Framing a Career: Beloved Art Teacher Says Farewell

By Mary Cresse
April 2011

In a 1975 photograph of an art class, it's tough to spot the teacher among the group of smiling young men and women. Gale Babin is at the far left. It's only the set of keys around her neck that gives her away as the adult in charge.

This spring, after 35 years in the Melrose Public Schools, Babin will lock the heavy blue door to the art room for the very last time and head home for some R&R. What's on the docket? A tour of Europe, perhaps? A leisurely trip to the Louvre? No, plans are to spend more time with her husband and to start a series of watercolors.

Then there's sleep. After decades of eight o'clock classes, Babin is looking forward to a morning snooze and a lazy cup of coffee. "I'm always amazed I'm up so early teaching a class," said Babin, from her desk in a hallway of the high school, where Melrose Patch caught her on lobby duty.

But it's clear the hours are a minor matter, especially measured against the joys. When asked to name them, Babin shrugged, apologized for the upcoming cliche, and said, "Truly, it's the kids. I've seen student teachers come in here and literally stand in shock. They say, 'We've never seen such well-behaved kids.'" And only this past week, Babin said, an administrator of a university program that sends teachers to city schools complimented Melrose for creating an atmosphere that encouraged art students to take creative risks.

"Mrs. Babin knew how to create a charged learning environment. Every student who has been part of a smooth-running art room remembers the sound of pencils in motion." —Kip Lamberg

That's not surprising. Melrose has always had a vibrant arts program. Among its star grads are Christopher "Kip" Lamberg-Karlovksy, who recently exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts; Ruby Gertz, now a student at New York's Pratt Institute, who won a $25,000 Geoffrey Beene National Scholarship for fashion design; and oil painter J.J. Long, whose cityscapes, still lifes, and figure studies have earned him a strong local following, according to gallery owners.

"I would not have become an artist were it not for Gale [and fellow instructors] Paul Squattrito and Katherine Marsh," said Kip Lamberg via email. "Their art rooms changed my life. Mrs. Babin showed extraordinary patience with nonsense behavior from monkeys like me. She was one of those rare teachers who could put up with so much that, before you could figure out how to truly drive her nuts, you'd end up behaving properly out of sheer wonder at her tolerance!

"Mrs. Babin knew how to create a charged learning environment," he continued. "Every student who has been part of a smooth-running art room remembers the sound of pencils in motion. You never forget it."

J.J. Long, who met Babin through the and , praises her involvement beyond the grounds of the schools. "Gale is an amazing supporter of the Melrose arts community."

A Melrose native and MHS graduate, Babin returned home after earning her degree from Massachusetts College of Art. One of five art teachers, she was hired to teach drawing and painting, but soon branched out to the arts-and-crafts interests then popular.

"It was the Seventies!" she laughed, recalling how macramé, tie-dyeing, leatherwork, silk-screening, and batik (making designs on fabric with wax) were as popular as drawing and painting.

Over the years, Babin weathered the trends in art as well as in education. She has survived course frameworks, which involved changes to curricula guidelines, and has witnessed the growth of the city's arts fairs into the annual spring festival.

"A tool-finished design is only as good as the artist. I want kids to understand how line and shape and composition work with one another, whether it's in web design or sculpture." —Gale Babin

She see most changes as beneficial; however, she's worried about the effects of social media upon the art process.

"When I started teaching, art was very much of a hobby for kids," Babin said. "You'd see children doodling in their notebooks, marking out ideas for art projects, spending hours creating their own comic books or album covers. There was much rumination—'quiet time.'"

Today, that's all different, she noted. "Kids feel pressure now to answer an email or cellphone message, or to update their Facebook statuses." Babin said she has tried to convey to students that social media taps into the nonstructured, nondigital rumination and face-to-face personal interaction that can inspire great art.

And although Babin sees great potential in computer art, and of the possibilities inherent in marrying such traditional and emerging art forms—for example, silver halide photography with digital photography—she urges students never to forget that computers are a tool.

"A tool-finished design is only as good as the artist," she said. "I want kids to understand how line and shape and composition work with one another, whether it's in web design or sculpture."

She marvels at the passage of time. Recalling the names of the schools at which she's taught (Washington, Beebe, Roosevelt), she said, with wonder, "And do you know, when I started out the high school was in a new building?"

Is there anything in particular Babin will miss?

Her students, naturally. But then again, she added, "I'm not going away." Indeed, it's clear that Gale Babin will remain a presence in the Melrose arts community. Perhaps at the next arts festival she'll exhibit her watercolors right alongside the works of her students.