"Have you ever smelled oil paints?" she asked me? "No." I said. "Well, there is something about them that is delicious, you could just eat them."
This was part of a conversation I had over 10 years ago with my high school art teacher while standing in front of the Jamie Wyeth painting pictured above, titled Portrait of Pig.
I think it's funny the way things happen sometimes. I had recently been thinking about that conversation, as I packed up my oil paints, along with my encaustic stuff last week. I will never forget the first time I DID smell the smells that come along with painting in oils while I was in college. I instantly fell in love with the richness of the intoxicating (and probably somewhat harmful) aroma. I think it is in part because of my conversation that I had years prior with Mrs. Smith while standing in front of that huge painting. So, here I was thinking about that conversation so well etched in my mind and then I also found out that she recently retired from her teaching position at my high school and my mind went nuts with all of my memories and gratitude for her.
Most of my favorite stories of my time with Mrs. Smith actually happened outside of school hours. I grew up in a small town, my graduating high school class had only about 120 kids it in. For the most part, the kids knew the teachers and the teachers knew the kids. I happened to be lucky, Mrs. Smith lived in my neighborhood. So not only did I benefit from her during the school day, but there were a lot of extra trips that her and I took on our own. We went to Washington D.C. when the big Vermeer exhibit was there in 1996 because SHE knew what a big deal it was to have so many Vermeer paintings in the same exhibit, all in the United States (at that time, I didn't even know who Vermeer was). She got up and waited in a line that extended outside of the museum for a few hours to get a hold of the free tickets, got within 10 people of the exhibit before the said "sorry folks, we've already given out too many tickets today there will be no more..." Talk about heartbreak. We stood like little dogs with tales between our legs at the exit hoping to get a peek inside (they really limited the amount of people that they allowed in the exhibit at a time because most Vermeer paintings are very small, so they didn't want to over crowd the gallery). This sent me on a mission. When I studied abroad my jr. year of college I was DETERMINED to get to Amsterdam so that I could stand in front of a Vermeer, for the both of us. And I did.
I have been very fortunate to have had mentors during every creative stage of my life. I hope that whoever out there is reading this blog, that it will cause you to stop and think about the people who invested in you along the way and be greatful for them.
