Brooklyn-based artist Paul Sepuya’s fondest memories of school are from his art classes – making masks of the ancient Egyptians that fascinated him in history class, painting the animals he learned about in science. He may not have known his life’s path would be carved out by his learning experiences but his parents sure did. 
—
I went to Valley Preparatory School in Redlands, CA. 1987 – 1996. I still remember the school song and probably will never forget it. Every Thursday was general assembly and every grade would line up outside atop the hill overlooking the valley and we’d salute the flag and sing some song that started of “High on a hill in Redlands…”
I’ve never asked why I went to Valley Prep it just seemed like that’s the way it always was. My mother grew up on a farm in rural northern Louisiana with four brothers and four sisters who went to public schools through segregation and the civil rights movement in the South. All of them went to college. My father is the youngest and only surviving child of a large family in Uganda – an immigrant to the US by way of India, Denmark and Canada. Both my parents understood the power of education not only in the choice of school but by being examples.
For a small private school, Valley Prep was extremely diverse. My best friends were Nigerian, white, Indian, Japanese… Most of us had immigrant parents, many of whom worked together at the local hospitals.
When I think about how going to prep school has affected me I suspect that I wouldn’t have been comfortable and as steadfast in my choice to pursue art if I hadn’t had the integrated arts education and encouragement to explore what I loved.
- Paul Mpagi Sepuya
www.paulsepuya.com
Paul Mpagi Sepuya is currently an artist-in-residence at New York City’s Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and is currently featured in the New York City exhibitions 30 Seconds Off an Inch, at the Studio Museum in Harlem, (through March 2010) and Compassion, at the Union Theological Seminary (curated by AA Bronson, through December).
