In Memoriam: Remembering the Life and Work of Paolo J. Knill
-Wes Chester, MA, CAGS, Director, Expressive Arts Institute
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Click the image above to see beautiful a slideshow of photos from our community members remembering Paolo, with music composed for members of the EGS community by Wes.
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I have to begin with a confession For many weeks, this article has languished half written on my desk. I had all the normal excuses, and the constant flood of “other business” I could choose to attend. Having something so painful to impart, and so necessary, is the least favored duty of leadership. But those who openly celebrate the accomplishments of community are bound also to report its losses and sorrows. The thing that we most owe each other in community is to report our experience with some level of integrity, and an attempt to get at the factual, leaving what is true undefined, to be felt in each heart.
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It is with a tremendous sense of loss and grief that I must report that our mentor, teacher and field founder, Dr. Paolo Knill is dead, at 88 years of age. He died on Sunday, September 13th, while swimming with his dearly beloved wife and companion Margo Fuchs Knill, after sharing a beautiful and loving day. And Paolo Knill yet lives. As the poet Jane Hirshfield writes,
“Say death and the room freezes…
Say the word continuously and things begin to go forward…”
Paolo Knill is dead. He would insist upon the phenomenology of it. And Paolo continues…
His achievements would be hard to equal in two lifetimes. Paolo’s voracious curiosity led him to study aerodynamics and human dynamics with equal interest. His broad curiosity recognised no boundaries between science, art, music and therapy. A true interdisciplinarian, Paolo’s work represents the beautiful unification of rational thinking and heartful, passionate, playful doing. Knill studied at MIT, and held posts at Tufts and Leslie University, and taught Intermodal, Polyaesthetic Expressive Arts Therapy around the globe.
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The life that sustains a community needs a balance of deep work and serious play that reflects the nature of our founder. |
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Paolo is the embodies that balance Nietzsche's Apollonian and Dionysian, the rational and the exuberant often cited in the writings of Stephen K. Levine. His intellect brought a solid and unimpeachable theoretical foundation to the new and developing field of Expressive Arts Therapy. Paolo’s was a theory that would challenge both the pretensions to objectivity held by psychological fields, and the flights of fantasy of spiritual intuition, to offer a middle path, where the facts are observable by all, and the truth remains personal. Through the strength of his leadership as Provost of EGS, he created, sustained and steered EGS University through the beautiful and treacherous waters of it’s early founding, while assembling a remarkable community of collaborators and supporters who presently continue his work in the world. Although I consider him among the singular geniuses of his age, these accomplishments are but a small fraction of his gift to the world.
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One mark of a great man’s life lies in the stories of gratitude and admiration from those who met him, even briefly. Stories of his kind and genuine attention.Paolo dispensing a gentle word of advice, a strong challenge to your thinking, framed in absurd humor, or a lesson of life changing value taught through the magic of play. Paolo words are always given with love and with support. When you have failed, run up against your own limits, disappointed yourself, Paolo was there to give testimony to the validity of your efforts. If you accomplish something beautiful, it never went unnoted. And if you had the good fortune to make Paolo laugh (and his laugh was beautiful, as raspy and triumphant as the call of a wild goose) it was like making the sun shine. Every student, and every colleague I know has at least one “Paolo moment.”
October 27th of 2020 was my 20th anniversary of having met Paolo, and in those decades I have had too many memorable moments to name. The times I really treasure the most were our improvisations with guitar and piano. Sometimes it was in between class times. Other times in support of community art, or the exquisite poetry of Elizabeth McKim. Under Paolo’s wing, I began the journey home to my own voice and my competence as a musician. We had many long conversations about music and performance. One I always treasure is a lesson about patience and stage fright. It was the occasion of a community lecture in 2014, where Paolo had been asked to do a brief improv response on piano. I was surprised to hear him say he had been quite nervous.
“Yes, I am always nervous before. If I don't feel nervous, then I shouldn’t do it anymore. It has become habitual and the work doesn’t live. You have to have patience. Wait for the right moment to break the silence. You must allow that note to arrive. To do this takes courage, not bravery.” I asked and he explained, “It takes bravery to rush ahead, but it takes courage to wait in the moment of crisis. To wait in the silence, and act when the time arrives.”
These wise words, spoken casually while walking down the long hill to lunch have served me as often as any observation about leadership he gave to me over the decades. When I have the patience to heed them, the arrival of the emergent moment in art, discussion , life itself flows naturally. And while I am sure he never wrote this sentiment down, I am glad to share that they live on in me, along with so many other graceful and astonishing moments.
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Paolo was a man of remarkable vigor easily able to outhike me at age 68 when we met. The latter years were not kind to his body. Even as scoliosis bent his back, and macular degeneration stole his sight, he never lost engagement with the world. He was so fascinated with the mechanics of his visual perception, that he treated his coming loss of vision as a scientific curiosity. Even though it must’ve been terribly painful, he engaged with me in long dialogs on his visual perception, and what impressions his failing eyesight now brought him. How they filled in his increasingly large blind spot, in ways that felt both appropriate and random. Attaching the face of a stranger to an old friend. And how in a restaurant, he once walked three times past the table of an extremely attractive woman before recognizing her as his own dear Margo. And in the summer of 2018, with the only vaguest sense of regret, he reported the mountains of Saas Fee had become “...flat like stage scenery, and I cannot see them any other way. It’s fascinating.”
In my heart, I still feel Paolo is with me. When I sit in a circle where the wounded healers come to share their stories, even in the strange “flat circle” of COVID imposed Zoom classrooms, I feel his presence, urging me to attend carefully. To be humble and open in discourse, and decisive in leadership. And above all to act with love towards each member of the community. I feel Paolo in the deep curiosity about world that we both shared, and in his passion about the surface and substantial presence of images in the world. I see him shining in the eyes of my colleagues and friends. Eyes that may shine with both laughter and tears in these days.
In the end I return to the words of Jane Hirshfield for comfort and to acknowledge the mystery that remains unsolvable...
Death is voracious, it swallows all the living.
Life is voracious, it swallows all the dead.
Neither is ever satisfied, neither is ever filled.
Each swallows and swallows the world.
The grip of life is as strong as the grip of death.
(but the vanished, the vanished beloved, o where?)
It is a great impertinence to answer a question posed by a poet, and although I say it with tears, I also say it with gratitude: Paolo is here. He lives in the work and our collective memory. His genius is still dazzling, but no longer the sun which we orbit. His light now is scattered like the seeds of stars, bright sparks of presence, beauty and love in the lives he has touched. Sparks that have ignited our own passion for the work, the world and the people in it. It falls to us, to carry the light. We are all called to shine..
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Don't Forget Our New Coaching Track for Fall 2020 |
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The Expressive Arts Institute online is offering exceptional courses educating people from all over the world about the helping arts, in all their applications.
In September, our academic year will recommence with virtual programming, along with low residency in person meetings following social distancing protocols as long as the science demonstrates their necessity.
And for the first time ever the Institute will be offering a new academic track in Expressive Arts Coaching & Education as a low residency online program.
This is an ideal track for practicing artists who want to learn to be expressive arts helpers. Our new program will allow student to apply for their REACE (Registered Expressive Arts Coach Educator) registration. The training maintains the high standards of excellence which has made the Institute a sought after educational studio since 1998. We are accepting applications for the 2020-2021 academic year right now for the Master's degree (in cooperation with the European Graduate School), and Professional Diploma, as well as Expressive Arts Coach. If you are an artist/helper ready to "open the present" to new skills and new learning, it's a great time to contact us.
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Interested in Training to be an Expressive Arts Coach, Educator or Therapist?
Free Zoom Information With
Dr. Judith Greer Essex
Saturday Dec. 5th, 1:00pm-2:00pm Pacific
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Get your questions answered and your curiosities about our program confirmed in a free 1 hour Zoom information session on Expressive Arts careers in Education, Therapy, Coaching and Consulting. Learn how our professional education can help you define and credential yourself for a career in the helping arts. Our 20 plus years experience helps provide you the best and most professional education in Expressive Arts. Email Judith for more information: Judith@arts4change.com
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Are you a student or professional seeking an experienced supervisor for your LMFT or REAT application? Support for difficult cases including ethical advisement? Dr. Judith Essex offers both group and individual supervision for REAT's, LMFT's, students and applicants.
619-239-1713 for details.
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Ongoing Workshops from the Institute |
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Looking for personal growth and expression?
The Expressive Arts Institute will continue to offer virtual course gatherings. Develop your art practice, and receive feedback from witnesses that enrich your experience.
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NOTE: During the COVID-19 outbreak, all courses are held online through the free Zoom Cloud Meeting App. |
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The Illuminated Journal Online
with Judith Greer Essex Ph.D
Ongoing Wednesdays at 4:00pm
Enrollment limited
$25 per drop-in,
$90 for 4 consecutive classes
Participants in Illuminated Journal will learn to use writing and visual art as:
- a tool for living more authentically.
- a way to engage with the images and metaphors that guide and inform our lives.
- a daily practice of self expression.
- a way to ground and center in uncertain times.
- ways to "get into" your journal both writing and image making.
Note: Participants must download the free Zoom Cloud Meetings App for your laptop, tablet or smartphone before class time. Headphones or ear buds recommended.
NOTE: anevening class is forming. Contact me if interested.
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Writing Your Way Home: An Online Group for Writers
with Wes Chester, MA, CAGS
Ongoing Thursdays
*6:00 pm - 8:00pm.
R.S.V.P. Enrollment limited
*note new time
"I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear."- Joan Didion
Write your way Home is weekly online writers group for creating, support and inspiration.
- We will work in brief exercises with the material of your life and share the results.
- We will create space to hear segments of your ongoing writing process
- We will explore feedback and revision forms to help you bring your writing closer to home.
$15 per session. The course accepts payments through Venmo and PayPal. The general public is welcome.
Note: Participants must download the free Zoom Cloud Meetings App for your laptop, tablet or smartphone before class time. Headphones or ear buds recommended.
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Considering a Career in Expressive Arts? |
Since 1998, the Expressive Arts Institute has been graduating highly skilled Expressive Arts practitioners, maintaining the highest quality of education for arts-based helpers. Do you want to learn how to use your creative strengths to live a better life, and help others do the same? Applications are on the website.
Let Instructors Judith Greer Essex and Wes Chester use their nearly 70 years of combined experience to help prepare you for the creative, meaningful work you want to do.
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