I’ve been an art teacher. I loved the work and I loved my students. I taught art to homeschooled kids during the years that I also homeschooled my now grown daughters. Later, I taught elementary through high school art classes at a christian school.
I’m currently in my retirement aged era.:) So… What now? I have a desire to travel and a love of home. Because of these two desires I know that I want to be able to do work that I can take with me or when I’m snuggled up at home. And art is always my best hope when I imagine a life that makes me happy. But my art interests are so varied… I love abstract art, folk art, fiber art, paper mache, the list goes on. So I prayed and pondered and struggled about this question, this “What now”, knowing for certain that I need to focus in order to grow and not just… putter.
And as I prayed and pondered two things struck me as true. The first thing is that I have believed in the past that what I was supposed to do (workwise) was to teach art. And I haven’t been doing that for awhile. Did that purpose change because I’m in my retirement era? Not sure, but I’ve decided to err on the side of no.
So I decided to get back to teaching art but with a twist. I have art goals that go beyond teaching others to make art. I also want to make art to sell as well as to enjoy or to share with others. And it’s because of that heart’s desire that I decided to invite my readers and viewers to follow along on my journey as I teach art, make art for myself personally and also make it with the purpose of selling it on a variety of products. Kind of a teacher who makes. And sells.
And I’ll add a third thing that I already knew (before I get to the second thing, I know, stay with me:). The third thing I’m going to mention here is baked into who I am. I am a christian. My life has belonged to Jesus for decades. I’m his. And whatever work I do it is guaranteed that at times his name will come up because he is my closest friend as well as my savior and you talk about your friends, right? So at times my art might include scripture verses or a biblical theme while at other times, much of the time, it’ll be about life, or just fun, whimsical illustrations. So I’m hoping no one will be shocked and dismayed either because I include references about my faith in my artwork OR shocked and dismayed because they don’t think I include them enough. My friendship with Jesus is something that flows naturally so I’ll expect it to show up in my art like that, in a flowing kind of way.:)
Now, getting to the second thing that struck me as true. As I pondered what kind of art to focus on in my teaching a memory from when I was a little kid ran through my mind. It was an aha! moment, a ‘this is who I want to be’ moment as I stared in wonder at pictures in an illustrated children’s book and the ‘aha’ was this: I want to do this when I grow up. I want to tell stories with pictures. This memory had been on loop for many years. Usually I’ve just dismissed it. But this time I let it simmer. Took it (semi) seriously. And finally I decided that although I have many art loves I’m (at long last) going with little kid me on this one.
I don’t expect to be good at it right away. There will be do-overs. Probably some tears. Maybe a foot stomp or too. (Benefit of not being in an actual classroom where students could witness the drama.:) And it might only be maybe a minute or two after I learn a thing that I teach it. So please join me on this whimsical and much postponed highly fraught with angst and hope adventure. It’ll be fun she said!
— Ruth