Blank paper

Odes of praise are rarely written sincerely. And it is sincerely difficult to write about a stranger, it is difficult, you are embarrassed by any feeling that seems superfluous within the academic walls. To write about a person, whom you know little and with whom you are separated by the age gap, by the six years since your last meeting, and by the hierarchy.

I'd like to avoid abstract dry summaries, but just write: what I know and how I feel, without digging into anything. How many people have left a mark on your life? How many teachers can you remember from a queue of educators, professors, lecturers, laboratory assistants? I suppose lucky are those who can find kind words for at least one.

I think that a real teacher is someone you want to be like, you just want to absorb a part of him.

I feel to curtsey to one person involved in SPbGASU. Still, I will not write his name for the reasons stated above. I had only three hours a week with him during two years of study at the pre-Faculty of architecture. I met this teacher when I was a ninth grader with a dream about architecture. If I loved something in my life, then it was Architecture - this lady with glassy eyes and granite cheekbones.

One can say that I studied with him for a very short time and knew little at that time. But I am sure that for important things in life, time does not play a role, time leaves nothing only from everyday life. And you don't need to know everything about a person to keep him in your mind.

In my life I was not closely connected with writers and painters either, but this does not mean that they did not become a support of spirit for me. With the person I am writing about, I was more fortunate: I managed to talk to him and see what his hand leaves on a piece of paper. The attitude of a person to paper is generally indicative: you can write disgusting things on it, or you can draw a composition. You can crush it, but you can also place it under the glass bordered by the frame. Probably, then I was almost as blank a piece of paper as one puts on a drawing board.

What I learned is a multifaceted question. Yes, I still remember these collections of figures, reminiscent of Yakov Chernikhov's works. Probably, since then I hold the pencil more confidently and use the holder for the worn-out slate guides to the world of lines. This is not the most important thing: what was important was besides these skills and what I saw then. I saw a man who knew his business.

And this is very important, especially for men. No matter what trials you have, the most important thing is to understand that in your life you have been doing business. And only this remains for any person to contribute to world happiness: to do your job well. It sounds very simple, but what a hard way lies in justifying these words.

There is no need to shout about virtues and about culture, culture is generally useless to instill or plant, it can only impress. A person builds his own connection with a work of art akin to love, and the feeling never answers the question “why exactly”.

If you are an artist or an architect, you should always carry a pencil in your jacket pocket. Yes, a jacket, because only in it one can approach architecture: this lady appreciates those who dared to flirt with her. A sharp pencil, not a handkerchief - the handkerchief is in the inside pocket, private and hidden from view, the outside vision does not need it.

The world is changing, for this statement one does not need to know and realize much, the understanding is rather that no matter what programs exist, no matter how the binary code is rewritten, nothing will replace the moment when the creator’s hand touches paper with a pencil. And we only left Vitruvius in appearance. And I am convinced that if a person learns to create with one pencil, on a piece of paper, then his art is invincible. He doesn't need anything else. Everything else is just an application. You should not ask a violinist to be able to play one string, but it is always important that he be able to play without an orchestra.

After the course, I met my teacher only once, on Kirochnaya Street. As it should be: among the austere facades, he was in a coat and cap. I was in a hurry on business and was embarrassed to come up to say hello, and I don’t think he remembered me. As now, I know practically nothing about the fate of this man, and I don’t want to be curious.

The lady Architecture has many admirers: she chooses the best one. This love has remained unrequited in my life. I was doing very different things. Human life is not always full of happiness and does not always lead to success somewhere. And more often we judge by people who have chosen something for their life and have reached the heights in this, we all want to be like them, and rightly so. But a person always has a question in front of himself, in private: what he took out of his life and to whom he is grateful in it. In success it is easy to look for assistants, it is more difficult to find them in case of losses.

I believe that I am not alone in knowing the secret of unity with paper. I'm not the only one who has learnt from this man. There are people who stay with us forever.

And as I said, it doesn’t matter and it’s not a pity sometimes how you lived: it’s important what and whom you endured in your memory. This is not the freedom to live the way you think, on the contrary, this is the ability to find the right foundations for yourself. That's what schools and universities are for. Because the main skill in life is to live it. Dry knowledge and pragmatism can take a person far, no need to illustrate this. People always learn from individuals. Like a building is not only a collection of stones, pipes, wires and window frames. Buildings are also biographies, and first of all of architects.

I met several teachers who remained not only signatures in the grade book. Probably, in order to teach something bright, you need to live a decent life yourself. This life is full of temptations, full of disappointments, it is easy to stumble in it. But if people sat down at a blank sheet of paper and each time saw in it eternity, absolute zero, then they would think about what to put on it.