In my freshman year of college, I took a sculpture class with the artist-in-residence. It was a program at Chowan College in which a working artist would visit the art department for the semester and teach a class in his or her particular discipline. It was every Wednesday evening and we had to present a project once a month.

The interesting caveat to this class was that the artist/instructor put no limits on our creativity. She never required us to work in clay, or metal or any of the other traditional materials. She just wanted us to do what we felt creatively.

Normally, that would be an ideal situation for an artist. The problem with that, some would say, is that when you leave so much open for a bunch of college students with fairly low levels of inhibition and a very strong desire to make a name for themselves as artists, a lot of interesting projects can arise.

Our first presentation day in that sculpture class really came to teach me that art has a broad definition and no substance is out of bounds when it comes to creating a masterpiece. Some of my classmates presented sculptures of birds. Others worked in mixed media that ranged from mannequins to barbed wire.

And then, the last presenter, whose name I forget but who came from California, invited us outside to see what he’d spent weeks creating. It was a 4-foot-by-4-foot box of wood and glass, filled with water and lighted from the bottom. We all looked on fairly unimpressed until we noticed the presenter emerge from behind the brick pottery oven in his birthday suit.

He climbed into the wood and glass structure and presented his finished sculpture, entitled “the human tank” or something. Though he explained the significance of his piece in some detail as he sat stark naked in a pool of water in the cool autumn air, I don’t think anyone heard anything over the sound of their own inner voices.

And if their voices were anything like mine, they were shouting “What an awesome idea!” and “Why didn’t I think of that?”

I walked home from class that night thinking how bold and brave it must be to put yourself out there like that. It was a night that made me want to be an artist even more.

So when I went to preview some of the work that will go on display at the Winterim exhibit at the Suffolk Museum today, it reminded me of what bravery it takes to put something of yourself out there for all to see.

The works in the exhibit are not only masterful but an acknowledgement that someone is taking a risk to let others see something that is probably quite precious to them.

So, congratulations to the artists participating in the exhibit. I know I appreciate your stepping into that lighted box of cold water for all to see. Metaphorically speaking, of course.