A Personal History

In my personal history painting, I created a visual representation of myself reflecting on various critical moments in my art education. In the centered section of the painting, you will see me reflecting about what has been, what will be, and how all the choices in my life have directed me to where I am today. The start of my journey begins in the bottom right corner. Prior to my birth, my mother was told by the doctors that according to the tests completed, that I would have down syndrome, and it was highly recommended to abort the pregnancy. However, my mother opted, to forego the recommendations, and read as much as she could about how to raise a child with down syndrome. All the books that she had come across at that time preached creating a colorful, creative, and hands-on environment for learning. On the day I was born she found a healthy baby girl, but decided to raise her in the same hands-on, creative, and experimental environment—from that moment on, my love for the arts was fueled by my mother’s love for learning, and determination to provide a colorful world around me.

Above my earlier depiction, there is a silhouette of a young, excited, and enthusiastic girl about to begin her educational journey. The image of the bell tower represents the very bell tower that still exists at my K-12 grade school—the very school that I had begun in 1995 and later graduated from in 2009. Over the span of my fourteen years, my passion, confidence, and love for art only grew under the influence of my art teachers, and the support of my mother. I still remember my kindergarten to second grade art teacher, Mrs. D’Angelo that taught me to love art, be original, and be honored when someone else is inspired by your own artwork. Through Mrs. D’Angelo’s classes, I learned to create artwork confidently, and to fall in love with the genre of art. It was through Mrs. D’Angelo’s classes that I first learned about Monet, Van Gogh, DaVinci, Kahlo, Ringgold, O’Keeffe, and Matisse.

Fast forward a few years, and I continued to create art in the privacy of my own home. During my parents’ acrimonious divorce, my mother let me convert the bedroom into an art studio where I would spend countless hours every evening creating and re-centering myself—little did I realize that art at that time brought color into a world that was very dark around me. The studio became my safe place, and remained so for many years.

In my later high school and collegiate years, I had the luxury of traveling to various European countries to study art under the guidance of various art scholars. Being surrounded by such a saturated art, architecture, and historical world only fueled my passion for the arts, and art history. Thus, I elected for one of my majors in my undergraduate program to be Art and Visual Culture. I loved every minute of those three-hour art history lectures under the trance of both Professor Harwood and Professor Corrie. I remember wishing that I could learn how to captivate an audience and pass my own passion onto my students that I was working with at my education placement location.

After being placed in various special need classrooms, pre-primary classrooms, social studies classrooms, and travelling art carts and/or art cars, I had the luxury of being assigned for both of my semesters senior year of college into a high-school level analog photography class. Under the mentorship of Mrs. Lowe, I learned really what it was like to deal with adversity, and to give all you can to both the program and students. Mrs. Lowe was not interested in waiting for handouts, but instead raised money, and acquired donation of materials to maintain, and upkeep the darkroom—without charging her students their hard-earned pennies. Mrs. Lowe believed that her purpose was to keep her students out of trouble, and to provide a safe-place for creativity, and individuality, and protection from the world around them.

I now work as an art teacher at the same small, private school that I had once begun my educational journey with. I sometimes laugh as I am roaming the halls because my own memories are ever so vivid. Although the rooms have been updated, there are still many reminders of the early days that I had once learned how to fall in love with art, build confidence in myself, and educate myself on the history that has proceeded us. I love the life I live; I love my colorful world, and I am blessed everyday to have the ability to teach my students how to fall in love with art as well.