By Ed Karvoski Jr., Contributing Writer
Fay School eighth-grader Se Ri Lee and art teacher Billy Claire
Photo/submitted
Marlborough/Southborough – Billy Claire of Marlborough has taught art at Fay School in Southborough for 35 years. Concurrently, he has performed as a solo guitarist and with bands including The Allens for the past 26 years. He was named the 2015 Middle Level Art Educator of the Year by the Massachusetts Art Education Association.
“Art and music have always been a parallel course for me,” he said.
Claire was presented the award during the association’s conference at his alma mater Massachusetts College of Art and Design, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in art education. At Lesley College, he received a master’s degree in creative arts in learning; curriculum and instruction.
“I learned more about music by going to art school than I would have if I’d gone to music school,” he noted. “If you do a search of musicians who went to art school, there’s John Lennon, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, David Bowie and Freddie Mercury.”
His interests in art and music began simultaneously while an eighth-grader in Wappingers Falls, N.Y.
“There was a record player in art class,” he recalled. “Somebody brought in albums like ‘The Jimi Hendrix Experience’ and ‘Led Zeppelin I.’”
When his family moved from New York to Massachusetts, he entered junior year at Marlborough High School. There, teachers helped him discover his artistic talent.
“I’d always been able to do art, but didn’t have an awareness that I was good at it,” he explained. “I got recognition for doing what I took as being natural.”
His interest in art continued developing, as did his desire to pursue a career as an educator.
“I saw something in my art teachers that made me want to be like them,” he said.
After college, he worked as a substitute teacher at several schools.
“I spent a year substitute teaching at nine different schools around the area,” he relayed. “So at the end of that year, I had nine W-2s.”
He also needed to figure his next career step when Proposition 2-1/2 passed and affected teaching jobs.
“Public schools were laying off art teachers,” he noted. “As public schools were scaling back on art, music and sports, those are some of the things that private schools such as Fay excel in. They’re not just a selling point; they’re an exemplary program. Fay School had just gone through an accreditation and it was recommended that they add another art teacher.”
Claire was hired at Fay School in 1981. Six years later, he became the art department chair, a position in which he served for 27 years while also teaching. Now as the visual art coordinator, he continues working administrative duties while teaching more classes in grades three through nine. All along, he has incorporated music into his lessons.
“There’s music playing almost all the time,” he said. “Sixth-graders listen to blues music and create a one-string musical instrument called a diddley bow, which they paint with folk art designs.”
Teaching mostly middle school students is a challenge that Claire accepts in his art classes.
“It’s the most difficult age for kids because they’re just figuring out some things,” he said. “There’s no right answer to an art assignment 95 percent of the time. Everybody can come up with a different solution and they’re all valid. And they’re all getting kids to think creatively, which helps them figure things out.”
Claire appreciates Fay School’s separate building for art classes.
“When you walk through the doors of the art center, it’s a whole different vibe,” he said. “There’s a feeling that you can really be yourself. It’s definitely an oasis.”
