, and perhaps your inspiration might become their inspiration in turn.

Your success will come not because of your talent but due to your single-mindedness and your tenacity and purposefulness.

If you begin now with this objective, your future will grant success. Your future one day may become your ideas, and those very ideas might make a difference in a job, in your industry, in your society, in the world some day— THEY CAN!

This is what can dimension the study you become and make such a purpose of value for society and people across this world (as your study of McLuhan implores you to remember,”The global village has become tribal.”)

It is an old story that circles back, work hard and profit.

Good luck! As you and your peers begin this week and you seek the opportunities you have in it. It is your opportunity.

Thanks for the inspiring Faulkner speech and see you and the class tomorrow morning at 5:30 am—yes! I know it is critique week.

Hank.

PS: I will share the link here to Faulkner’s speech that is on the Nobel website, as it is so very powerful.

Hank.

PS: the interpretation of the quote from *Micelangniolo,”Dauicte cholla fromba e io choll’archo,”… it is old Italian, meaning, “David won by using his strength, I by using my mind.”

Hank.

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