Early yesterday morning I was made aware that my old High School art teacher, Mr. Vicars died. The news did little more than render an amused "Ya don't say? Well that sucks," from me at first but as the day progressed good old fashioned nostalgia kicked in and I couldn't help but reminisce about the good ol days.(God I can't believe I just used that phrase).

So here is a tip of my hat to Howie.

My first memory of the man was as a freshman in Art 1-I was 15. We all sat at our older than dirt drawing tables staring up at this tiny old man with oversized glasses and a voice that sounded like a bucket full of gravel. He paced around the room looking us over like we were new recruits and he was our Drill Sergeant. "Alright, ya hoodlums." He always called the freshmen hoodlums. In our later years of school we graduated to "Turds".I'm still not sure which is worse. Anyway as he paced the room he explained how the class was run. We were given 4 projects per cycle and we could work on them at our own pace. Easy enough. But he did make one thing explicitly clear: "I don't give out 100%s. 100% means yer perfect! And if yer perfect then perhaps you'd like to get up here and teach this class." Duly noted.

He was a crotchety old man most would say. but crotchety in that amusing, you-don't-take-him-seriously sort of way. He was never really threatening or mean. just an old man. And in retrospect I can understand why he was so grumpy in class all the time. Art was a slacker course. Maybe 1 in 20 students took it seriously. The others just spent the block chatting with their friends or wandering the halls neglecting their work only to turn in 4 half assed projects during the last week of class. My cousin was one of those people. We were in class together my Junior year. Each and every day she'd ask to go to the bathroom never to return.

I, on the other hand, loved the class and the projects presented to us. I think it was the only art class I ever truly enjoyed. There were no snotty critiques, no "OMG I'm hot shit" art students, just me, my desk and a whole lot of freedom with my work. Oftentimes I would finish my work at least a week ahead of schedule at which point I was given the okay to use my time as I pleased. and since I was a nerd I just used it to read or hang out with Chad (as he would also be done way ahead of schedule). It was during those free days that he decided he wanted to be President when he got out of the army and he and I would make up hilarious stories of him being in office (I, of course, was his body guard). But all of that is beside the point.

The point is, despite his outwardly grumpy demeanor I still liked the old man. We all did. And I can say that I am one of the few students who ever actually earned a 100% on a project from him. I recall that day very clearly. He had handed back our graded self portraits and when I picked mine up and saw the grade I guess he noticed my shock. He came over and said "You worked really hard on that and it paid off for you. Good job."

My junior year was Howie's last as a teacher at Batesville High School. He retired just before I became a senior. I was not a happy camper. His replacement was a fresh out of college art teacher named McCabe. I hated her with an unwarranted yet fiery passion. Her projects were, in my opinion, ridiculous. The fact that she assigned us homework and made us do reports pissed me off to no end. In short she basically conducted her class like a college art class. If I had only known then that was what was in store for me I would have majored in Spanish instead. She wasn't Howie. She didn't walk around the room calling us turds or hoodlums, she didn't let us work at our leisure and most importantly she didn't make her own rubber cement and as such she was my enemy.

I refused to do my homework out of spite. I vehemently opposed any and all of her projects all with little to no good reason and by mid term I was pulling a D in the class. (Truly my priorities were a bit backward and my reasoning a bit askew.) The rest of my art school career was much the same: Me not getting along with my teachers, begrudgingly doing my work and loathing every moment behind that goddamned easel drawing some ridiculous still life or naked person.

I guess what I'm getting at is that my art career has been shoddy at best. I hated formal art school, I hated my teachers and my classmates and the over all head stuck up the ass attitude that I encountered. The only place in my whole life as a student where I actually enjoyed art was in Howie's class with the pungent smell of homemade rubber cement wafting through the air listening to him grumble about the freshman hoodlums as we worked.



It truly was the greatest class ever.