A Fire in My He(Art)

Through the my life as a student I have never thought of myself as an academic. I’m the type that shows up to school because my mom made me, not because I want to learn about how Abraham overthrew the Mongolian empire and then built the pyramids or whatever. To say anything sparked a fire for my learning would be a stretch; I would have an easier time talking about when my fire for learning was put in a vacuum with the oxygen complete sucked out, ahem Geometry. There is only one class that has ever made me excited to come to school. Some people may not consider this class educational, but I do, and this class brought the light into my mostly dim school days. The class I am talking about of course is Art, with Mr. Meyer.

In middle school and even before that, I was not that interested in art. This is contradictory, but if I could describe my learning flame at this point in time as lukewarm I would. Art was just another class to me; Sure I could finger paint a little better than the kid next to me who smudged more of his paint on the shirt than he did on his canvas, but art just wasn’t a passion of mine yet. It wasn’t until my freshman year when I took Art 1 that some real fuel was put on the fire. Mr.Meyer was the most chill teacher I had ever met; He was kinda weird with long hair and long finger nails, but once I got to know him and when I learned that his fingernails were for playing the banjo, I really started to like the guy. I enjoyed the way he taught, and I wish every teacher would approach their own subject the same way. Instead of getting up and in front of the class lecturing about the process, he would show you what to do and how you can easily do it, and the most important part is he would come around and help you one on one. I would with out a doubt rank Mr. Meyer as my number one favorite teacher.

As I was just beginning to learn how to draw in Art 1, I would often get frustrated because my skills were not at the level to create what I wanted to. But as the weeks went by I got better and better, I started to actually enjoy drawing; The flames were burning nicely at this point. During my study halls I would get a pass to Mr. Meyer’s class so I could work on my art projects to make them the best that I could. I listened to everything Mr. Meyer said so that I could get better; I would draw every night at home, and I even posted the drawings I was proud of to Instagram. This may be the fire getting a little to hot, but I would say that I was getting pretty good. Kids would complement me on my drawings, and tell me how jealous they were of my skills. Honestly It felt really nice to get the recognition, I worked really hard on my art projects, and I was passionate about what I was doing for once.

If you have ever seen the 2005 Fantastic Four film with Chris Evans as the Human Torch, that is basically looked like while I was In Art class. I was totally into what I was doing, and I was getting confident in my abilities as an artist. I took three other art classes with Mr. Meyer and I even did art AVEC too.

I will always be grateful for the things Mr. Meyer taught me about art, and even just for creating a space for me to safe to express myself and feel confident. During my first two years of high school it was amazing to be in a class that I enjoyed so much, It gave me a break from the other subjects that I didn’t give a flying you know what about. I learned to take pride in my own skills, and it showed me that I could be good at something if I stayed motivated. Since freshman year art has been outlet for me to express myself, I’m not an out spoken person that likes to share things about myself, so that is a very important aspect of art for me. The fire is still burning till this day, it may not be quite as hot as it was a couple of years ago because life doesn’t always allot time for what you like to do. But I am going to pursue an artistic career in graphic design; I have spent two years at Lewiston Regional Technical Center learning about graphic design, and I am going to continue my education at Central Maine Community College with a major in graphic communications.

Photo by Philipe Marceil