My own personal history of art education started when I was tiny. My mother is a fine artist across many mediums, and is still learning new art forms today. When I was a toddler, she kept crayons and paper within constant reach, showing me to sit and color while she cooked or worked around the home. I remember doing this while sitting in nothing but a diaper! She wasn't afraid to let the house get a little messy while I was exploring my fine motor skills through acts of drawing and blending colors throughout my youngest years.
During warmer months, she'd set up a small easel outside, and I explored the world of finger paints while she watered her flowers or played with our dogs. I vividly remember drawing "people" around age 4, which were stick figures consisting of heads, and four limbs, but no backbones - and I also remember my mother encouraging me to look at her, and to try again. The idea of drawing what I saw is something that I remember always attempting to do as I journeyed through my young life, much of this due to my mother being persistent that I learned to look at my surroundings with more care.
Both my grandmother and my aunt on my mother's side are artists, too. While they lived further away from my family, they still visited during holidays, and very early on, we established a tradition to always find time to sit down together and draw or paint. It's almost as if I couldn't escape the art world, even if I ever wanted to.
Through elementary and middle school, no class could ever compare to art class. It made me excited to go to school. I was a shy kid and had a hard time making many friends, but in the art room, I was basically fearless. I wasn't afraid to try the projects assigned to us, and remember being so excited about what I was making while I continued to broaden my senses and understanding of the world, and of art. Participating and contributing to class discussions came easily, while that wasn't always the case in my other classes. Art class felt like a language that I just understood and felt comfortable practicing.
In the 6th grade, our art teacher Ms. Katria had our class participate in an annual Arbor Day contest, this nationwide art contest for K-6: with 8-10 winners from each participating State. Our assignment was to draw what we thought of the words "Trees are Terrific, Inside and Out", so I drew a tree with her roots sprawling deep through soil, while she stood tall, housing various creatures, with many individual green leaves. Our drawings were entered, and my drawing was picked among 8 other winners from my home State. I went to the Capital with my mom, my school principal, my art teacher, and three friends. I got to help plant a tree on the Capital's property. I'd never won anything like that before, and after that, my peers referred to me as an artist. We only had a class of about 12, but it was kind of a big deal, and felt like the biggest honor.
On through high school, I took just about every art class my school offered, and became close friends with the art teachers there. I had a hard time paying attention in my other classes, and would doodle to keep my mind in the moment, while listening to lectures. It felt strange, but part of me felt like if I wasn't drawing, I wasn't learning. At the start of junior year, I was offered a spot in the AP Art class, where we had an hour everyday designated to exploring our mediums and learning how to develop a portfolio. On Fridays we learned about constructive critiques. I worked with the school to do this for both my junior and senior year of high school, and spent that time nurturing my drawing, observation, and design skills. I filled my final portfolio with abstract animal illustrations. It was then I knew nothing about what I wanted to do with my future, if it didn't have something to do with art. I started looking into art school, with the intent to study children's book illustration and drawing.
One of my high school art teachers, Mr. Rigby, was incredibly kind and helpful while I pursued a future in the arts. He helped console me in my decision-making and inspired me to consider becoming an art teacher in the future - as his classroom was truly a safe place for people to learn. He stood up for all of his students and made us feel heard and important, more so than I ever felt before. He was dedicated. He was somebody in the real world who genuinely cared about his students as people, and if I could become this for someone else, perhaps step by step, I can help make our future a little bit happier, a little bit safer, and a little bit brighter.
I went on to study fine art, textile design, and drawing for four years, getting my BFA after spending hours and hours working in various studios, developing a mixed media portfolio. The instruction learned from art school was priceless, and learning more about the world of art helped ensure I wanted to spread that knowledge on to others through teaching.
I'm forever fortunate for the fact that both of my parents were never less than supportive of my desire to learn more about art. My father has spent his life helping others, and raised me to aspire to do the same. I believe it can be proven that the act of creating can be therapeutic and meditative, and I also believe that it is human nature to create - so inspiring the children of our future to use art as a means for expression as they grow feels right to me.
Of all of the people I've met in life who've inspired me to create, these have been the most important, helping me find my voice as an artist through my life. I wouldn't be pursuing teaching if it weren't for Mr. Rigby encouraging me find the guts to study art 2,000 miles away from home, out on the Georgia Coast, and I wouldn't know what to do with my restless hands if it weren't for my father raising me to be mindful and empathetic, or the endlessly creative women in my family, instilling a love for art as a lifestyle.
