Previous post about Intuition vs. Instinct
One of the reasons for this blog is to be a journal in which I can express a few of my inner thoughts and experiences to my close friends. Over the years, people from various parts of the world have read this blog and found something in here that rings a bell, strikes a chord, or in someway stimulates a response. I am happy that there are, in here, connections between some of us that span distance, age, and culture.
I thank my motivator and mentor, Marian, for encouraging me to write a journal. I write this in the same way that I have written letters and stories to her, except now I can illustrate with my photography, or items and images of interest that I find on the internet, and I have learned how to design the page so that it retains some of it’s graphic balance and integrity in the email version on her Windows PC.
I ran across an article in Scientific American that stimulated the gray matter beneath my graying hair. (Article)
It reminded me of my first encounter with public schools, or more precisely, with one specific public school teacher.
I started my immersion into academia at Wrights Academy in Allentown, PA. It was a place where children were encouraged to be creative, and, after some time adjusting to unfamiliar surroundings, I responded with enough gusto that I was promoted early to the next grade. I flourished in the encouraging and stimulating environment. I really enjoyed school at the academy.
It was when we moved to Emmaus, PA to occupy the house my dad had built to accommodate every ones needs, according to age and interests, that my mother decided she didn’t wish to drive me to the academy 5 days a week. So I was enrolled in the local public school.
It was there that my teacher, Mrs. Peacock, stubbornly wouldn’t accept my ability to write, read, and solve mathematical equations that were beyond what she was teaching her second grade students. My solution was to under-perform in classroom math, stop writing cursive and print all capital letters.
Reading was my own private world. I could get all the books that I wanted to read at the public library, where, after a few weeks, I earned an adult card once I had read every book in the children's and junior section. So, library good - public school, pretty much a waste of my time.
I found a couple of kids that liked to read comics and we would draw collaborative stories in comic strip form. This would start with one or two frames with one character saying something, (in a speech balloon), while leaving room for one or more characters to be drawn by the next budding cartoonist.
We would pass this page around until class was over, sometimes finishing the page, or adding more in the next class. I continued playing this cartooning game during class in every school, (including catechism), I attended in Pennsylvania, California, and Texas, until I went to college.
I met many talented artists and cartoonists throughout those years by playing a game that kept our creativity alive.
I have had many jobs over the years as an artist, cartoonist, graphic designer, and art director. I think that cartooning game had a lot to do with the development of my artistic skills.
“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” - Albert Einstein
Today’s Scrumptious Video;
I Eat Real Food
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