The high school art teacher flunked me. I could hardly believe it. All through grade school I had been a star
art student. Miss Todd, the primary art
instructor, had led me through the basic techniques, with no restrictions on
style or subject matter. In the sixth
grade, at the age of eleven, I had modeled in clay a reclining female nude, and
a death mask of Mussolini. The later was
subsequently cast in plaster of paris from a papier-mache mold and painted an
odd shade of green, to simulate antique bronze.
Miss Todd and I were both enormously proud of the finished product.
Miss Todd
had great expectations for me. Failing
in freshman art was more than a flesh wound.
Equally unpleasant was the fact that I had to repeat the course under the
same terrifying teacher.
Miss Karls,
the high school art teacher, was not an inspirational type. I did not expect a teacher of art to be an
object of beauty. But every other art
teacher I’ve encountered, male or female, had radiated an awareness, a sensitivity
that established rapport between him
and his students and the wonders of the universe.
Not so Miss
Karls. Her name implied a Prussian
heritage; her every word and action reaffirmed the implication. She even gave the impression of wearing high
starched collars on her shirtwaists.
Miss Karls was not old – maybe fortyish.
Her hair was a soft shade of rust and she wore it off her neck, somewhat
pompadour-fashion over the forehead. She
was tall and spare. Her backbone was
straight and severe as the ruler she continuously carried to rap at a fumbling
student’s knuckles – or head. When she
spoke, her words sliced the air like a well-honed razor. There was no misunderstanding her sharply
incised instructions.
To Miss
Karls, progress in art was measured by a series of plaster casts which were
arranged on the plain board shelving that covered the walls of the art
room. These ranged from the most
elementary forms of cylinder and block to complexly muscled parts of the
body. First year students were required
to reproduce a conventional motif in charcoal on white paper to Miss Karl’s
satisfaction. Perfect perspective,
chiaroscuro, and no smudges was the criterion.
It took me five weeks to complete this assignment which, in my opinion,
warranted an hour’s sketching. In Miss
Karl’s opinion, my efforts rated a reluctant C-. During the same period, we turned out
numerous pages of penciled tables, chairs, and boxes in various aspects of
perspective. No erasures permitted.
The final
project for the course completely crushed my failing artistic spirits. We had to mark out neatly on a sheet of paper
thirty one-by-one-and-a-half-inch oblongs, and then divide each oblong by two
lines. Each of the thirty had to be
divided in a different, and interesting,
manner. The most appealingly divided
oblong would then be enlarged and completed as a full-size 16 x 24 poster, on
any desired subject. As a tender
freshman, I was unable to muster sufficient hypocrisy to complete the
assignment. To me, message obviously
came first; method of expression
should be suited to the content.
Miss Karls
allowed no latitude of interpretation.
With her precision-cut smile, which sent more shivers down this
student’s spine than her ordinarily frozen expression, she informed me that
freshman art would be given at 8 A.M. the following September, instead of 2
P.M. She sarcastically implied that, in
the brisk stimulation of the early morning hour, I might be better able to
concentrate on composition
Like a kid
taking cod live oil, I took freshman art, repeat. Steeling myself against sensitive reactions,
I approached art as did Miss Karls, with compass and ruler. Through stern self-discipline, I managed to
complete the course with a nice round C.
This kept me off the honor roll the second consecutive semester – but
free forever from the redoubtable Miss Karls.
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