Providing a Spark

My Graduation Mortar Board from UT-Austin

The majority of influential men in my life have either passed from this life, or passed from my life's sphere of influence. Of the former, André Lefevre, became one of the most determining factors in my life, professionally and personally. I can literally say that had it not been for him, I most likely would not be a professional translator, nor living in Belgium for much of my adult life. Part of that has now culminated in the fact that I am the official Dutch-English translator for the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent (MSK) and responsible for translating the entire audio, wall and catalogue texts for the forthcoming (Spring 2020) exhibition, Van Eyck. An Optical Revolution.

Van Eyck. An Optical Revolution

This exhibition on Jan van Eyck, and more specifically on his revolutionary use of optics and light within his works with the new media of oil paints in the Burgundian Netherlands of the 15th century, is the largest and most prestigious exhibition on Van Eyck, one of the (and according to many, the) greatest painters ever, in recorded history. I am truly honored to have been hired by the MSK to do this highly esteemed project, but, as with everything in life, there is a backstory, and this is no exception.

Life's roadmap has a funny way of unfolding, and its course can be ever changing, while often what may seem like minor junctures or detours end up becoming major route-altering and defining moments. More often that not, we may forget where that first detour began...

Mine begin with a funny (as in peculiar), little Belgian man from Ghent, André Lefevre. André studied in Ghent at the University of Ghent, where I have also recently given guest lectures in the Indology Department (though that is another story) and earned his PhD at Essex and then ultimately landed in Austin, Texas, teaching Dutch to Texans. He created his own textbook "Treat Yourself to Dutch" which I still have amongst my many notebooks.

However, how I ended up in André's classroom, is a bit more roundabout than merely signing up for an undergraduate foreign-language class at The University of Texas at Austin.  

I graduated at the top of my high school class, giving a very mordant valedictory speech, less nostalgic and more looking forward to ridding myself of any vestiges of high school. I was not a fan. But, I also had no idea what I wanted to do, and if I even wanted to go to college. I only chose to attend one a week before classes began because I had a scholarship and a place on the Varsity swim team (also another story). That ended up being a very poor decision, both for the atmosphere of the school and the swim team experience. Within a year, I was back to the blank drawing board.

I dropped out of college because I truly did not have a clue about what I wanted to do, nor the motivation to continue higher education. I moved to Austin, Texas, as one of my sisters was there, and I liked the city for its vibe and attitude. I took on various jobs including delivering pizzas and bartending. And, for the first time in my life, despite having aced school all these years, I really began to read. I read some 70 or so books that so-called "lost year" when others were diligently going to classes and chipping away at degree requirements. I still did not have a clue, but I did know that I wanted to do something with philosophy and literature, and travel.

I looked into transferring into UT, but was not in time. So, I went around and started talking to some professors and asked if I could sit in on their classes. I also knew that I had to have a foreign-language requirement for Liberal Arts, and I wanted to do something "different". I looked into the course catalogue and found "Dutch."

I went to the Germanic Languages department, and found a certain professor "André Lefevre" and went to his office. Sitting across from his desk, he looked at me curiously as to why this drop-out, unsure, clueless kid would want to take Dutch, virtually for no credit, but he was intrigued. With his gremlin-like little smile and squeaky blue eyes, he stroked his beard and said, "okay". Come to my class. If you do the work, we'll figure it out from there what's the next step.

So, for a semester, I went to Dutch 506 nearly every day, along with a handful of philosophy and art history classes, and sometimes just to random ones as UT is rather large, and one can be anonymous.

André had a very strange sense of humor, and a horrible knack for very bad puns, but he loved Shakespeare and made many good, obscure references that I was usually the only one getting, so we "bonded" on the grounds of obscurantism.

André had one major passion in life, or one great love, and it was Van Eyck's Adoration of the Mystic Lamb Altarpiece in Ghent. He used to talk about it all the time and how there was a funny, little man in Ghent's St Bavo's who was in charge of opening the magnificent altarpiece on holidays, and if you knew him, he might open it for you. This was well before the restoration that is the impetus for the exhibition at hand.

The way he marvelled at its genius intrigued me. I had to see it, which I eventually did during my 3-month backpacking trip across Europe after that semester, when I did visit Holland and Belgium upon André's suggestions. I was indeed amazed and in awe.

I decided to do an English Literature/Language undergraduate degree with minors in Art History and Philosophy after that, which I did. I got back into college and finished my degree in a very short time as I was taking a course load of 21 hours instead of the normal 12-15. I was back in the saddle.

When I finished undergraduate, I ended up spending a year in Antwerp, Belgium with UIA (which became the University of Antwerp, and where I was a visiting Fulbright Professor of English 10 years ago, though again, another story...) and pursued languages and found my newest calling, James Joyce, with one of André's colleagues, Geert Lernout. It was from Lernout that I found out that André was a hugely respected leader in Translation Studies...something I did not know...and, some light bulbs started going off in my head.

I would go back to UT and do a PhD in Comparative Literature with André in translation studies relating to James Joyce! It all came together.

I went back to André's office after living abroad and told him my plan. He looked at me again across his desk, through his squinty lapis lazuli eyes, and said okay, he would vouch for me to start a PhD in Comparative Literature.

I was pursuing my Master's degree first, picking up German and Ancient Greek as we had to have at least 3 languages, and ultimately wrote on Heinrich Von Kleist and the implied reader of Wolfgang Iser for my thesis. But, Joyce and Dutch were still going to figure in, or so I thought.

Life, and death, had other plans. During the Spring of my Master's second year, on my 27th birthday, André died at the age of 50. We were all shocked. No one had even known he was sick. Suddenly my main advisor was dead.

I did not want to continue Dutch as my main language without André, but at that time, I had begun a serious interest in translation because of him.

In even more detours, twists and turns, I added Sanskrit to the list, and that is when the translation bug stuck. I was completely hooked on the power of translation. I ultimately finished my PhD a couple of years later on the works of James Joyce and the concepts of Memory and Death (using German, Greek and Sanskrit philosophies to explore that), and was then once again at a crossroads.

My academic career then had many twists and turns again, and ultimately I landed in Bologna, Italy as a Visiting Professor of English, specifically on James Joyce, with Rosa Maria Bosinelli, the former President of the International James Joyce society and a major figure in translation studies, and she knew André's work very well. Via her, I began then my translation career with a student-run translation company to help them translate the Università di Bologna's website into English from Italian. I actually got paid and recognition for translating, something I loved to do. This was great!

So, at that moment, I started The Language Doc, my own translation "company" that I have been running for over 15 years, translating Italian, German, Dutch and French into English as well as editing and copyediting.

Having lived then in Antwerp, Belgium, again for the past 10 years, Dutch-->English became my main line of work for The Language Doc. Slowly building up the trust and clientele of the Flemish Art Collection and various other arts and humanities institutions, this past Spring I was hired on by the MSK for the Van Eyck exhibition amongst others.

All of that is to say that none of that would have ever happened if André had merely said "no" that day that I walked into his office as a clueless, 20 year-old college drop-out.

It makes me as a teacher as well always to pause when I am teaching and when I am dealing with students about the impact that we can have. We bear a responsibility that is invisible and one that has consequences, for better or for worse, we most likely will never see. Sometimes, seeds can be planted that may not bear fruit for 25 years or so from our former students.

Giving someone a chance, when everyone else has written them off, or considered them "lost" or "off the path" may be that very spark that is what is needed to create and forge a new path.

Such a spark was given to me by André nearly 30 years ago, so for that, I am eternally grateful.

Dank u wel, André.