Tiffany Paynter / ’03 Walking the path of art “Making your own path, though more difficult than walking an existing one, is infinitely more rewarding when others choose to follow.” THIS WAS Tiffany Paynter’s quote in her class yearbook in 2003 when she graduated from the Saltus SGY programme—a personal creed she still embraces today in her job as youth educator at Masterworks Museum of Bermuda Art. Her advice to students now runs along similar lines, as she stresses the importance of being true to yourself, rather than following the lead of others. “I think you’ve got to figure out who you are and who’d you’d like to be and then keep becoming that person till you are unapologetically and authentically ‘you.’ The difficult task of knowing who you are,” she says, “makes everything else easier. Instead of having a career, you have a vocation and purpose.” At the 2003 SGY graduation prom, she was voted “Class Clown” by her peers, along with fellow student Oscar deuss, although she says she has never been the “punchline type,” but more the kind who finds irony in everyday situations. “Saltus kind of transmitted a chameleon gene into my dNA,” Tiffany, 26, jokes. “My time there taught me how to adapt to different class dynamics and personalities in a way that was transferable to every aspect of my day-to-day life. I grew up in government housing my whole life so my time outside of Saltus and in class was night and day.” She said one teacher who stands out as making a difference in her life is Jon Beard. “Mr. Beard, more than anyone else, really helped me when I was at Saltus. It was his guidance when I was in college and advice after Saltus that made me feel ‘equipped,’ for lack of a better word. Mr. Beard is a good man with a huge heart and wisdom to offer to anyone willing to know a little more.” Tiffany took Women’s Studies and English Literature at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ont. “The assignments given in SGY, particularly in English Literature, were advanced and I found I had already covered most of the poems and literature we were looking at in my first year, which was a big advantage,” she says. In 2006 she began working for Masterworks and her role there has varied from Head Teacher 40 to Acting Education Coordinator and Teaching Assistant. The common task in each has been teaching kids the visual arts. “The best part of working at Masterworks is working with children,” she says. “Kids are our better versions: they have the energy, courage, enthusiasm and optimism that I find too many adults have lost. Being surrounded by all their goodness is a blessing and it helps me to stay grateful.” Tiffany also teaches performance art at Bermuda College for the Chewstick Foundation, which has motivated her to take her writing and commitment to holistic living to a higher level. “Watching my peers evolve before my eyes was transformational,” explains Tiffany, who performed at this year’s Bermuda Festival. “I witnessed them give their emotions room to exist, becoming introspective and analytical and then getting on stage and being vulnerable—sharing all that. It changed what I wanted to do with my life, and I feel art is the catalyst for the change we are waiting for. “Performance art asks us to awaken, to listen, to see, to hear, to speak, to be and feel. I’m not interested in all the high-brow nonsense that is so conceptual, it is irrelevant to 90 percent of us. I’m interested in our humanity and its complexity.” —Helen Jardine ‘You’ve got to figure out who you are and who you’d like to be’ S A LT U S M A G A Z I N E CHARLES ANDERSON