Recently a good friend of mine was asking me if I could ever foresee a time when I would be free on Saturdays.  I told him I would probably stop when I felt that I'd completed the Classical Realist training that I've been trying to stitch together as best as I can through part time study. It's been a while. I spent three years at the Long Island Academy of Fine Art studying still life painting for two and a half years and portrait for about six months. At that point I kind of felt like I was putting the cart before the horse so about two years ago I started to study cast drawing at the Grand Central Academy of Art. I stayed with that for about a year and then I moved into Cast painting. The GCA doesn't really have a proscribed program for part time students but if you read their mission statement it outlines a sequence necessary for a sound Classical education. So that's been my focus, not to jump around from course to course but to stick to the plan; cast drawing, cast painting, figure drawing, figure painting. Right now I'm doing cast painting in the morning and figure drawing in the afternoon.
           So, I do have a plan, it's just hard to say exactly how long it will take me to get there. But I do see the end of the tunnel. It's not my goal to be a perpetual student. I'm quite capable of working on my own, as I have been doing for twenty five years. I'm starting to get a good sense of the direction my work is headed in and I'm always eager to get into my studio.
           So why did I go back to school (private Atelier) after all those years of working on my own. It's simple. I just wanted to improve. I realized I'd gone about as far as I could on my own. My day job is teaching art at an inner city high school. I think most educators are life long learners. Our students ask us questions that make us want to know more so that we can share what we've learned. Going back to school has made me a better educator. Having confidence and mastery in what I love has enabled me to motivate students who possess gifts they didn't know they have. I'm never at work thinking I wish I was in my studio and I'm not thinking about work when I'm painting. The two aspects of my life have a symbiotic relationship.
              Teaching during the day and painting in the evenings and on weekends has never been a problem for me. I kind of enjoy the challenge of it.(I might be a little deranged) I know I'm going to miss it when I retire. I have no plans to retire in the immediate future although technically I could retire in three years. Unfortunately the city where I teach does not value the experience of older techers .They feel that our salaries are too high and that we become complacent and lack the enthusiasm of younger teachers. One of the things that I'm kind of known for is the older students walking into my room and saying "How come we didn't get to do that?" And my answer is because I didn't think of it then. In other words, my curriculum is constantly evolving. As my understanding of art deepens so too does the way that I present ideas and challenges to my students.
           When I first started to teach, it was the older teachers who provided me with counsel and wisdom that got me through the tough times. It's not an easy job. Doesn't everybody want summers off? Maybe so, but many who  make a run at it don't last more than six years. When I walk into my classroom I don't have to worry about classroom management . My classroom management is simple. Know what the hell you're talking about, be as excited about it as you want the students to be, and treat each student exactly the way you would want your own child to be treated. It's not brain surgery but it amazes me how few of the teachers I've seen out there are able to pull it off. The reason for that is clear. The trend is towards new schools, new teachers, new test scores. The passing on of wisdom and experience from older teachers to young has been tabooed. Younger teachers are wary of educators who are portrayed as bitter and burnt out. That stereotype was around when I started teaching twenty five years ago, and it's a bunch of garbage. I've met many educators who have inspired me with their constant quest to know more. To have more expertise in their field. To be able to answer the students question with " Yes, I saw it with my own eyes, it was wonderful". One of the teachers in the school within my school, that will eventually force my school to close, and possibly push me into retiring a little sooner than I planned, is considered a role model by the powers that be and gives workshops on better teaching methods. Yet the other day I heard him screaming at his class, essentially trying to browbeat them into submission. If I had a chance to counsel him, and if he thought my opinion was worth anything, I would explain to him why this doesn't work and give him alternatives that actually do work. Methods that aren't found in these educrats self congratulatory textbooks but come from years of experience in asking one simple question. "How could I have handled that better?" And then doing it better. That's the way that I paint and that's the way that I teach.
          If I think of my life like a painting, I would say that I'm drawn in, I've got a solid underpainting, and I'm starting to work up to a finish, keeping open to the possibiliy of changing things as I go along; a work in progress.