One day a week, from the ages of 6-18, I had art lessons with a woman named Juanita. Until I was 13, these lessons were held in her firehouse gallery in Bordentown with about 20 other children at all different levels of experience. Juanita was a very special person. Not only was she a master painter and a wonderful teacher, she was one of those people who comes into your life and changes your outlook, for the better. She saw beauty in everything. Juanita had bright orange hair, wore blue eye shadow and two pairs of glasses hung around her neck with colorful bands. She always wore bright clothing and costume jewelry. She was living art. Her stories of her childhood always fascinated me: getting invited to the Academy Ball by handsome cadets, working as a makeup artist at a funeral parlor (yes, THAT kind of makeup artist), switching between the homes of her grandmothers (her mother died young and her father, whom she idolized, worked on the railroads), one of whom was staunch, Christian, and serious, one of whom was colorful and lively and let her wear all the makeup she wanted. I'm sure you can guess which one she felt more connected to.
Juanita's firehouse gallery was something to behold. It was old, dusty, with dark red utility carpet covering feet-deep concrete (which she never refrained from telling us anytime one of her students leaned back in his or her chair so the chair was balancing on only 2 legs. "I do NOT like the sight of blood," she'd tell us and push the chair forward). The walls of the gallery were wood-paneled, but that didn't really matter, since they were covered ceiling to floor with her paintings. It was an amazing array, from still lifes and portraits, to the huge painting of a bull-fighter and bull. Juanita had many, many friends and students, which meant she received many greeting cards, all of which she kept. And I mean she actually kept every single one. Before the word "hoarder" enters your mind, you should know that these cards were what her students used for inspiration and practice. We would rifle through shoe boxes of cards until we found one we liked, and that would be our assignment: to paint the picture that was printed on the card.
She taught me many things about art in my 12 years as her student, such as, but not limited to: there are no straight lines in nature, never ever use black or brown (in light, black is the absence of color, and white is the combination of all colors. In art, it is the opposite. To create black, you use every color. Creating brown is simpler: you use contrasting colors - purple and yellow, green and red, or orange and blue), how to create any color using only the 3 primary ones, when painting portraits, always start with the eyes. But what she taught me about beauty and life is something I take with me everyday.
During our classes in the firehouse gallery, we would take a break mid-way through for pretzels and Kool-aid. Her cousin, who lived with her in the apartment upstairs, would mix flavors of Kool-aid for us and we would have to guess the flavors. Our other assignment? To tell her something beautiful we saw that week. We’d each go around, crammed in the tiny kitchen with Kool-aid mustaches, and tell her our beautiful thing. She’d end the break by telling us a joke. I believe her theory was to encourage us to flex our beauty muscles, to be able to recognize beauty with each of our senses. As artists, she believed we needed to appreciate beauty in every way. A sense of humor is beautiful, food is beautiful, music is beautiful (we listened to old-time music on the radio during every class).
Juanita passed away when I was 18, in the beginning of my Freshman year of college. I think about her often and how important she was, not only to developing my talent, but to developing myself.
Every day during the month of February, I will post something I think is beautiful, either a story, or picture, or song. I hope it inspires you to stop and look around, and find something beautiful in your everyday life.
No comments:
Post a Comment