Today I had the pleasure of an unexpected visitor to my studio, Joy Seidler. Ms. Seilder, as she would still be known to me, is the first artist I recall meeting. She was my art teacher for the first few years in elementary school. Being blessed with a great memory, I can tell you many of the art projects we did in her classes, one of my favorites was the paper mache balloon globe. That same great memory does not recall nearly as many lessons in the more academic classes I had at the time. Art was always important to me, I would not know how important until years later, but Ms. Seidler was the one who introduced it to me.

During the beginning of C*VID I was interviewed by Medway Cable. The art council did a profile on me, and during that segment, when asked about teachers that influenced me, I mentioned her name. After that, I tracked down her email through some school connections and dropped her a note, I believe we all need to reach out to our influences now and then, and I am glad I did.

Today she surprised me by stopping by with some cameras for the collection, which turned into a great conversation about the past, the present, the future, art, life, stars, and learning all the incredible things she is doing now. She even granted my spur-of-the-moment request for a quick portrait. It made my day, though I have to say, a little bit of stress taking a photo of an artist in less than 30 seconds, I am happy with the results. All these decades later, I got to connect some dots on my love of art.

tr/trp