Reconnecting to Relationships, Alma Mater, & Art

If you’ve ever had a past connection to a great teacher, coach, manager, or alma mater, keep reading. The following is a reflection and testimony on how linking to your past can create clarity and purpose for your future. It turns out that there is actually some healthy science behind why this is useful.

I am a father, husband, designer, and executive. I have a past and heritage that has shaped who I am today. Now that I’m over 20 years into my career, rarely have I looked back and taken inventory of the relationships, my alma maters (plural), and inspected the habits, talents, and identities I once owned.

For me, this has been a year filled with looking back… taking stock, and looking forward. I was contemplating what it has meant for me to have lived and worked in Silicon Valley for 17 years. My wife and I also embraced a life event. We’re now officially calling ourselves ‘Empty Nesters’, having graduated our youngest from high school and sending him off to the SAME college my wife and I both attended. We started being honest with ourselves about what this means and how these new changes affect our daily lives. Also important was the stark reality of reconnecting with a college through a new lens.

I realize that who I am today has a lot to do with the foundation my past has given me. I constantly look forward, but rarely look back. I began to realize where and what I came from, and the heritage of the last 30 years of my life and career longed for deeper connections. I began reading about the science and psychology of an alumni connection. I found some evidence that suggested that alumni who maintained a strong connection with their alma mater had (in general) a higher sense of well-being and satisfaction.?

What would it mean to be more connected to your alma mater(s)?

32 years ago I was a premiere athlete. I played soccer at an exceptionally high level. We were ranked nationally and played on a competitive tier I never thought was possible for me. I witnessed extraordinary talent, friendships, and competition. One of my college coaches recently retired after 32 years of service. 32 YEARS! I felt compelled to honor him, the program, the legacy of players, and the lives he had touched. I also wanted an excuse to reconnect with old relationships.

As a former player and student from Westmont College , I had the opportunity to be a connector and curator for such an experience. I felt that this moment of retirement from my former coach might be a proxy for connecting my past to my present. If I leaned in, I might have the opportunity to give back to a program that had provided me with so much.?

As a result, I launched The Westmont Heritage Collection , the first-of-its-kind collection of original art and works that celebrated the game I’ve come to love.? I was honored to contribute to this collection, which was launched in September ‘22.? As I stood there, in front of 200 alumni, donors, and friends of the college, I was overtaken by the satisfaction of honoring a man, a game, and the sport all at the same time. It was an extraordinary evening and an experience to connect several eras of an alumni group.

I connected with mentors, coaches, and friends. We swapped stories. It was an elevated event with an emotional context, and art provided that bridge.

It was important to me that the visual arts became the emotional landscape to connect us. The collection was created and curated to deepen the connection between former players, parents, students, and friends of the soccer program. Hundreds of families and thousands of fans have collided with the game. Themes emerged like ‘togetherness’, ‘celebration’, and? ‘excellence’ that rang true for all, regardless of their time or tenure with the program.?

“Launching the Westmont Heritage Collection was a masterclass on how we use visual communication and the arts to access emotional and deeper connections. In this case, it bonded people through relationships, Alma mater, and art.”

Alongside the collection, we built a donation mechanism that allowed donors to receive a print of their choice. Each piece in the final collection transported me back to my time at the college and the bond we had formed through playing the game together. Those feelings ignited the emotions in others and you could see and FEEL that the visual vocabulary derived from being around the game was not only shared but magnified by the art.

Connecting to my past turned out to be a cathartic experience, mending pieces of myself while re-uniting relationships and the convictions of who I once was, and the choices I had made along the way.

With over 20 years of experience in the tech and startup industry, I have served as a design leader and worked with top brands like Microsoft, BMW, MLB, eBay, Samsung, and Amazon. I have come to empathize with the entrepreneurial spirit of the founder, the artist, and the technologist.? My love for art and design has always been a constant in my life, and after a period of time focusing on my corporate career, I have now emerged as a re-energized artist.?

I decided this year to put myself BACK into the studio. I decided to touch paint, make mistakes and commit to the messy process of creating and sharing. I examined my skills and audited my creativity. Along the way, I came across some research published in the International Journal of Behavioral Medicine (2015) that showed the importance of participating in art as a practice. I read about the connections between making art and the reduced symptoms of anxiety and depression. I had known of other studies that have shown an increase in brain connectivity and enhanced cognitive function as a way of connecting new pathways from creating art. One such study published in "PLoS ONE " reminded me that engaging with the visual arts had a stabilizing effect by reducing distress, and increasing self-reflection and self-awareness. All this sounded like a great compliment to my life events.

I recently decided to launch Dane Howard Studios . With a purpose to paint & create, I’m giving myself 10 years to evolve, be vulnerable and create and curate new works. It’s the startup of myself, re-imagined. I’m not ready to leave corporate life yet, but it’s a road of exploration, transition, and learning.

You might even call it a… transformation.

Many others have come before me to transform themselves. I read about Jeff Koons , a former wall street commodities trader, who made a transformation into a world-renowned artist. I was reunited with the story of David Hockney , a British painter, printmaker, and photographer. He was a commercial artist before he transitioned into fine art. In 2001, I had the rare and extraordinary experience to exhibit next to a David Hockney painting when I was a young aspiring artist. The ‘Pool Show’ was a group exhibition of selected artists. I was completely shocked when I saw my piece hanging next to one of David Hockney’s swimming pool pieces on the opening night. An image of my piece is shown below. Sometimes encouragement like this is just what we need, and a little push towards the unknown.

20+ years later, I’m grateful for my background as a husband, father, designer, and leader. It has given me a unique perspective that I now bring to my art, and reconnecting to my alma mater was a significant part of my growth. My experience leading global and diverse teams across many categories and continents has taught me the importance of storytelling, and connecting people through a shared purpose. I recognize the power that art holds to transform perspectives and cultures and inspire change.?

I continue to balance my corporate life & leadership with my artistic pursuits. I find the tension and variance between the two to be invigorating. I live and work in my modern farmhouse in Tennessee, which serves as my creative haven and workspace where I bring ideas to life.

My wish and encouragement for you:

• Connect with your past. Embrace it and find your way to relationships that can matter to you.
• Re-discover a skill. By looking back, you’ll find a skill or craft that you once owned. Acknowledge it. Examine it. Respect it. Who you are today is built on a foundation that this skill created. If it makes sense, renew that skill. Pick up that instrument, that paintbrush, that camera, or that pen. Whatever it might be, let your exploration of this lost skill be open to the possibility that it may still lay dormant within you. It just needs caring and feeding.
• Your Alma Mater Matters - We all come from somewhere. I encourage you to rationalize the relationship with where you came from and find a meaningful connection to the onramp of who you were when that was important in your life. Don’t just be a donor, but create a ‘donation machine’ that gives back several times over. Even if this means that it gives back to you first.

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