Bee

So I chose a rainbow honey comb type deal as the base for my personal art history map. Due to my attraction to all things colorful and we’ll get into my relationship with bees a bit later. I must attribute a huge percentage of who I am creatively to my amazing parents. My Dad is a band director, a phenomenal tubist, and musical arranger. My mother is the most fashionably stylish woman I know.

The Arts always felt valued in my home. My two sisters and I grew up with music all over the house. My dad was always playing on his key board. I remember watching The Wiz a million times together. My dad was adapting the show into a band field show so we heard the soundtrack constantly. I remember being amazed watching the show come together. The costumes, the props, the music. Seeing it all constructed into this amazing interpretation, the whole creative process, was absolute magic as a child. When my oldest sister began middle school she was fully committed to being a full-blown thespian. The same school that my dad became the Magnet Arts director for that year. We attended every play, show, spring/fall preview art show for the next 3 years and I loved every minute of it. Being able to attend rehearsals and see the art students create the sets behind the scenes and wardrobe. It’s all magical. Musicals like The Wiz, Hairspray, Annie, and Little Shop of Horrors still make me feel like a little kid again when I watch them. I know foundationally this was the little spark that lit my creative heart on fire.

I always knew I was creative, my first grade teacher Mrs. Goodchild made it her duty to let my parents know constantly how “unique you were” as my mom likes to say. So much so that it was decided I would be moved up a grade to a “gifted class”. Absolutely terrifying as a 6 year old but my New Teacher Ms. Cintron was the sweetest lady. She was always very encouraging of my imagination and ideas. Like they were never too big. During our art time she always gave me a lot of praise. I selfishly took pride in her urging the other students to get their own ideas when they would copy mine. Both Ms. Cintron and Ms. Goodchild’s support of my individuality and encouragement to embrace my uniqueness has always stuck with me. I don’t remember the rest of elementary school too much but I do remember absolutely loving art class. I remember the art room. How it looked. How it felt. I remember learning about Georgia O’keefe and her flowers for the first time and being obsessed with drawing flowers on the corner of all of my papers for however long that lasted. In The 5th grade I illustrated and wrote a mystery book about a lost dog for a class project called “What Happened to Piper?”. It won an award and my mother still references it till this day as such an achievement. I will say it did affirm me in my creative abilities. I was definitely the “I want to be an art teacher” and “art is my favorite special” kid 3rd -5th grade. A career path that was clearly meant for me to circle back to.

In middle and high school I focused more on music and picked up upright bass and saxophone. The artist in me came out in my math notebooks where I aimlessly doodled and my school projects which I absolutely lived for. I’d get rubrics for projects where any type of creativity was involved and immediately start drafting up a budget for my dad for the craft store and he was always down to take me. I probably put way more time into some of those projects then I should’ve as a teenager but some of my teachers also used them as examples later so it wasn’t all in vain. When I visited back home from college after I left for undergrad my parents had downsized and they had given away everything I left but my books. So that summer I just had a mattress and two 6 shelf book shelves full of my childhood. Growing up I was an avid book reader so I attribute a lot of who I am to that as well, especially my imagination. I feel A lot of my ability to understand and tell stories creatively comes from ingesting so many growing up. I read all kinds of books, mostly fiction, mysteries, fantasy, romance, dystopian futuristic. I loved a good series.

When I went off to school I wanted to major in creative writing at UCF. However, I was offered a band scholarship at my father’s Alma Mater Florida A & M University. Although I originally majored in Journalism, I eventually changed my major to elementary education. After 3 summers of being a camp counselor for 3 different amazing programs I knew I wanted to work with kids. My 3rd year of Undergrad I leaned back into art. I took one drawing class and valued the peace of keeping a sketchbook. I added sharpies to the mix and that became therapeutic for me. I began to take more art classes in my 5th year and my oil painting professor Dr Nan encouraged me to consider teaching art vs just elementary school. I got my Art Ed certification after I graduated and was hired at my old school aka “The beehive”. Now when I got that job I was praying for a miracle and when I pulled up and saw the bumble bee mascot I just knew. My friends call me “bee” and call me superstitious but good things happen for me when bees are around. They’re a good sign and a positive affirmation for me. I’m also incredibly inspired and motivated by the work-ethic powerhouse that is Beyonce. So they have become apart of my art persona.