John Banasiak: If you're on a visual exploration, you're out, uh, dig up something that you haven't seen before, or you never interacted with before, you have to be that far open to just ask people or, uh, go places where you wouldn't usually go and deal with the consequences, uh, which could be good, could be bad, but, uh, you have to have confidence in your own imagination. I think it's, uh, a useful educational tool, uh, to have those kinds of, um, unexpected things happen. Even obstacles, problems you get in the way, uh, those, those are the only opportunities you'd have to remain, learn something. You know, if everything went fine, you probably didn't really learn that much.
Melissa Sievers: Art has been the way that John Bonasiak has communicated with his environment. First as a child, making up stories about days running around with buddies, then as a school boy sketching in class
JB: Nuns, there always would ask me to draw the posters or something. Cause I guess I could do it. And I just enjoy doing, I don't know where it came from. One of them even said, “You know, you ought to go into art and be an artist, someday.”
MS: John Banasiak is indeed a very talented artist. He spends free time making assemblage art, similar to the shrines made by his Polish Catholic grandmother and ambling through neighborhoods, looking for striking images.
JB: You know, and when you walk around at night, it is dark enough to block out any potentially distracting elements. And, so, it's easier to isolate specific things. The direction of light, casting the shadow there, it looks like a background in a Salvador Dali painting
MS: Educated at the art Institute of Chicago, plus the university of Krakow in Poland, Banasiak earned numerous accolades. His passion, it turns out, has been teaching,
JB: Working with students, day-to-day here and watching them explore, excavate different layers of themselves… really is better than reading books for me. I think that maybe I, in the end, learn more than anybody else in my classes. I hope to think that I'm still growing in some significant way.
MS: John has been teaching at USD for 40 years. Many students have exposed and processed endless rolls of film and sheets of paper. They’re learning lessons that are as indelible as the images that they create.
Maya Parry is an anthropology student who enjoys processing her own emotions through photography.
Maya Parry: So a lot of the things that I make in class have to do with my private deep emotions. Sometimes John and I will kind of work to try to formulate ideas about how I can use anthropology and photography together. So looking at emotions as artifacts or looking at specific pieces from my past, artifacts that I can photograph and then use
MS: Students are just part of the group that appreciate Banasiak’s contribution in the classroom. The recipient of the 2021 Governor's Award in the Arts for Outstanding Service in Arts Education, Banasiak is quick to reflect on the honor.
JB: It's a governor's award. It's really hard to accept it, personally. The only way I could really think about it as accepting it is as a collective effort of the art department, everybody is so good here too. We try to set up an environment where learning can take place, you know, get rid of all the distractions as much as I can. I try to be as helpful as I could be, have all the chemicals mixed up… Ready when anybody has a question or they're struggling with some understanding of some idea or where they should go next.
MS: Dillon Bryant has benefited from the innovation and collaboration that occurs in the classroom of this humble instructor.
Dillon Bryant: It's been lovely. John has a really good way of nurturing creative ideas. His stories is and anecdotes really help you connect threads for different ideas, different ways of working.
MS: John says that he's in no hurry to retire, but when he does his legacy and dedication to the exploration of ideas and self-growth will continue in people like Dylan.
DB: I want to be like John, when I grow up and I would love to take what I've learned from here and everybody to bring that forward to my own students. So if I do go on to teach
MS: John Banasiak says that's as good of a tribute as any award.