George Roberts

Each of us chooses a life to live and that’s how we express who we are and what our dreams are. Art does that for me.

George Roberts

My name is George Roberts. I was born Chicago, Illinois. When I was asked to come here and talk with you all, I began right away imagining you, imagining your faces full of curiosity about me in the same way I’m curious about you.

I’m curious what you have written in your notebooks already about how we’ll spend our time together. I’m curious about the song you’ll write and what you’ll learn about what goes into a song and what goes into making a piece of art.

I grew up in a family where my father would take us on trips every year during spring break. We’d go to someplace new and learn something about that place. And as I got older and went to college, I traveled in the summer time on my own. When I got done with college, I went and lived in Paris, France and went to school in Paris, France for a year.

I then got drafted into the Army and I lived in Germany, in the Army. And when I lived in Germany and when I lived in Paris, I traveled all around Europe. After that I came back and decided, well, I’m married now, and I have a young son, I probably ought to figure out how to earn a living. I became a teacher and for the next thirty-two years, I taught right down the street at North High School. I was a literature and writing teacher at North High School.

During all of that time, that interest I had in the Arts kept tumbling around inside me. And kept interesting me. So on my own time, I would continue to draw or paint or make sculpture, just to explore it. Not that I was going to become an artist and earn my living that way. What happened when I did art was I was able to ask myself a question, something I cared about knowing, and then use the art to find an answer.

I am involved in the community. I belong on a couple committees to help our community do-good work. I have a number of former students who have now become teachers themselves. They email me or they call me to talk about teaching and I’m kind of a mentor or an elder for them.