About my Favorite Art Teacher

This essay was originally published at the very beginning of the pandemic. With all of the zoom learning and teaching, I started to contemplate how my favorite teacher might have adapted to teaching during challenging times. Without question, she would have gone the extra mile.

Ms. Corazon; The Best Teacher I Ever Had

As my kids navigate this new normal, I’ve been wondering about how my own teachers might have handled online learning. My mind immediately went to Ms. Corazon, my middle school art teacher.

She was the best teacher in the school and everyone knew it. I’ll bet that she is taking this quarantine as an opportunity to inspire others amidst fear, inexplicable sadness and the unpredictable moments in life. I can only imagine what she might have encouraged us to create at home, with whatever we had on hand.

I am fortunate to have had a lot of great teachers in my life. But few stand out as influential and I know I was lucky to have had the best middle school art teacher. Ms. Corazon was like no other. And she came at a time in my life when I needed it most.

She was the best of the best of the best and everyone wanted to be one of her students. I’d often take long detours just to peek inside her classroom and see what she was doing with her classes that day. I can still smell the art supplies that wafted through the hallways outside her door.

She had her own sense of alternative style. She wore bright colors, leopard print, red lipstick, big curly hair, big earrings, and an even bigger personality. She loved bright colors and pop art. She wasn’t afraid to mix patterns – and somehow made it all look good.

Her words in my middle school yearbook.

Her classroom was like a dream space. There were hubcaps mounted in horizontal rows around the chalkboard, right next to the paintings of our color studies (I still remember learning the difference between shades, tints and hues). Each hubcap was hand painted by students with something different; 70’s rock bands, pop-art, cartoons, and abstract geometric designs.

We painted on the walls, each of us getting a cinder block to design and the walls were covered in eight by sixteen inch rectangles of student work. We painted a Guernica mural on the wall over the course of several weeks. I wish I had more pictures to confirm whether my memories are serving me right. She taught me that anything can be a canvas and to think outside of the box.

If you walked around her classroom you’d see plaster face masks of past students’ faces, painted with intention – alluding to a cause that was near and dear to each student. I’ll never forget the day we made the masks. We took turns applying the plaster to each other’s faces. We laid on the table with vaseline all over our faces and straws in our nostrils and mouth. Can you imagine being able to do that in schools today?

During the planning stages, we learned about the historical significance of masks and encouraged us to think about issues that were significant to us. We incorporated that into our artwork. I made my mask about ocean pollution. I painted the face mask with bright colors that represented marine life. I created a casting of my hand to represent the human destruction of the coral reefs and attached it to my face mask. I hot glued neon aquarium plants and a dead-looking rubber fish. I thought I was being so deep.

My mask, pictured above on the top left. It was one of just a few that could not be mounted to the wall because it was 3-dimentional.

There was a six foot cardboard cutout of Albert Einstein in the corner of the room. During that time I became obsessed with Albert Einstein and bought every poster and t-shirt I could get my hands on at the mall. I saved my allowance that year to buy a lifesize cardboard cutout for my bedroom. Anyone who knew me back then will remember my big Al that stood in my room and then later got moved to the corner of my classroom.

Jean jackets, painted on the backside with icons of the 20th century became a badge of honor to those students lucky enough to get her as a teacher. I still have the one I made. It wasn’t very good, but it was of Albert Einstein (the obsession was real).

My friend, Natalie painted the most amazing Roy Lichtenstein pop art onto a white jean jacket. She was 13 years old at the time and it still hangs in her closet (see below).

Natalie’s jacket

Wearable art on clotheslines in the classroom.

Ms. Corazon’s classroom had a clotheline of 90's tie dye shirts complete with spirals and stripes displayed on wire hangers. Ms. Corazon’s class was the first place I ever learned how to tie dye – she gave us extensive lessons in color theory and chemistry as she discussed the need to use urea and soda ash fixer to preserve the intense color. We also learned the history of tie dye and how it came to life during the civil rights movement. She called herself a flower child. I wanted to be one, too.

You see, she didn’t just do art with us, she gave us a foundation with purpose and in-depth techniques and education behind every project. I tie dyed my Albert Einstein t-shirt. I still have it.

In fact, I still have all the projects I made in that class.

Trust me when I tell you that most art teachers in America weren’t tie-dying with their public school classes in 1991. This was an activity done only at summer camp and definitely outside. After she taught us, I wanted to tie dye everything I could get my hands on. That’s because seeing her as a teacher made me want to learn everything there was to learn about whatever it was that she was teaching.

Our classes’ tie-dyes. How awesome?

On our way to Manhattan circa 1993

She taught us how to make cartoon cells, reverse painting characters on acetate and landscape backgrounds on watercolor paper. We learned how animated cartoons were created, by changing the character’s movement ever so slightly with each new cell - like a flip book. I painted one of the seven dwarfs. I think it was Doc.

There were also rolls and rolls of rubber coated telephone wire with the rainbow wires exposed – an unusual, but bold choice for making sculptures. Spools of electrical wire were donated by a friend who was an electrician. She recently told me that she married the “electrical friend” who gave her the wire.

She gifted me a spool of telephone wire when I graduated. I brought it to college and incorporated it into in my sculptures. I have often thought about why she gave me that wire. Was it because she saw something special in me? Maybe. I could argue that she probably made a lot of other kids feel special, too — in fact, I know that she did.

In high school, I kept in touch with Ms. Corazon. She once took me and a few of other students on a field trip to see a Keith Haring exhibit in Manhattan at the Pop Shop. One memorable moment (pictured above) was when she came to my house to pick me up for our train ride into the city. I wore a tie dye shirt and felt like the coolest person on earth (see above).

Getting to know her on a personal level outside of school felt like an honor. She had a great sense of humor and was the kind of person who took the extra effort to make each kid feel special. She was also in a rock n roll band. Everyone thought she was the absolute coolest.

Most people hated junior high school. But for me, it was a time of tremendous growth and excitement. It was there that I figured out who I wanted to be; what was important to me and how much being creative could improve my life. She taught me that you could love art and not present like a typical artist. Ms. Corazon helped me to realize that it’s ok to be exactly who I wanted to be.

There wasn't a single student in her class who didn't learn the importance of hard work or the difference an effective teacher could make in one's life. She had very high expectations of us and we somehow rose to the occasion. Ms. Corazon was different, artsy and completely one of a kind. She didn’t look or act at all like the other teachers in the school. She treated us as people with unique gifts and potential and she saw potential in each us even if we weren’t quite ready to see it in ourselves. That acceptance changed my perspective about teachers in general and what kind of teacher I wanted to be. Especially to kids at such an impressionable age.

Ms. Corazon gave me the confidence to carve my own path. She understood the trials and tribulations of being an artist and I wouldn’t be teaching art today if I hadn’t been graced by her presence. I guess the point of me telling you all of this at this very moment in time, is because I, like most of you, have had a lot of time to reflect about who I am, why I am doing what I am doing and where it all came from. I credit my parents for being huge advocates for the arts and always modeling the meditative importance of finding a creative outlet. But I’ve also experienced the impact of a great teacher and I am filled with gratitude for that experience and the inspiration that came from being one of the lucky ones to learn from Ms. Corazon.

My friend, Natalie found this and I still love it.

The rock art club.

Come on, how cool does she look in this picture?!