How One Stroke Leads To Another: Excerpt from 12/11/96

Mr. D.* (*in case he ever Googles himself - Heaven forbid he should read about what I had probably already made obvious over the years) was my high school art teacher for 2 1/2 years. And I was MADLY in love with him. When I say madly, I mean my world revolved around him for a solid 5 years (2 1/2 during high school, and roughly 2 1/2 during college).

So any compliments that I received from him were written in gold to be cherished and called upon forever, as if his words carried more authority to me at the time than the Holy Bible. Unfortunately, that is probably a good depiction of how much I loved the man (or was infatuated with him, anyway).

The following outlines something I thought was significant regarding my journey to becoming a good painter, a blurb I have not come across since the evening I etched it into the guts of this perfectly-kept diary sitting in my tote box, buried under about 20 others.

"...I did this painting on the impulse last night. It's one of the most passionate paintings I've ever done, and it only took me an hour. It wasn't derived from another picture; I created it myself. It's of two people, a man and woman, embracing each other toward the bottom of the paper, and a passionate, fiery background of red, green, purple, black, and blue above and around them.

I took it to school today, and Mr. D. loved it! We were speculating and discussing it this morning. He told me I've really created some powerful images in there (his class). That was really cool to hear. He put it in the back room for me, and during 3rd hour, I asked him to get it for me.

He had stuck it on the inside of the closet door where his coat and everything is kept (the door that is always locked). Then he said, "You wanna put it in the showcase?" And before I could answer, he hands me the key for it..."

Sure enough, the painting was hung up in the showcase near the foyer area just inside the main entrance of the school, where every student and other human being passing through the front doors would be able to admire it and absorb its "energy," though originally I'd made the painting for no other reason other than to release an unexplainable feeling inside that could only be expressed via paintbrush and quickly.

Some months later, he told me that he'd wanted to enter it into a local county art contest and would take care of getting it to its proper location (other students were entering artwork, as well). I attended the contest and saw it on display with a blue ribbon attached to it, and felt very proud.

I still have a tube of oil paint and some brushes that I used in his class. The paint was given as a gift in return for making him some personalized stationery for his birthday. It was a joint effort between myself and another student in my Vo-Tech class, who was also one of his better students, and he was so pleased with our thoughtfulness that he purchased a tube of paint for each of us which contained the color he felt was best-suited for our personalities. Hers was a deep purple; mine a bright yellow/green color.

"Powerful images." I love that. I have always loved creating powerful images. Emotionally provoking and inviting imagery. Combining experience with artwork. Unifying the user and the piece as one. Each piece is like a separate world you may visit for as long as you'd like; there are no rules, and you don't have to leave if you don't want to.

I wonder if he hung it in his closet near his belongings because he saw a world that he did not want to leave, either...