two hundred fifty three

MISTER EISENHOWER

When I was in middle school I was part of a new progressive experiment one genius idea was "New Math" so I am happy we now have calculators. The next idea was to split the year into thirds so the boys and girls took one third of the year home economics, one third wood shop and one third art class. In Home Economics I learned to properly set a table and fold a cloth napkin. Wood Shop was taught by a teacher who the year before was a janitor. Somehow I had pissed him off so he didn't like my attitude so basically I learned nothing.

Then there was Art Class with Mister Eisenhower. He was a young man fresh out of college. He was post beatnik and pre hippie with a buzz haircut, always wore a t-shirt, had jeans with the knees out and wore sandals rain, snow or shine. They told him to wear a neck tie so he painted one on his t-shirt. 

Needless to say he only lasted a year but he was my all time favorite teacher. His classes were so unconventional. He taught us to see by taking days to look at our very own chicken egg. We named them, smelled them, licked them, looked through them and listened to them. 

We drew one line, don't take the pen off of the paper drawings (like Picasso). He distracted us by telling us gross stories about how they mummified the Pharaohs nose entry brain hooks and everything.  I guess he did this to  access our left brains and imaginations. 

He talked about free thinking, being an individual and made being responsible sound cool. I still remember his wisdom, "Have your own opinion not someone elses" and "Everyone can look at things, but only a few can see them".

He thought art in any form is for the viewer not for the artist. It isn't what the artist puts into it, it is what the viewer sees feels and thinks about it. Getting people to think and feel is a beautiful thing.

He got us to think about the silly things people say everyday just like Gallager the comedian, but this was years before Gallager. 

What he did for me is to actually see me and value my opinion like he did all of the other seventh grade students. We all got serious around him because we all valued what he thought about us. We all tried to see things like he did as I still do today.

He lived down the street so I saw him now and then. He went back to being a starving artist. He had art everywhere in and on the house, We found a vein of pottery clay and fired some really cool pottery pieces in bonfires in his backyard. Those months were the best months of my 12 years of school.

Another nudge along my way.