The Art Teacher

Shattered

     The Art Teacher…Freshman college drawing class and I am super excited with all my supplies, cardboard portfolio that basically catches the wind like a sail when you walk with it, but so worth it, because I was an artist.  I was an artist who needed skills.  I had the inspiration, the drive, the well, whatever it was that made one an artist at heart.

     After I got off the shuttle bus to reach the Art Building, a classmate from another class, looks me up and down and says, “What are you doing here?”  I thought it must be obvious with my BIG ASS PORTFOLIO but, I am 18 and answer with all the pride of my first day, “Oh, I’m an Art Major”. 

     The  pseudo-goth girl sneers and says, “You don’t look like an Art Major, you look like a Business Major”.  Ouch.  Why say that?  Why undermine me, pigeon hole me, set me up to doubt myself even before I walk in the door of my first class?  My shoulders sagged. I was failing already.

     Spiral forward a few weeks in, and we are rendering still life with things made from various metals.  I had been at home the previous weekend, and created the required still life on my parent’s dining room table.  I had few items made of metal in my dorm room, save for my eyebrow tweezers and nail scissors, so this trip home was necessary to include the required number of elements.  One of the said items, was Mom’s old, retired iron, still with fabric cord from our childhood. 

     Mom had ironed so many of Dad’s uniforms, sprinkling them with water, spray starching them, and pressing them with that iron, until those uniforms were perfect.  She had done the same with all of our clothing, the dishtowels, Dad’s handkerchiefs…basically anything made of fabric, did not escape Mom’s iron. 

     In my heart, that iron carried with it, such a sentimentality, and not because I loved ironing, because I hated it and thought it was yet another way that men oppressed women, but because I associated it with Mom. And Mom was all things good, kind, and loving in this world.

     When I returned to college (which was only 45 minutes away from our home, but felt like being ripped from the womb every time I left home), it was Art Critique Day.  In this process, each of us from the class hung our work, using tacks onto a wall sized cork board.  The teacher, whose name I shall leave out as I never forgave her or gained compassionate understanding for what she was about to say considering my piece.

     It started out quite hopeful “This piece represents a skillful arrangement of items, a variety of metals therefore a challenge to the artist to render each as such…” And then she paused a very long pause, and during this, she pierced her lips, each of her smoker’s wrinkles pointing to her puckered, displeased lips, wrinkling upwards to the two lines in the middle of her forehead which extended to her hairline.  The pause ended with words that stung my heart as though she had stabbed me right through the heart, “ Uhhh, but this (referencing Mom’s iron, pointing to it, jabbing at it with her index finger), this is offensive”.

     I don’t know what she said after that, because my eyes were instantly filled with hot tears that stung as I  held them back, a tightness in my chest that I am sure was the only thing keeping it from shattering, and my mom’s beautiful face in my mind.  This Art Teacher had wounded me to the core, and for what reason?  What artistic commentary was she making?  What skill development was I to garner from her angry, jabbing and what the HELL did she find offensive about an iron?

     I hated her in that moment.  And the hate never left me.  It steamed inside me, for days, nights, years and years.  I stopped drawing, I stopped painting and I certainly couldn’t risk the self-assessment that I was an artist.  I looked up her name a few years ago, and she had died.  “Good” was my first thought.   I did feel momentarily guilty for that and then, I didn’t. 

     I took her caustic comment and swore to myself that I would never, ever do that to one of my students, ever!  And it was only though my little students and then eventually my daughter, that I was able to heal and begin creating art again. 

     So, what do we learn from this?  When I was young, I thought the lesson was, “Some people are mean and thrive on the people who they think are weak”.  Now, this may be true, but as I aged, I knew the real lesson was, you get to decide who you are, not them.  And…keep drawing that iron-bigger, bolder and if someone is “offended” that’s their damn problem, not yours.  They can look elsewhere for something that appeals to them. 

     And, when someone is out to get you, when they are showing you who they are and they aren’t your ally, find someone who is.  When you are “done” with said bully, get as far away from them as you can and thrive. 

And now, it’s your turn. Drop me a comment/a story below, of a time when a superior’s assessment of you or of something you produced, caused you to cease doing what you loved. How did you overcome their judgment? Thank you! Oh, and “Share” with this piece with others if you feel so compelled.