Published Apr 20, 2025 • Last updated 20 hours ago • 4 minute readChristopher Griffin stands next The Crossing, his painting that led to him leaving his role as artist-in-residence at the Atlantic Veterinary College. The painting is a version of the famous artwork Washington Crossing the Delaware, but instead of the American general, Griffin painted lemmings. Photo by Vivian Ulinwa /The GuardianI read with some sympathy – well, a very tiny amount of sympathy – the stories about the tangle the Atlantic Veterinary College got itself into recently after telling its unpaid artist-in-residence there had been complaints about some of his work.Well, three complaints.Recommended from Editorial P.E.I. artist leaves AVC residency after college asks him to remove political painting UPEI’s Atlantic Veterinary College apologizes to artist after pulling political painting from campus RICK MacLEAN: Angry calls, threats? Part of watchdog’s job THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY.Subscribe now to access this story and more:Unlimited access to the website and appExclusive access to premium content, newsletters and podcastsFull access to the e-Edition app, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment onEnjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalistsSupport local journalists and the next generation of journalistsSUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES.Subscribe or sign in to your account to continue your reading experience.Unlimited access to the website and appExclusive access to premium content, newsletters and podcastsFull access to the e-Edition app, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment onEnjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalistsSupport local journalists and the next generation of journalistsRegister to unlock more articles.Create an account or sign in to continue your reading experience.Access additional stories every monthShare your thoughts and join the conversation in our commenting communityGet email updates from your favourite authorsSign In or Create an AccountorArticle contentOne especially ‘”offensive” work by Christopher Griffin was apparently a painting in the student lounge of a group of lemmings, carrying a crumpled and discoloured American flag, sailing across what looks like an icy Canadian waterway.‘Politically charged’Think cute rats instead of George Washington in the 1851 painting ‘Washington Crossing The Delaware’ and you’ve got it.“For me, this was not an anti-American painting, and I took great pains to not make it so,” Griffin told a reporter.“I chose lemmings because they have the mythology of producing mass suicide by jumping over a cliff or jumping into water. It seemed to me that the government of the United States was self-inflicting wounds, so to me it seemed like a very straightforward metaphor.” Christopher Griffin says the lemmings in his controversial painting are a symbol of what he sees as political harm the U.S. government is causing itself. Vivian Ulinwa Photo by Vivian Ulinwa /The GuardianBut the AVC decided the work was “politically charged” and not in keeping with what it had in mind when it was thinking about art. It said it had to go. He quit.Headlines ensued, none of them complimentary to the AVC, and it backed down quickly. Always the right response in such cases. Well done. And perhaps a lesson learned.Article contentTwo stories from my teaching days, and one from my days running a newspaper, always make me smile when I remember my days of being “offensive.”Meaning of publicFirst up, since it’s the oldest of three, from my newspaper days.The phone rang one day while I was on deadline, so I was even less patient than usual with any issue that did not need my immediate attention.“Are you Rick MacLean?” the man on the other end of the line demanded.I sighed, internally I hope. I’d long ago trained myself to always answer the phone the same way. “Hello. This is Rick MacLean, the editor of the Miramichi Leader.”It was so automatic, Beautiful Wife made it her mission in life to get me to stop doing it at home. She was only mildly successful. And I still caught myself doing it at least once a week for the first of my 24 years teaching journalism at Holland College.“Yes,” I said to Man On The Phone, while nodding at a reporter in answer to some whispered question about a story that still needed work before it would be ready for that day’s front page.Article content“I’m going to sue you,” Man On The Phone said.Now, this was hardly my first rodeo.“Oh, what for?”“You printed the results of the public tender for that project I bid on.”It was a lovely moment, me explaining to him (a) the meaning of the word ‘public’ and (b) telling him to have a nice day. And definitely not meaning it.Worn out red pensSecond memory, the day very early in my teaching life when I announced I was going to mark up all student copy with a red pen.“That’s pretty aggressive,” said a college instructor with far more experience than I had at that point, admittedly not a very high bar.I heard that to mean I might hurt the feelings of some students. Exactly.I wore out a box of red pens each year, and gave a full red pen to every graduating journalism student (a) so they’d remember it was now their job to keep learning and improving and (b) to make up for them having to put up with me for two years. Rick MacLean poses with graduates of Holland College’s 2023 journalism class. Photo by Facebook /ContributedI know of at least one red pen that ended up under glass, another that was thrown into a ditch – flung from a fast moving car, and one that was only handed to the student five years after graduation. She’d gone whitewater rafting on grad weekend and was too embarrassed to come to my office to ask for it. When she told me the story, I admitted I’d rather have gone rafting too.Article contentAnd third, an editor called me one day to relay a story about his attempt to explain to a student there on an internship about a problem with her story.“I called her into my office and started easing my way into it. She sat there, eyeing me silently, and waited for me to finish. Then she gave me an impatient look. ‘Are you trying to say the start of the story sucks. Cause Rick says that to us all the time.’”He hired the student when she graduated.Art is supposed to provoke an emotional response. Otherwise, why bother? And sometimes it offends. And maybe that makes you think about the issue it’s exploring.Gee, that sounds exactly like journalism.Rick MacLean is retired as an instructor in the journalism program at Holland College.Article content
RICK MacLEAN: Art, journalism should both offend at times
