Why I Became an Art Teacher

About 12 years ago, I unexpectedly lost my twin brother. His name was Adam and we were born just 14 minutes apart. Growing up, we did everything together. We built forts in the woods, ran under the sprinkler for hours, and even had snowball fights filled with ketchup and mustard. We didn’t always get along because sometimes that’s what brothers and sisters do, they get on each other’s nerves. But I never once thought about what my life would be like without him. Losing him was life-changing for me. If you’ve ever lost someone, then you may know the feeling. With my life forever changed, I decided I wanted to make a difference not just for him but for me.

I enrolled in college just a few months later and took my first art class. I realized it was something that I really enjoyed. In middle and high school, I liked art but I never really thought I was very good at it. The teacher would always assign us projects that I didn’t really care for. It would always be the same routine of her showing us an example and we would have to follow the steps to copy it. Every day, we would sketch for the first 10 minutes of class and I would always draw the same thing; a landscape with hills, trees and a wooden fence. For some reason, I was unable to get out of this cycle. I was intimidated to draw anything else because I was scared of the things that I wasn’t good at. I couldn’t draw like the artists I would see in the museums or books. Comparing myself to these examples made art seem so far from my capabilities. It wasn’t until college that I realized that making art for other people wasn’t what art was really about. In college, we were taught how to do certain techniques and how to get better working with certain materials. I learned how to make my own decisions and to not compare myself to others. I also learned that I could create art on my own terms; art that I wanted to make. I was able to make things about my brother which helped me heal. Matter of fact, almost everything I made was about him. It didn’t make the pain go away but it helped keep his memory alive. Art became a powerful tool for me to express myself. By learning this, I also felt like I could share something even more meaningful with other people. Making my own art meant a lot to me but teaching others that they could make art too made a much bigger impact. I wanted everyone to know the true meaning behind art and that anyone can do it. 

That’s why I am here today teaching you all. It’s also why I give you tons of choices because I want you to know that there is more to art than just drawing. There is more to art than just comparing yourself to others. You can sculpt, build, paint, make prints…make mistakes and not be judged for it...  so many things. You can also make art for so many different reasons. Sometimes just to pass the time, to make something decorative to hang up or like me, you can make something that you will cherish and hang on to forever. I choose to be here with you guys not because it’s my job but because it’s what I am truly meant to do. I hope that each of you will find something that you are good at and choose to do it with everything that you’ve got. I want you to bold, be you, try something new, and don’t fear what others think. After all Van Gogh once said, “what would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything”.