Her light blue painted toes wiggled in my face. I squished her blue veins, causing them to disappear, then reappear, like magic. She looked down at me and smiled, wiping her brush on a fresh paper towel. In a well rehearsed series of folding and cramming, all supplies were right back in her trustee bait and tackle box. She picked it up by its plastic handle, squinting her eyes, turning to me, and ruffling my hair.

My parents were distracted by the blabbing of the art curator. They were staring at some painting of a mother and a baby. I turned to the painting behind me. It was old. Old as in 300 years old. The moody blend of colors caught my attention. And my pointer finger soon found the name of the artist and traced over it. Closing my eyes. I could feel the ridges of the protective seal they had painted on. Taking a step back, I got a better look of the painting. There was a girl about my age at that time in a baby blue dress. The area around her eyes was red- she was crying. I touched my thumb to her cheek, as if to wipe her tears off.
Art had always been there for me. A mini Vincent Van Gogh sunflower painting was always in my jacket pocket. Just in case I got stressed during the day. I would stare at the print out trying to see the brush strokes amongst the chaos of colors. As a kid I would tug on my mom’s shirt until she would take me to the VMFA. But as the years wore on, I drifted farther and farther away from art that I had once cherished.
Ms. larsons seventh grade art class wasn’t much different from any other henrico county art class. She marched down the center of the room; on the prowl for a misbehaving student. I had been doodling geometric shapes in my new sketchbook. I could sense her hovering over me, she peeked over my shoulder, squinting her beady eyes. “Is that the activity you’re supposed to be doing?”

“ I already finished,” I said showing her a drawing of a bedroom- identical to the girl sitting across from me. She gave an unapproving humph. 

“You can get this back at the end of the day, please don’t distract the class anymore”, She ripped my sketchbook out of my hands. She then proceeded to draw a thick, dark line across the middle of my drawing.
“Your room should have symmetry, please keep this in mind,” attempting to wipe away the smudge marks she had made. I looked at my / her drawing. I felt a frog in my throat and my eyes starting to water. Once the bell rang, I promptly got up, and tossed my room assignment in a dark green, metal trash can. At the end of the day I walked back into her room, going to retreive my sketchbook.

“You won’t be needing this again in my classroom,” She held out my sketchbook. When I went to reach for it, she pulled the sketchbook away and raised her eyebrows.

“I won’t use it again in this class”, I said reluctantly, trying to control the sass. She gave me a forced smile and I left her room. Once I got home, I got out the sketchbook that had gotten me into trouble and put it on the top shelf of my closet, underneath a mountain of my mom’s old sweaters.

Ms. Larsons words had discouraged me from doodling, nonetheless painting or drawing. It wasn’t until last december when I was trying on one of those old sweaters, and I found my sketchbook. With the discovery of my old sketchbook, along with countless ideas, also came all that love and passion for art I had once had. I began to fall back into old habits. Drawing sunflowers at the dinner table and painting gold triangles on the ceiling, however, every time I cracked open that sketchbook I was reminded of Ms. larsons disheartening words. I’ve since filled the sketchbook, hesitant at first, because of her high expectations and essentially bullying. Thankfully, now I’m in a place in my life where I have the confidence to stand up to people like Ms. Larson. And no one will ever disrupt my love affair with art again.