To Fr. Iain MacLellan, O.S.B., an education is about more than gaining skills, it's about ideas. A good artist must not only master form and technique, she or he must learn to clearly articulate what beauty is and understand the perceived meaning of their work.

As director of the Alva deMars Megan Chapel Art Center and as an accomplished artist himself, Fr. Iain understands that the traditional notion of truth, beauty, and goodness is part and parcel of learning.

"Art is essential to a liberal arts education," says Fr. Iain. "It should be viewed as something essential, not something luxurious. It seeps into everyday life and there is a soulful respect for life that art brings with it."

As a fine arts lecturer, Fr. Iain teaches Drawing I and II, as well as courses in Portraiture and Renaissance Techniques. In his classroom, students learn history, technique, and tradition, as well as contemporary approaches with these traditions in mind. While students get a real notion of what the Renaissance produced in terms of realism, they also learn how these traditions are absorbed within present-day camera and digital work.

"Even if students don't see themselves as artists," says Fr. Iain, "they learn—through the college's Humanities Program—how art plays into everyday life as a form of communication—a shared experience between artistic vision, expression, and audience perception."

As artists and as engaged citizens, "we must have the ability to think metaphorically, to be poetic, and to relate ideas on the intangible to things that are tangible."

The Winter 2005 issue of Portraits magazine includes an in-depth profile of Fr. Iain.