Countdown to graduation: 12 hours, 27 minutes and 3 seconds. Last night was the Honors Program Reception. Each Honors Program graduate (44 this year!) received their medal and had a little profile read about them. Joyce, the Honors Program Coordinator, writes lovely profiles for each graduate each year. You can see them read my profile here: Receiving my Honors Award.
This is the text of my profile…
Valerie Winters, or Miss Val, as she is known to her after-school program students, has an endless supply of creativity, which she expresses in many media: her blog, “Beauty and the Bug,” creative writing including beautiful fairy tales, and truly amazing works in textiles–yarn, quilting, and embroidery. Each of her stories has an accompanying quilt, and she produced a quilt and piece of fiction for an English independent study this semester. Her creativity carried over into her thesis, aptly titled “the Potter and the Clay: Oral History as Literature,” for which she received support from the undergraduate research fund. Prof. Taylor Stoehr directed her thesis. Valerie also tutored English and Psychology during her undergraduate career, and she is an avid “Buffista”–that is, a fan and scholar of the series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” She enjoys the devoted companionship of her Cairn Terrier, Toto. She graduates cum laude with Honors in English. After graduation, Valerie plans to work in marketing or communications, hopefully for a non-profit, while she writes the five books currently stuck in her head.
For all of my creativity, I have never considered myself an artist. I think it’s because I can’t draw. Now, when I say I can’t draw, I mean I can’t draw. My kiddos at work think my stick figures look funny. For months after I started working with them, they wouldn’t believe I couldn’t draw. They would always beg me to add things to the pictures they were working on, and I’d say, “Oh, trust me; you don’t want me to do that.”
Finally, one day, my preschooler Albert convinced me to draw something on his picture that he wasn’t sure how to draw. I can’t remember what it was, but I’ll never forget what he said, “Miss Val, you ruined my picture!” From then on, I only got asked to draw things when the kids want a good laugh.
On Tuesday, Rachel, one of my first-graders, asked me to play a game with her. She grabbed two pieces of paper and two markers. She instructed me to draw a square in the middle of the paper, and she drew a square in the middle of her paper. “Now draw another square in the middle, Miss Val,” she continued to instruct and model. “Good. Now draw a person in the middle. It’s ok if it’s just a stick person.”
I did as I was instructed, wondering what this game was.
“Now Miss Val, give the big square alien ears.” Next she told me to draw a chair. She didn’t like the way I was drawing it, so she stopped me, and said, “No, Miss Val. Like this,” pointing to her picture where she was modeling what I should be drawing.
We drew a person sitting on the chair. I gave that person hair. We wrote messages on the bottom of the paper and drew a smiley face. “Rachel, what is this game?” I asked.
“It’s not a game, silly! I’m trying to teach you how to draw!”
For all of my creativity, I am not an artist. But, it’s ok. I’ll keep learning. I’ll keep letting the kiddos teach me. And I’ll smile when my preschooler, Emily, tells me that my dirt cooking activity (chocolate pudding with crushed Oreos and gummy worms) is “clever.” Yes, I’m ok with being creative and not an artist.
Recently:
- Cutting Valerie to Val
- Vivacious Valerie: When Things Come Full Circle
- Ladybug Girl Grows Up
- When Life Gets in the Way…
- Last Class, Take Two: I’m Already Being Challenged
- First Days…
- Life Imitates Life: It Must Be Friday
- Winters’ Snow
- Creative vs. Artist
- Energy
