This initial blog post has two goals: one to highlight how a simple action by a teacher may have propelled me down a path towards becoming a Western-themed Artist and the other to emphasize, to any teacher reading this, how a simple word or deed can change the trajectory of a young person’s life.
The year was 1952 so, eight years old, second grade. Many old timers would opine that this was an ideal time to grow up in America. Seven years since World War II ended, one year before the first television set arrived in our small community, life was simple. Hardly anyone locked their doors and people felt safe. Kids played outdoors at night.
I don’t remember much about my second-grade teacher except that she was nice. In fact, other than this one incident, I hardly remember anything about second grade at all. Our classroom was on the second floor of an old, quarried rock, three story building which has since been replaced by a grocery store.
In the course of one inconspicuous day, Mrs. Herbert provided the materials and time to take part in an art project. Nothing special, just get out your watercolor set, select an image from a stack of available photos and copy it to the best of your ability. I picked a close up of a wood duck swimming on water.
No one aspired to do anything other than have fun. It was fun, messy fun, second grade fun. It certainly wasn’t in a category of a western wildlife painting, which I occasionally do now but we all arrived at various degrees of finished.
Normally, that would be the end of story - project done, mess cleaned up and each piece, depending on their perceived talent, destined to arrive home, showcased to proud parents. That would have been enough for me but Mrs. Herbert, nice teacher that she was, did something profoundly kind which very well may have nudged me onto a path towards the oil painting that I do today.
I don’t recall anything specific that was said. I suppose, like any good teacher, she praised everyone for a job well done. What she did do for me, however, was take my little wood duck painting, place it in a small frame and hang it in the teacher’s lounge. When you walked by the door opening, you could catch a glimpse of it hanging on the opposite wall. This second grader made many, many trips by that door in 1952.
A point to make here is this teacher, nice as she was, probably went home at the end of her day not realizing that a small act of kindness may have changed a young student’s life. I went home at the end of my day, in my small second grade mind, as an artist, a proud artist. This one incident most likely was the beginning, the origin, the birth of a thought process towards a goal of becoming the Western artist that second grader thought he was. Thank you, Mrs. Herbert.
It took many, many years and other incidents, which I’ll relate to in later posts, before I began to seriously consider the thought of painting Native American and cowboy art as more than just a hobby. Tune in and we’ll cover some of those in upcoming posts.