It was around this time last year that my web-designer & I were putting the finishing touches on LindasFineArtsStudio.com, the cyber-showcase & e-storefront for my paintings & drawings. It had been an exciting, albeit daunting, project that I’d been alternately looking forward to, & putting off, for ages. During all that time, though, I’d been certain of one thing: The focus of this website would be my artwork with nary a mention of that other activity I’ve engaged in for almost 20 years, teaching.
After all, teaching art was only ever supposed to be the means to an end, not the end itself. (Inside every art teacher is a passionate artist secretly longing for retirement – or a big lottery win – so she can devote all of her time to making art.) I first started teaching art as a way of giving myself permission to enter the heady world of creativity, for at that particular time in my life, becoming an artist seemed too preposterous, too self-indulgent, too frivolous to be…well, permissible. In other words, teaching art would legitimize the time I spent in my studio, living out my dreams, because at least I was making money from it; not a lot of money, perhaps, but certainly enough to support my art supply habit. So, no, teaching was not going to be featured anywhere on LindasFineArtsStudio.com.
But then, as my website took shape, I started to feel a strong desire to connect with the people who would be visiting it, a desire to share with them a bit about the process of how all of these paintings & drawings came to be, in the hope that maybe something I wrote would resonate with someone.
And so, this blog was born. And so, during the last year, I’ve been doing on my website the very thing that I had so jealously guarded it against: Teaching. This leads me to believe that maybe, for me, teaching is not simply a means to an end (because, after all, it’s been a very long time since I’ve needed to give myself permission to be an artist!) Maybe it’s time for me to realize & acknowledge that teaching is part & parcel of my entire artistic experience, inseparable from it, & the two – making art & sharing everything I know about making art – are, & will always be, inexorably linked for me. Quite probably, I wouldn’t be the same artist I am today if I hadn’t also been an art teacher. For the truth of the matter is: Each one of my students has shared with me some part of my journey as an artist, not just an art teacher. And, no doubt, I’m a much better artist because of it!