Why I can't write an art text

Forty-nine years of teaching. All that experience. All those lesson plans. Relationships that matter. Field trips. Homecoming. Prom. COVID. Movies with popcorn. All night dances. Students that fought, cried, celebrated, grew up and went away. Some came back. Those are what I have. Experiences. Things that worked. Things that didn't. Sick days. Deciding to give the extra points or not.  Oh yeah. Do I know the artwork? The artist? The elements and principles of design? Can I paint or draw? Throw on the wheel? Create? Sure. But how do I translate the rest?

Teaching from a text is like seeing the moon but not walking on it. Watching the ship leave the harbor with you on the shore. I can't write a text about art that you can use. I can give you ideas that I used for my classes but those were MY classes and their personalities are unique. Why would I try to share the importance of cleaning your brushes if you don't paint? I can easily become a YouTube "expert" that shows you how but do you have my skill and my students? Until you learn to take your knowledge and experience and incorporate it into your classroom- my textbook is just that. Mine. 

 

Bring in a roll-off

I can't just throw things away. With every toy, dented, missing parts, faded color or batteries missing there's a memory. One hundred and eighty days- no, 180 ties. Ties chosen by students to wear for the day. A battle to be the one to choose. The glamorous. The ridiculous. The countdown to Christmas break. Each had a special meaning. Not just another day of teaching. "Can I borrow a tie?"

Then there's the Chucks. 

Signed by the students. The actors. The Russian campers. Some gone on to greatest, some in jail, some dead. How can I discard them? Do I risk forgetting the moment we had?

And there's the little things. Hand made buttons. Class pictures. Drawings that were given to me. I was special to someone.

and now, my signature has been a tattoo. No. I can't just bring in a roll-off.

 The Prom

The 2nd most expensive day of your life. Who did you take? Where did you go? How did you ask? Did you dance?

The senior promenade was designed to celebrate the seniors’ achievement and was put on by the Junior class. Decorations to honor the graduates. An opportunity to demonstrate social skills in dining and manners. Opening doors. Introductions. Corsages and small flowers. Suits pressed. Dresses with an extra glitter. Promises of a potential relationship. Limousine drivers. Live band. Excessive decorations Loud music with questionable lyrics. Revealing dresses and expensive make-up and nails. Posters and balloon to lure the potential date. Coercion and storytelling to sway the partner. 

No thanks. I’ll stay home. Yeah. I know it’s my prom but… well, I don’t have the money. I don’t have a date. Not all my friends are going. My car’s not that nice. I gotta work anyway. I could use the ticket money, dress money, tux money, dinner money, gas money elsewhere. Besides, I thought it was celebrating seniors. 

Somehow that got lost. Prom is an expensive dance.

Open mic 

A barnyard of animals. A bus load of junior higher. Men at the bar. What’s the topic? Is it defining the pecking order? Is it a high school prom?

Open mic presents… 

    The comic- hoping the jokes will land well. That timing perfect. That the audience will laugh at the right times and end before the story continues.

    What happened last night. Everyone knows but the audience. How much truth is in that story. The storyteller has the peers in the bus gathered close wanting attention and praise. Will he tear another down or elevate himself? 

    The more they drink, the more elaborate the details. The sadder the circumstances and more sobering is necessary. Work is horrible. Wives are blabbermouths and spendthrifts. The car repair guy is ripping you off and the world - well the world, politics, etc. You know. 

    Topics? A catch phrase. A hook. Every good story teller needs to hook their audience. Why, didn’t your curiosity peak when reading this title? 

    Open mic. The barnyard animals. Roosters strutting. Hens looking for something to cluck about. The pig, content to leave things as they are. Random birds gathering and leaving. The farmer comes and tries to make the best of it all. Organizes. 

    But what is the open mic really? An exhale of the day, the week? A chance to say something without fear that needs said. Said in a subtle message that authors and writers catch. The mic is too short, too tall, too soft, there’s feedback. The speaker is disheveled and loses their power. Audience grabs their drink or takes another bite. Waitresses interrupt the concentration. 

Drop the mic.

 A train is a Time Machine. 

That is if you ever rode one before. The windows flash images past your eyes, you struggle to grasp each one. If it’s far enough away, you might have time to reminisce. Reflect, even cry or smile. I took my first train ride to my grandfather’s funeral in Iowa. The conductor stopped the train at my Uncle’s home where Grandpa had lived. That’s about all I remember. My dad said he’d hopped a train. If only it were a Time Machine. If only I could go back and watch. Visit. See with adult eyes what I missed as a kid. I’d cry.

 Where did Mr. Woodard go?

After nearly a year into retirement the questions still come up?

I’m not gone. I’m learning who Lloyd is. I’m the silent partner of a social butterfly. The dad that can stop what I’m doing and assist. The granddad that has some ideas that are fun at times. 

Where did I go? Well. I go. The same as always. I read I shop. I still go out to eat. I travel a little. 

“Every day is Saturday and every night is Friday night.” Maybe that why I’m missing. My routine has changed. My ideas are all lesson plans and grading. I lived an exciting 49 years as an educator. I’ve lived an exciting 72 years as me. Me has not really changed- jurist transformed. My superpowers are being refocused. I’m still around, just not in charge. I come alive when you find me in the store or call my name. I’m learning to be a man after God’s heart. That’s tough. I am being broken, melted, refined, and purged for usage. Cast into a mold not of my choosing. Having the mold marks ground off. Burnishing and looking for imperfections that need attention. I wonder how God can use an imperfect casting. But He does. He doesn’t wait for me to be perfect to be used. Sometimes my flaws show when He fills and I need repaired. He does. 

Where did Mr. Woodard go? He’s still around. I don’t hide well.. Fortunately He can use Lloyd as He has Mr. Woodard.

 When I step outside I wonder.

The blank canvas. The empty room. Sometimes I reflect on my life, sometimes I merely live it. My paintings, sketches etc fill in the void. I hold them like treasures. Why do I create? Am I a hunter wishing to bag a moment in time? Is the scene worth capturing and displaying like a trophy? Who is my audience? Do I create for them or for myself? 

Do I desire praise? Am I hungry for acceptance? Am I willing to have my work only to be sung praises because it’s mine? Is my friendship the rubric? How did great artists do it? Was it there popularity or were they merely patron-pleasers? 

Does the extra time I now enjoy create a sense of something missing? Who am I now…

 Lost among the creatives.

What’s in the mind of the writer? Is it the hypersensitivity to the surroundings? Listening to random conversations when in a crowd that forms a story? Do writers see compositions like artists do? Make connections like I draw lines or blend colors? What brings them together? Hope? The aching desire to be noticed? Published? Heard? What’s inside of them that creates that longing or is it just another self pushing desperately to be noticed? 

How do we crack open the chrysalis? Or do we let them bust it themselves? If we help will they be lame? Is the reader the mother bird that pushes them out of the next when they’re unknowingly ready to fly?

Social butterflies. Owls in a restaurant. They never want to miss a moment. Seize the day and herald their story which is really one they pieced together from bad grammar and experiences. Perhaps hopes and dreams need trumpeted. Blast your story from the rooftops. Help us see ourselves from another’s eyes. Is our world really that bad? Is our love lacking more? Are we in desperate need or should we celebrate another’s triumph and take on their personality as we follow the script.

Writers set the stage for readers to become actors in the story. They show us what’s going on that perhaps we’re missing. Are all stories messages? Call to action? When the book is done to we breathe a sigh of relief or do we look for more?

 I want to resurrect this blog as one more year of teaching is about to begin. A swan song or just sharing thoughts again. I hope this one will be viewed more than the last and my posts will be more frequent.

Life is learning how to say goodbye. This coming year will be a hard lesson in doing just that. Who is Lloyd? I've been Mr. Woodard all my life. 

People always say, "I lived in simpler times." Sure, I remember the postman delivering mail from my favorite TV personalities and penny candy. Gas was cheap and groceries were too. I wanted to be an astronaut, or maybe a scientist. Make some great discovery. Instead of going to war I went to college. Life has a way of going on. Developing who you are and what you are becoming. I asked a friend how I could pray for them, he simply said "patience." Patience is easy as you get older because it's taking the time to review the outcomes and consequences before making the decision.
Today I celebrate my 65th birthday.
I've grown more patient as life is still simple. Love God. Love people.

Dear Mom,
I wrote this for you...

First of all let me say, I’ve known my mom all my life. Not really surprising but honestly, she was always there. My earliest memories of my mother are ones that were captured on film but I have no recollection of. I see her holding me close with my baby doll or in her arms with my dad on the streets of Chicago. I heard many stories in my lifetime about me from my mom and stories about her from herself and her siblings.

Mom was born in a time when getting a new dress meant the flour sack was used up. A time when it wasn’t uncommon for her to have snow on her covers in the morning since their home was a make-shift chicken coop that my grandfather could afford. Mom learned very early on to chop wood and nearly cut her toe off doing so. When she snuck off with her older sister to learn to sew, the needle went through her finger and her mother told her it was time to learn how to since she was going to sneak around anyway.

As she grew older, school was a one-room, 8 grade building that she attended with her brothers. She recited the poems she learned well into adulthood. I was told it was easy to remember them in the corner of the classroom. But mom never finished 8th grade, her mother became ill and she stayed home to help out.

At 1943, at the age of 18 she left her Hardin County home near the Ohio River in Illinois and took a bus to Davenport, Iowa where she would work at the Sanitarium as a nurses’ aide. That’s where she met my dad. They were married sometime later and moved to Chicago where I was born in 1954.

Dad worked while mom guarded me and soon we moved to the suburbs where dad worked as a guard at the Veteran’s Administration hospital and mom started again as a nurses’ aide at the Baptist Retirement Home in Maywood, IL.

It wasn’t long before, at the age of 4, she took me to the Wesleyan Methodist Church, encouraged me to learn Bible verses and become close friends with three sons of the pastor there. 

Mom came to my programs, prepared birthday parties (sometimes from left-over decorations for where she worked), washed my clothes, taught me how to make my bed (with hospital corners!) and how to cook and clean. Dad helped me with homework while mom made sure there was popcorn ready after my bath and time to watch Mitch Miller, Dean Martin, Jackie Gleason or Gunsmoke before bedtime.

I saw her buy things from her meager check for the residents she served. Dresses for Easter and Christmas, lipstick, powder and other cosmetics to help them feel special. Mom never missed their birthdays or any of our relatives special days with out first picking out a card and writing a letter to send. Weekly updates about me were sent with pictures she had taken ( though 12 shot rolls would last her a year!) - every relative knew my progress.

When my dad died, I was 16 and mom was left to make things still work. Still working hard she moved closer to her work since she never did learn to drive and after I left home for college, she moved to Indianapolis, near some distant relatives to work as a Nurses’ Aide at Ritter Hospital and Marion County Home. 

When she met Archie Hubbard, she fell in love again. They were married the same year as Marcia and I and became grandparents to our four children, Nathan, Joshua, Anna and Caleb. Christmas presents, cards, outfits were just part of what mom bestowed upon our kids. Cakes were baked, trips to the Ice Capades, State Fair and meals out were not out of the question as mom and Archie filled the role of grandparents. 

When Archie passed away, the emptiness of losing another husband was tough for mom. She had retired but the years of hard work had worn out hip joints and replacement was in her future. A few years passed and her love of writing letters led her to a penpal from Missouri. Gordon Markham. Their letters were thick and heavily postaged. Friendship bloomed to a visit and the two were married in Jonesboro. A new set of grandparents were on the scene. Mom’s gardening skills were increasing and the place in Missouri held promise for peaceful retirement. But on a trip to visit where mom grew up, tragedy struck and her husband was killed in a car accident that also caused her severe injury and began a downward spiral of health problems.

It was in later years that her medical and physical needs led to her Colonial Oaks where nurses, staff and residents referred to her as momma Janie or just Janie. 

The skills she had honed in being an aide wasn’t without it’s being evident there. Her first week brought a call from the facility asking if I were mom’s son and was I aware of the problem they had. When checked on, she was given a sponge bath to her roommate! I called it work-study, they were not amused. “Houdini” became her nickname as she unbuckled, unclipped, and worked her way out of restraints that she had been accustomed to using on others. But as time passed on, Alzheimer’s began it’s work on mom and slowing down, losing memories, forgetting people, how to write, or current events became the norm.

Mom and I had many things in common that I could jog her brain to help her know it was me. I could sing songs popular from her youth, watch shows together, show her pictures. Praying with her and her “looking for a clean spot” to kiss me good-bye soon dwindled away. Later days, our visits were mom sleeping, sharing a cookie or two, mom sleeping, a drink of water, mom sleeping and me once again praying with her, telling her I love her, behave yourself, ( to which she would grunt) and “be careful crossing the tracks”- which she responded with, “what tracks?” I would say, “You know what tracks.” Because where I grew up in Maywood, there were train tracks on either side of my block. One to the north and one to the south. You couldn’t leave the block without crossing tracks. I had an uncle killed by a train when I was younger and the idea of losing me, I guess, kept that concern on mom’s mind about me.

But why have I told you all this? It took so long cause mom lived a long, full life. This is the edited version of what I remember, what I felt would help you understand why I’m who I am and have become.

Mom loved people. She knew HOW to love. She taught me how to love others. She worked hard, played hard. Saying my prayers at night and being tucked in was important to her. Having a great Christmas when dad was in the hospital with emphysema each year was important to her. Sending me cake with frosting smeared on the aluminum foil in college or when we would visit showed us she loved us.

I’m who I am because she loved me like Jesus loved me and I saw it. I held her hand as she was having trouble breathing last weekend. I prayed with her, sang to her and told her I’d be ok that she didn’t have to worry, that Marcia would take could care of me. I told her she didn’t have to work any more, that Jesus was waiting so she could rest. Her hand held me tightly. When I decided to go home, rest and go to church, I told her to “be careful crossing the tracks.” She listened and a few hours later mom had passed.

There are countless stories to be told about my amazing mother. Stories that have some “wished I’d” or “if only” or maybe even “I should’ve” but mom’s at peace now. I’m at peace now. Heaven holds my mom, my dad and hope. 

So Mom - I’d say to behave yourself, but you’d laugh, I’d tell you I love you, but you already knew that too. So, be careful crossing the tracks seems a bit late cause you already did that too. I guess it’s just, “I’ll see you later.” Thank you for who I am, I trust you’re as proud of me and I am of you.