Tombstone.
This morning I walked over to the school and hesitated before going in. Miss Tracy was going to be teaching and I really wasn’t sure if I wanted to be there. Payton greeted me though, and I told her, “I’m not sure I wanna go today. But I know I have to if I’m gonna be a good doctor. This is the teacher that pulled my hair that one day.”
“Well ya was sittin on the boys side.. an I know enough bout medical stuff ta know we ain’t got what boys gots .. like daddy said.. the stem broke off the apple wif us girls,” she giggled and shook her head. “But ..I understand how ya feel.. though.. rules is rules.”
“She didn’t even say nothin’. Just came over and did it. And I was still new. Scared me from school but Ma convinced me to go back, and some others did.”
“I know.”
“Then I started workin’ at the clinic and Mr. Alex showed me how important it was.”
“Sometimes things happen .. an you are very important .. to a lot of people .. and to some your more important than ya even know.”
“No I mean how important school was.”
“That too,” she giggled. “Ya jus have ta behave long enough to be in school.. an its only an hour.”
“I got to see Jimmy last night. He and Mr. Thomas went to Texas this week. Jimmy and I rode around on our horses.”
“Oh... well that is cool.. I have horses too.”
“Yeah? What’s your horse’s name?”
“Well.. I have Kriscoff Gambit.. hes my favorited.... an I has Buckey .. I ride him mostly.”
“Oh wow. Mine’s named Velvet. She’s a real nice horse.”
“Very nice.”
Poppy came over and greeted us and asked, “Does ya know who we gots as a teacher this morning?”
“Mean lady who pulled my pigtails,” I told them.
“Miss Traci,” Payton said.
“Miss Traci ain’t so bad,” Poppy said.
“We havin da review before the exam,” Payton told us. I got nervous but she said I could sit next to her and she would help me with it.
We continued to talk until class as more people arrived and then Nora and I talked about our homework of finding five words that meant the same thing. Miss Traci opened the door then and we walked inside the schoolhouse. I went to feed the bird and then went to sit beside Payton. She smiled at me and patted my back encouragingly.
I raised my hand then and looked at miss Traci as she nodded to me. “Yes? What.”
“I um... I sorry for sittin’ on the wrong side that one time. I was just new and I didn’t know no one here yet. ’Cept Jimmi.”
“Well… I was just teasin’ you. And when you runned off I felt kinda bad.”
“But it hurt, Miss Traci. But I’m gonna be a doctor. So I know I gotta be here.”
“As far as I’m concerned, if’n you come to class… that’s all I really care about.”
“Really? You don’t care what side we sit on?”
“Well we should try to follow the rules but mostly I owe you a ’pology... cuz I truly was teasin’ and you took it bad and for that I am sorry,” she smiled sweetly.
“It’s okay Miss Traci. Now I know you not mean it mean.”
“Now let’s get goin’.”
“Yes ma’am,” I smiled, feeling much better now.
“So, for the last several classes I have been teachin’ a survey of art,” Miss Traci went on as Payton put her notes down so I could see them and get caught up with things for class. “And now it’s time to get ready for the final examination. So today we will be doin a quick review of the material and at the end I’ll tell you about how to prepare for yer test. So… I made a point over and over about what art is. So… can someone give me a definition of what art is?” she looked around.
Nora raised her hand and Payton smiled as she said, “The creation of things to make things look nicer.”
“Nora?” Miss Traci asked. “Alright. Creation…”
“Aw, well, see, I were just gonna say... Yeah, somethin’ made as pretty,” Nora said.
“Who else?”
“To show how we feelin’,” I guessed.
“Creation....something made...pretty...feelin better. Excellent. Art goes to yer what. Feet, head, heart, belly?”
“Stuff what makes people think,” Poppy said.
“Oh good,” Miss Traci smiled.
“Heart and head,” I answered.
“Excellent. Really really good. Art is a creative expression. Art is always made… created by someone. It makes things mostly for their beauty, or prettiness, Nora. Or their power to make you think and feel. Which means to your emotions to yer feelings. And it isn’t always nice. Art can make you confused, or even angry, or happy. It all depends on two things: The creator of the art and the person who looks at it or interacts with it.”
Nora raised her hand and when called on she asked, “Well uh, See, now, how’s somethin’ as pretty gonna make me angry?”
“Well the thing is,” Miss Traci explained, “Three people lookin’ at the same work of art. Might come away with three different feelings and sometimes, a piece of art is not so much pretty as it is powerful. Let’s look at this painting here,” she pointed. “Well it’s a copy of course. Who remembers the name of this painting?”
Payton looked at it and said, “Mona Lisa.”
“Excellent. And where it hangs?” Miss Traci asked. “And it was painted by Da Vinci.”
“The Loover,” Payton guessed.
“The luge,” Poppy guessed.
“The Louvre,” Miss Traci giggled. “But that’s good. So… Each one of you in turn tell me what you feel when you see this painting, which is thought to be the most famous and valuable single painting ever made. Go ahead just shout it out.”
“Confused,” Poppy said.
“Alright,” Miss Traci nodded.
“Hmm.. makes me feel.. like sophisticated,” Payton said and I played with my hair, not sure how to answer.
“The woman who sat for this picture was a noblewoman,” Miss Traci smiled. “So she was sophisticated most likely.”
“Well, uh... I reckon it makes me nervous right now ’cause I ain’t got no idea what I’m feelin’ ’bout the paintin’, Ma’am,” Nora admitted.
“Well that’s okay too,” Miss Traci said. “How about her smile? People been talkin about her smile for hundreds of years. And the background. What is it?”
“How come?” I asked curiously.
“Well cause it could be smug, happy, sad. No one is sure,” Miss Traci answered.
“Oh. Didn’t Mr. Davinci write down what he wanted her to feel like?”
“Looks like she’s got a tooth ache to me,” Poppy observed.
“Nope,” Miss Traci told me. “He just panted her and left it to the rest of us.”
“Well that don’t help,” I muttered.
“And that, class, is the point. Art is what you want it to be. To yourself. In yer mind and in yer heart. Now art comes in many forms. Mostly it is created, and mostly but not always it can be seen or even touched. But dance and music are also forms of art. So… There is a word I used that means the kind of art.”
I raised my hand and Miss Traci nodded to me. “Don’t forget writin’. Ma’s been giving me her finished case files to write stories about and share with people. That shares how we feel bout what happened in history. Like Sherlock.”
“Certainly. Literature and poetry, and plays like from Mister Shakespeare. All art.”
“Umm.. dance an music.. would be.. performin arts?” Payton asked.
“And together they form some of the media,” Miss Traci said.
“Mr. Shakespeare made lots of plays,” I commented.
“Of course,” Miss Traci nodded to Payton. “Dance, music, stories are all a medium. And taken together are the media of art. And it includes almost anything made to be appreciated.”
“Like what Miss Paisley does!” I exclaimed.
“And it is as old as humans. This here was found by some kids in France. And is painted on the wall of a cave over six thousand years ago and even right here in Arizona Territory. You can find art left behind by the ancient injuns, if you look close up in the hollers.”
I raised my hand and said, “That’s like at those caves in Benson! With the Apache Tears. There’s drawin’s on the caves outside.”
“Exactly. So the urge to create is deep within all of us. Even the ancient Egyptians they would decorate tombs with paintings of the dead person’s life. Very colourful, and they tell a story. Now that is another thing about art in any medium, normally the artists has something to say it is up to you to come up with what the message means to you. The need to make art is in every culture. This is from ancient India six hundred years ago,” she showed another picture on the board. “This is from Japan where they love saying a lot with the smallest number of things. And here they combine two media: drawing and calligraphy, which is the art of writing. We even did this in class right here when the class combined an old Japanese poetry form called Haiku with calligraphy, and wrote this poem, which I wrote out in Japanese Kanji script and put over a painting of Arizona.”
She turned the page and said, “So here we have poetry, calligraphy, landscape painting, all together. In the early days, much of art was based on religious beliefs. This is from a famous sculptor called Michelangelo and is in Saint Peter’s, in Rome. Carved out of marble. And here on this wooden panel is the Buddha, which is the guy in the Buddhist religion. And it is a wooden carving medium. But these symbols were important to the artist,” she said, continuing to flip the board’s sheets over to show different pictures. “But other subjects also give artists the ideas they come up with. This is a painting from a Dutch painter called Rembrandt and it is really huge for real and hangs in a museum in Holland. And is about soldiers and noblemen.”
“Those are sophisticated people, like Mona Lisa,” I whispered then.
“How about this one,” she turned to another painting. “It is from a French painter who is still paintin’.”
“Well, uh... It’s kinda... Blue... An’ green,” Nora said.
“Very colourful, uh huh. This is called Impressionism.”
“Why?” I asked.
“It uses bold colors. Sometimes even in little dots all taken together to form the picture. It is the artists interpretation or impression of a scene.”
I raised my hand and asked, “What’s impressionism?”
“It is what I just said. A bold use of color to show you what the artist saw. Not necessarily what was there but what he saw.”
“Oh. So Impressionism means bold?” I wondered.
“Well yes and interpretive. Expressionism, on the other hand… more true to life,” she showed us another picture.
“I thought all art was interpretive…” I looked at her with confusion.
“Well it is but some is more realistic and good for the eyes and some goes straight to yer heart and head like this. This is called Starry Night. By Vincent Van Gogh.”
“I like that one,” I grinned, seeing my favourite painting revealed.
“So does this look like a starry night?” Miss Traci asked.
“Ain’t that the feller what choped off his ear?” Poppy asked.
Payton looked at me and smiled and then looked over at the teacher, pulling her foot up to play with her toes while watching. “Yeah, wif lots a stars.”
“Or does it look like the artists idea in his head of what it might be to him?” Miss Traci smiled. “Would you think this is expressionism or impressionism from what I just covered?”
“Impressionism,” Payton said.
“Well how realistic is it? Or how much does it bring out an idea?” she asked and turned to another, more scary picture. “This is called The Scream. And it might even be scary.”
“That poor man,” Poppy commented.
“Or give you a headache. Then some art is just a good drawing or painting and this is from an American artist named Remington. And is of cavalry right here in Arizona. So… art comes in many forms. It says something to you that the artist wanted you to think about. It can include many types or media. This is called an equestrian statue,” she showed us another picture, “Which means someone sittin on a horse. But things that take up room. Or that are made to look like people or horses or whatever are called sculpture. The photo of the girl there is pretty new. Made out of a metal called bronze. Here next to me is a reproduction of an old Greek statue of a woman. Would have been carved outta marble, but it’s sculpture. Tryin to show you what someone might have looked like in the artist’s head. Another art form or medium is architecture. Which is the art of building and public spaces.”
“Like… houses an buildings?” Payton tilted her head a bit.
“Exactly. Or monuments. This here is Stonehenge in England, made thousands of years ago.”
“It’s… a bunch of big rocks,” Payton nodded.
“Probably a religious thing no one is sure,” Miss Traci said. “Well it is but the artist put them in a special shape.”
“Wow,” I exclaimed as she showed us the picture of the stones sitting in a circle. “Didn’t know rocks could be religious.”
“Ain’t that somethin’!” Nora exclaimed.
“Well here is a temple made outta. Stone, from ancient Egypt,” Miss Traci showed us a picture of the pyramids. “And of course the biggest things ever made on the planet are the great pyramids, which were really tombs and have rooms inside.”
“They had most of their statues carved to look like their gods,” Payton nodded.
“So an architect designed them,” Miss Traci nodded. “Or somehow about them?” she showed us another picture of pyramids. “So you should be able to see that art does not have to be complicated at all. It can be very simple, like a Japanese drawing like a Japanese drawing. Or even a pyramid, which is simple but powerful. You cannot see it without getting something inside. In yer head or heart, like maybe just ‘oh my gosh’.”
She showed a picture of the Acropolis in Greece and said, “This building is from Greece, and the columns and carvings all to express the artists feeling of what a large building could be. Now one thing about seeing these old things in a black and white photo and they are also old and weathered. But when they were made they could be quite colorful. Great architecture can be about practical things that are used.”
Turning to another picture she said, “This here is a photograph of a aqueduct, which is a bridge that carries water in it. It was built by ancient Romans in France and is still used to this day.”
“Huh. Ain’t that somethin’,” Nora smiled.
“So it is a practical thing. It moves water across a river to a town. And people on the lower bridge level.”
“Wow…” I shook my head in awe.
“But the architect or artist that designed it figured out how to also make it beautiful.” She showed a picture of the colosseum and said, “This the ancient colosseum in Rome. Over forty thousand people could get inside to watch sporting events let’s say. Still there.”
“Wow! A sporting event?” I looked at her.
“Uh huh. They had big fights inside,” Miss Traci said.
“Like boxing?” Poppy asked.
“And of course again religion was and is a big part of large building,” Miss Traci said and then answered, “Kind of like boxing but sometimes with animals.” She showed the Notre Dame cathedral picture and said, “Large churches in Europe are called cathedrals. This here is Notre Dame or Our Lady in Paris France.”
“Oooo.. we have a nice lookin church too,” Payton said.
“There are dozens of them across Europe and every one of them mostly started as a small church. And then they got bigger and bigger and finally they built the cathedral. Some took a hundred years or more to make. And inside they are very beautiful and meant to make you feel the presence of God.”
“Wow… That’s a long time ta be workin on buildin somethin,” Payton commented.
“It is. And very expensive of course,” Miss Traci nodded.
“Yeah, I mean... they was buildin’ that buildin’ for a whole hundred years?” Nora asked.
“Sometimes. Fathers would have sons that would grow up building the same thing.”
“Hope we not gonna have to know all this for the test,” I blinked, muttering.
“And they would pass down the secrets of building,” she said and then showed a picture of the Taj Mahal. “This is a photograph of what many think is the most beautiful building ever made. It is in India and is called the Taj Mahal.”
“It’s really somethin’, Ma’am,” Nora nodded. “All curvy an’ round an’ all.”
“But you can see that the artist had something to say! It is a monument to a woman. S she must have been something else,” Miss Traci smiled.
Payton poked me in the arm and looked up at the picture and giggled as Miss Traci showed a picture of a gold collage. “And other art forms like jewelry we have just cuz they are pretty and also valuable,” Miss Traci explained. “Made outta gold and silver and platinum. Right from mines right here. And jewels.”
“Gold,” Payton grinned. “Ooo perty!”
“Here is what rubies and sapphires and diamonds and jade and opals and emeralds look like when the gem artists cuts and polishes them,” Miss Traci changed the picture. “And for thousands of years people love to wear pretty things. Like from Egypt. And India. Gems and gold and silver.”
“Ohh... Well, that’s real pretty,” Nora grinned.
“And even injuns make beautiful jewelry. They like silver and turquise stones. Now… for our next session, I give you all two choices,” she looked around. “For the exam… you can take a written test or you can make something. Bring in yer art. Any medium.”
“Make somethin’, ma’am?” Nora perked up.
“It can be sculpture, painting, drawing, music, a building.”
“I know what I am doing,” Payton looked at me and smiled.
“But listen,” Miss Traci giggled. “YOU have to make it yerself.”
“How ’bout stitchin’, Ma’am?” Nora asked.
“That would be fine,” she nodded.
“Can it be a writing?” I asked. “Based on soomethin’ that happened here in town?”
“It sure can. But you have to bring it to class. Whatever you create all by yerself. And we will have a show and tell of our creations. You have to say what medium it is and tell how you made it and maybe why. So I think probably you will all go for that choice,” she smiled.
“More fun than writin’ a test,” I giggled.
“But it has to be yer own not something you buy or get from someone else,” she said. “I think so too and I don’t have to grade them. And if you do it you get an automatic A,” she smiled.
“Oooh!” Nora grinned.
“So that will be my next class so get going cuz I’m not sure when I am on. Any questions?”
Payton raised her hand and asked, “Does the library have any books for Egyptian art?”
“Well I believe they might. It might give you some inspiration. Ok then. Until next time… Class… is… DISMISSED!”
“Yay!” We all shouted and jumped up, thanking miss Traci for the class. We headed outside and Payton asked me, “Natalie.. do you have a project ta do?”
“Yeah I gonna write about somethin’ mommy worked on.. Or maybe I’ll write about me and Jimmy goin’ for a horse ride.”
“Yeah that sounds great!” she giggled.
“Don’t know if people would wanna read bout mommy’s cases. They hear about em all at court anyway. Maybe I could write ’bout how Miss Traci said she was sorry. And how we gotta be the bigger person and say we was sorry first to get other people to say they’re sorry.”
“Well.. yeah.. guess.. I think yer mommies cases would be better though.”
“I dunno… Seems like lots of work.”
“Well.. pick a small case.”
“Maybe more ’bout the ones from recently. Not the ones from long ago.”
“One that was interestin .. yeah like one of them,” she nodded.
“Think I gonna go find her. Maybe she can tell me which one to do.”
“Yeah maybe. I am sure I want to hear about it. I need ta get to the library an look for some books on Egyptian art.”
“Okay but the newer stuff... with people who was actually around.”
“That would be fun ta read!” she nodded.
“Okay! I gonna go write then. I’ll see you later Payton!” I said and ran off to get to work.
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