Class
I do believe the hardest job is teaching. Mom was a high school English teacher, and I'd watch her come home exhausted each day, only to be grading papers into the evening. I made a rule for myself early-on...no teaching for me.
I enlarged that rule later to mean 'No jobs of any kind for me.' For the most part I've stuck to that vow, although I've had businesses. Catering I did for many years. It made sense to feed people, even though that can be back-breaking, it was an obsession for me. I was a compulsive over-feeder, and still am. A friend will sheepishly say 'Please don't bring me any more white chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies' but I will always find another friend I can force-feed for awhile until they beg me to stop. Then there's the business of being a painter. I use the word 'business' and I laugh a little, and want to get under the bed with the dust balls a little. It's a world now where people talk a lot about 'monetizing' and when they start with that I travel to another world inside my head. This is a world where there is no money and people barter in ideas. 'You can live in this house if you tell me 10 really good jokes a month and play with my cats.' 'I will poach this salmon and serve it to you with dill sauce if you draw that leaf on the ground by your foot.' This is a world I call 'Maudlandia' and there is no insomnia there. Also no dermatologists, dentists, or drugs of any kind. I go there whenever I can.
About 5 years ago I broke that steadfast promise to myself about the teaching. I was offered a job at an art school teaching drawing...just 2 classes a week. I thought 'How hard could that be?' I was left to devise a curriculum that suited me, although they insisted on calling the class 'observational drawing'. They also insisted I include perspective drawing, which is always awful and useless, unless you want to be an architect...someone like George Costanza. It took a surprizing amount of reading and figuring to get a grip on how to structure this class. I mean, jut because you yourself can draw doesn't mean you can describe it, much less help someone else to do it! I put in a good 3 weeks studying how to 'teach' drawing. I looked at books where they showed diagrams of figure drawing, and how each section of the head and body followed a strict ratio of related size...head to clavicle to waist to hips/legs/ankles/feet. Ridiculous. I read all about the elusive 'vanishing point' and it made me want to tear the page to shreds. Any real artist knows these rules are fabrications to squash freedom and make drawing a horrid chore. It's not like grammar where the rules make sense and help you in communicating clearly. I love grammar thanks to my English teacher mom. She made it fun and interesting, and maybe there was enough teacher DNA passed down from her so I might do the same with my drawing class.
When I showed up the first afternoon all that stuff I read about teaching drawing flew out the window. I had brought in a big bag of feathers, which I dumped in the middle of the room. I had the kids, 10 of them, pick a few feathers and draw them, either singly or in groups. This is not an easy thing to do. In any feather there are fluffy parts at the base of the stem, and then the tendrils get longer, and can clump together. It takes some careful looking to get it right. One thing I noticed was that they were all taking their giant sheets of newsprint and drawing tiny little feathers right in the middle. I had to put a stop to that. I had them all stand up and start waving their arms in broad circles so they could get used to the idea of a large gesture. They drawings changed after that. They started covering the entire sheet with feather imagery. After drawing this way for about an hour I had them all take bottles of india ink and choose a large feather, slice the tip off the shaft and use the feather to draw a feather, just like a quill pen. Now we were cooking! One boy dipped the whole thing in the ink and used the barbs to create a kind of brush to paint the delicate tendrils. The class was mine! Next, form and shadow. There was a shelf in the corner on which sat styrofoam spheres. Some poor shmucks had to sit for hours drawing styrofoam spheres. What could I have them draw that is spherical and interesting? I know, go to the grocery store. This is my answer to most dilemmas. Feeling sad? Go to the grocery store. Have a headache? Go to the grocery store! Look... round melons, tomatoes, apples, lemons, and because it was autumn, pomegranates! So I schlepped a big heavy bag of produce to my next class and dumped it all in the middle of the room, saying 'Today we will learn how to draw the sphere!' One girl grabbed the pomegranate, not knowing what it was, and started rendering it remarkably well. She added shadow along one edge, and anchored it with a swath of dark charcoal at the bottom. I got out my exacto knife and took the pomegranate from her, cutting lightly around the thing from the tip all the way to the other side and then opening it up with my thumbs exposing the crazy interior with all those ruby seeds. 'Now draw this!' She gave it a good try but stopped in frustration after about an hour. I couldn't blame her, but I took that piece of fruit home and painted it myself. I realized that teaching others is really teaching self. This is why mom worked so hard for so many years. It was worth it.
Balsamic Pomegranate Seed Sauce
1 cup Balsamic Vinegar- it can be the cheap stuff
2 cups apple juice- not the cheap stuff, use organic
1 tablespoon brown sugar
½ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon finely chopped red onion
juice of 1 lime
seeds from one pomegranate
In a heavy saucepan put everything but the pomegranate seeds. Simmer over low flame until the liquid reduces down to about a cup. This will take maybe 45 minutes, but keep your eye on it so it doesn't burn completely away. Let cool and add seeds. A word about extracting the seeds from a pomegranate. If you've never done this it's easier than you might think. Using a sharp paring knife cut off the frilly top, and slice down from there to the bottom. Make 4 slices this way and open the thing up. It will pop right open. Just use your fingers to pull out the seeds. A little pulp might come with them but you can remove any bits. I love to eat the seeds all by themselves, but added to this sauce it's a magnificent concoction, a rich and sweet tangy reduction perfect for pouring on roasted meat or vegetables or eating all by itself after drawing all day.