Grade Sheets

Grade Sheets. Now this will date us--it looks so official and at the same time, so quaint. The pre-digital world (or rather, very early print-out technology). Multiple-layer forms--one to the office, one for the registrar, and one for my own records. Each sheet color-coded. Would have remained unseen--probably never to be seen again, except that this was the folder I opened last week, almost at random--with class records from my first decade at Berkeley--from a drawer filled with hand-drawn assignment sheets, typed reports, grant stuff, and (I haven't yet looked through with any thoroughness) the kinds of ephemeral records that gain in interest in direct proportion to the passing years. As above--that handwritten column of grades, in blue ink (a Parker fountain pen, cartridge type, I now recall! You could no doubt find a picture online, to complete the loop. Dubbed "material culture," but it's really just a pen.) Also, the spot of white-out correction fluid--indicating a change of mind (!) (Someone's life just became satisfactory!)  But more important, the names--people who remain dear to me, their presence, from the time when they were simply "in school," and we were first discovering each other. Paul, for example--Paul Batlan, architect, lawyer, avid music aficionado--whose daughter, Rivka is now a student here in the CED. And Laura Kurgan--who does all the fascinating work with mapping, at Columbia. Lisa Harris, too--and Canan...

Each name brings up an image--I can see Canan, her hair dyed an unexpected bright red (was it henna?) heading out across campus, cane in hand, for a room in Dwinelle, somehow the assigned ED 11A lecture hall for that semester, on a rainy Berkeley morning. I remember being concerned--a wet trek like that would be daunting--couldn't be good for her. But I hadn't counted on Canan's spunk--she'd do it for that very reason, without hesitation, playful and defiant. Which in a few years made her very much her own artist (she's represented Turkey more than once at the Venice Biennale).

Canan invited me over, around the time, we'd become friends. A place on Parker Street, below campus. She made small bowls of yogurt, Turkish-style, with fresh dill. Simple but very special. I can still remember the taste...
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Another Canan note: How she'd approach her projects in the class (a precursor to VS 280: Beginnings)--always with an acute analytic sense, but at the same time with her untrammeled imagination. The two working together, maybe more than anyone I can remember. She was already a professional architect, but the openness of her artwork--the questions  she could address as a painter--won out. Became her life...

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