A Tribute to Teachers - Part 1

Yesterday while i was having breakfast with my girlfriends, an interesting conversation sprung up. The subject of teachers, and who may have had a big impact on our lives. I can remember all of my teachers that i had in primary, middle, and high school. Some made bigger impacts than others. But today i will choose only one - and make it my special tribute to dedicated teachers.

Today i'm going to choose Mrs. Salyer. Mrs. Salyer was a teacher who was always passionate about what she taught, and i first met her when i was 14 yrs old. I was a freshman in High School - already a daunting time, and i had become a surly, determined teenager. but unlike other teenagers, i had a healthy respect for authority, hoping to one day enter their ranks, i suppose. But others would have just called me an erstwhile Teachers Pet, or at worse, a brown-noser.

Nevertheless it was an elective, and right after band practice across the hall. Mrs. Salyer had taught my brothers for their English classes. But this year - it was Art 101. Art was amazing fun. I've always liked to draw, but this class opened my eyes to the world of art. and Mrs. Salyer was very adamant that we not define art as what our parents may have shown us - limited to crayola and poster paints. But to admire it. To live in it, and to study the great masters of art: Georgia O'Keefe, Salvador Dali, and even other mediums like photography, sculpting, mobiles, and charcoals, rubber stamping, and painting. We did it all, and all the while Mrs. Salyer did her very best to educate us to really "see" the art, and to feel whatever it is we were to feel. There was no right or wrong. Art was art - and not subjected to right or wrong, or following any rules.

To this day i still carry with me the way she taught me to look at art, and every time i admire art, or go to the galleries to consider a new purchase for my walls, i think of her, and the skills she taught me.

My husband never had the luxury of being able to take a class like this, and he is so eager to admire art with an open mind. I try to help in my way, but i think it is now up to us to show this to our son. To expose him now to the world of art.

We took Ewan today to WOWArt!, a new class oriented workshop to help children learn to appreciate art by letting them create in different mediums - much like i got to when i was 14. And while ewan, who had fallen asleep in the car before class was a bit cranky when it came time to paint, nevertheless he still enjoyed watching his daddy paint, and get dirty hands from the paintbrushes. Ewan nearly flipped out when his fingers got paint on him, but then daddy painted his own hands to show our son that it was perfectly ok to get a little dirty while painting.

See ewan? Its ok to get dirty sometimes!

We had a fantastic time in the end, and ewan was running around with a smile on his face by the time we had to leave.

I hope this is the first class of many that we will get to take ewan to and have fun with him!

Thanks to WOWArt! for letting us come in and take a sample class (and sorry for all the wailing from my son when he woke up and found himself in a strange place. he gets cranky like that!)

Mama loves art! Ewan - not so much :P

and thanks also goes to Natalya for our interview (and again, sorry for the wailing coming from the hallway - my son was not happy)

of course thanks to the good folks at The Right Spin for thinking of us in the first place - we love you guys :)

and... special thanks goes to Mrs. Wanda Salyer of Lorena Texas - without who's instruction and careful patience opened our minds to the world of art. I am eternally grateful.

Plum tuckered out and ready for bed!