In time we were able to move our work area to the first-floor student lunchroom, but in the early years that I taught Oil Painting in the Adult and Continuing Education Classes as part of the Jefferson County program at Seneca High School in Louisville, Kentucky, our classroom was located on the third floor of the school.
Each Wednesday night, my students and I struggled up the steps with easels, paints, and canvases. It was fortunate that they were eager to learn because three flights can be intimidating to an unsuspecting person less dedicated.
During our initial series of classes, I learned that students and teachers were not the only ones climbing up to the third floor for work. The ladies of the maintenance brigade also made that journey.
The class group was surprised when one person from the cleanup crew walked quietly into our room and without a word, opened the window and dropped a large, black plastic bag filled with her restroom collection of used paper towels to the ground below. As if we did not exist, she turned and left the room as quietly as she had entered the scene.
On Wednesday nights we came to expect our temporary visitor and always nodded approval to her as we understood the reason for her solving a third-floor disposal problem.
I owe that quiet worker a great debt as she taught me to throw and toss instead of carrying. Later in rehabbing old houses, if it wasn’t breakable, I would throw it. While setting up outdoor art shows, if it would not smash, I pitched it. And while sitting in the audience of “Wicked”, I found a comfortable, new meaning for the memorable words, “Toss! Toss!”
JUDD STABLES
Highway 42 leads out of Louisville, Kentucky towards Prospect, Kentucky. The drive is scenic and an energizing way to start a day. I enjoyed each morning ride taking D.J. to work at the Judd Stables and hauling my easels and paint to the winding road on the farm.
My biggest mistake was to not photograph the picturesque reflections on the pond the first time I parked my vehicle at a good site location. How could I know a wind would come along and blow away those water slices of reality every time I came to work on my painting?
On this particular day, cows were grazing on the opposite bank and the setting was quite peaceful but the wind had still blown away the reflections as I sat down to work on my current canvas.
I had barely set up my easel and tray table when a truck pulled up alongside my area. After a man stuck his head out of the truck window and viewed my canvas he critiqued, “You didn’t put that log down in the water.”
I smiled a “thank you.” And added a slice of burnt umber to the canvas. He nodded and drove on down the road. As soon as he was out of sight, I removed the fake log and went about my business of painting the scene which I felt was more respectable without a decayed log.
The afternoon hours stretched on and I was lost in that right-hand side of the brain zone when I was jerked back by the sound of hoofbeats. Looking up I saw a herd of cows heading my way. A movie screen of STAMPEDE flashed through my mind and grabbing my painting, I jumped into the back seat of my parked car while the thundering herd passed by.
Mistake number two was not knowing cows had a way to cross the pond and run home at a certain time. Someplace in my studio is an unfinished canvas of a Prospect farm pond. It does not have a log on the bank and there are no reflections on the water.
I recall that my dear friend, Ravella was chased by a bull while Plein air painting and barely made it over a fence in time. And I am no match for a herd of cows.