Q: What brought you to Cartersville?
A: Um, what brought me to Cartersville? I was working at Pepperell. And when you’re teaching and a recession happens, something like a rift can happen in the area you’re teaching, and they have to let go of anybody under three years to save money. And I was under three years, I was the lowest on the totem pole at my school, so I got ripped that year. And my kids went to school here and I came here because of one, she came home was like, “Oh, Mr. Knight retired.” I’m like, “what?” then she goes, “last week,” I go “Hey, I just lost my job at Pepperell. You’ve got to tell me these things.” And so I emailed the principal and got an interview and I got the job. The rest is history.
Q: What got you into art?
A: Well, I’ve always liked art. But I grew up in a rural area where they didn’t have art classes. There wasn’t like this “Oh, let’s go do art at the community center”. That stuff didn’t exist in the 80s and 90s. In rural Alabama, we didn’t have art at school, we had plays every year in elementary school like our grade would do a play. It was the best thing ever for artistic kids because you got to make stuff for the play, or you got to like, contribute to the play. And so, our sixth-grade year we did the Wizard of Oz, and I was a scarecrow, but I helped make the set. I knew all about the Wizard of Oz because I literally watched [it] every year. So little things like that I would jump on board, prom I’m on board. I’m on yearbook, just creative outlet. And then, I mean, I really couldn’t paint that well when I went into college. I just started taking painting classes. I always drew, and I was just good at it. Like my first few paintings weren’t great, but they were better than, you know, high schoolers that have never painted, but in comparison they [were] pretty good. But I didn’t have a master’s in painting. So, you know, you just gotta build it.
Q: What is the best project you or your students got to do?
A: I don’t even know. I really don’t know. They’re all about the same. I mean, some of them turn out better. You get about 10% of students out of 30 kids that can do things on their own and get kind of the grip of it pretty fast. So, I would say you have like a 10% success rate and then the rest of it depends on your parameters. Like if you don’t give them any parameters, it’s going to be a hot mess for the kids that don’t know what they’re doing. But if you give them parameters, you’re like, “Okay, you get to have this, this, this and this.” You can at least get something that looks decent out of someone with no skill. So that’s the key to getting everybody to feel good about kind of what they’re doing. And then those talented kids just kick it up a notch. You take those talented kids [and] bump them into another project, or they get done early and you’re like, “Oh, what do you want to do?” And if they’re game I’m game. I mean, you want to build a rocket ship. I met a kid and he just wanted to do stuff and he was like a senior. He built a whole sailboat in the hallway out of cardboard. And that thing was beautiful. It was small, but you could get in it. I mean, it wouldn’t work. But it was built, it had the sail, and he was just good at that and conceptual ideas. He just wasn’t like when it comes to like skills on paper like to me, he wasn’t that great. But I mean for stuff like that I get the it’s a rarity that kids were like “I want to do this. Can you show me how?” If they would get on board, I would show them how to do stuff. But you got to prove to me that you want to do it before I waste my time on extra projects. So there’s that.
Q: How do you feel about students that take art as just an easy class instead of taking it because they enjoy art?
A: I mean, I don’t feel any kind of way as long as they’re turning in their work and getting it done. But if I have a huge group of those kids, they’re not gonna get really expensive paper and really expensive canvases, they’re gonna get the cheaper stuff, because they don’t care about it. So like, you, who care about you’d probably take that home and cherish it for a while, at least six months. I’d be like, “Oh, you want a bigger canvas. You want stretched canvas?” Because you’re gonna appreciate what you’re doing. And I have a friend that works up in north Georgia. She makes students test into a project. Like you’ve got to know all the stuff that you need to know beforehand to prove to her that you will appreciate those materials, but a lot of that comes down to her budget being small and every penny counts. So, I’m thankful I don’t have to do that here. But I can and I will. I’ll be like okay, we’re gonna do that on our cheaper paper or it’s non archival. Because they’re gonna throw it in the trash. You’d be surprised at what people leave behind. And then they leave it behind for six months and then come back and looking for it. I’m like, I didn’t keep that.
Q: Was there anyone, such as a family or friend who influenced you to become interested in art?
A: My Aunt Rita, she was not around me very much. But when she was around and I was a child, she was always drawing, and she would draw like, squirrels and cats and they look super realistic. And I was like, “oh, I want to be that way.” And then she would color with like color pencil or crayon, and she taught me how to shade and layer with those in elementary school, and I’m like, she doesn’t realize what sparked that was just a little bit of interest. In this little eight or nine year old that didn’t get exposure to [art] it sparked a whole life full of art. Just that little bitty thing. I should probably tell her. She’d probably appreciate it.
Q: You went to SCAD, right? Yeah, how was it?
A: It was good. I mean, I was scared. It’s a little different than if you’re there. I don’t know if you know anything about art school, the only thing people don’t realize when they go to art school, you’ve got to be very confident and very strong. Because you gotta go through these critiques after every project. And if you didn’t get yours done, or you half did it, because you were working on something else. [It] goes up on a wall and there’s about 30 people talking about everybody’s work openly. Like what you could have done better, what you did good, which ones are the best, and if you’re an artist and creative, you want the best one out there. And if you don’t, you need to get out of the beers. Because if you’re not trying to be the best one on the wall, it is really not for you. Because it’s a competitive kind of market.
Q: Did you go into art wanting to be an art teacher? Or was there something else and you just got into teaching along the way?
A: I went to art school…No, I went to school as a fine arts major at first. Well actually, let me back up, coming out of high school [I was] a science major, because I was gonna do like, something medical, like an RN (registered nurse) or whatever, because I was pretty good at science and biology and anatomy. But then I was like, “You know what? Kids go to law school when he gets out. I’ll just kind of dabble and I’ll do a fine arts major, and then I might start a little business or something.” Because I was thinking I didn’t have to work. Well, shortly after that, but before I got out of school, I met these two guys. [They told me] “We’re going to be art teachers because you know, because we love art and it is creative and we build curriculum.” And that kind of thing. Anyone can do art on the side, something that they liked. And I was like, you know, that’s probably a pretty good idea, because I may end up having to work like a regular job. And so, I switched it over and I’m pretty good at it. You know, I would say I was pretty good. But those two boys that were in my sculpture class inspired me to become a teacher and I changed my major and who knows where they are now. And yes, I was a better artist than they were. But yeah, that’s how I got here.
Q: What’s the weirdest project you’ve seen or gotten to do?
A: I don’t know about weird, but we used to make these shells of people out of saran wrap. And they were so cool, but they’re so hard to do, because one: you gotta be on the block schedule because you’re gonna wrap a kid’s body. Or another kid is gonna wrap a kid’s body with saran wrap. It can’t be too tight or they’ll lose their circulation. You got to do an inspection so like, you would do waster for it. And then you act like you’re wrapping it with saran wrap thick. And then they can’t have clothes on that they might get cut. This is weird project. It’s already weird. You wrap around and around, so it holds but fake clear packing tape. Then you cut that off like their legs so they can slide out of it. Right, you follow me? And then you tape it back. Like a shell it’s gonna be a shell of their lower body. And they’re usually in a pose too. So that’s what makes it weirder. So if they’re doing like this guy, this kid was doing the Superman pose like he was flying. Like, however that is. And then I had another one who was sitting like with one foot over his knee in a chair. And so we had to do the lower half and then we had to do the upper half and the arms got real tricky because they were bent. And then we had to do the head which gets tricky because again, there was a straw, like, in their mouth because you can’t make them not breathe and then you got to open the holes for their nose. And then you [had] to cut it off without cutting their hair or whatever that project was. [It was] So hard to do. But we put that shell that saran Wrap shell in the office in a chair, where kids checked in for weeks, and it was like a display, and everybody talked about it. That was the weirdest project. I think there’s probably been some weirder ones. Now, I did have a kid blow up some plaster. This is how it exploded, she’s making something with plaster and she’s putting them in balloons. So she had the idea to hang the balloon over the sink and she’s…I forget…like, she was adding more to it or it was just hanging and she was waiting on it. Well plaster heats, like I don’t think we thought this through, because it’s hanging. And a balloon is half full so it’s pulling on the latex right? Plaster gets hot as it dries like it gets really hot. That’s why you cant have it in your hands, and suddenly that thing blew up because the balloon popped from the heat. That plaster went everywhere. And her name was Rachel Wavy. I don’t know if you know her. But anyway, she’s an alumni, she had plaster all over she had plaster in her hair, plaster on my face and clothes. There was plaster on the wall, on the cabinets, on the floor, and on people nearby. But it was one of the funniest moments. We were trying to clean it up over there and it was weeks before it fully disappeared. But it was funny. We learned our lesson.
Q: How is Cartersville in comparison to the previous school you taught at?
A: Well, the kids [there] are a little different because they’re a little bit more apathetic because a county system to me is different than a city school. Because you’ve been with that same school that whole time like a one system school and usually whatever values you have at the bottom, you carry them to the hospital. And your issues usually come from kids coming from other schools that don’t have those same values following so, Pepperell, that school is set up to where anywhere in the county you can go. If you’re going to Pepperell and at Christmas time you want to go [somewhere else], you transfer and [go there]. So, to me that never puts kids as a family it puts kids as all strangers living in a city trying to go to school, kind of the same analogy. And then it creates a different kind of atmosphere to where like, you might not care about that school as much so therefore you don’t care about art supplies in the art room as much and things get broken and ruined and maybe it’s just a different dynamic and I’m not saying there weren’t good kids there. But there was a kid that was on student council that gave me the most [issues] one year to the point I went to the counselor, I was like, I don’t want to ever see that kid in my class. Because he would literally not clean anything he put on the table. And then he looked me straight in the face and claimed that it wasn’t his. And I’m like I’m not dealing with this. Because this is uncalled for.
Q: How do you like teaching at Cartersville?
A: I love Cartersville, [it’s like] family. And I know that sounds cliche, but it really is. I mean, we’re proud to work together. When we’re getting along. We get along, we ride to work together and vacation during the same time. I don’t know. It’s just good. I like my art room even though it’s a little small, and that column. Well, they refuse to take it now. Um, but yeah, I have a good budget. Admin works with me on what I need. That community works with me on if I need something, you know, they come out and support my art students when we have shows and stuff. I do miss -and it’s just the area we’re in- when you’re in Floyd County, there’s like four art shows that students can be in that are big to-do’s not like a school art show. It’s like the mall show. I had 65 pieces in the mall show and then the public would come to the mall and do the show kind of thing. And we would compete with the other high schools. That was the coolest thing, although we spent a lot of time to get ready for that. And that kind of got replaced with a teaching AP because I don’t think I could do that 65 Piece art show and teach AP because it’d be way too much because it would end up at the same time. But then there was a Kuwana show, which was a state show with a club. And you could win a scholarship from that, like a kid can win a scholarship from that. And then there was the county fair show if you’ve ever been to Floyd County Fair. They have a show. And there was one more show and I can’t think of the name of it. But those opportunities were missing. So, I’ve been trying to fill them in. I’ve started the AP art show and then I think I’m going to try to get into this other state show now. We’re doing this because kids need to be in shows, to validate their artwork. Like, I did this for a reason. People are looking at it. People are going to be looking at [you] well, like you are an AP student. I started doing AP art shows three, not three years ago, but three times ago because well, it was three years ago. We’ve had it twice, three times. The city had Maggie’s who had it out here one more time than we had her. Okay, so this will be the fourth year we do a show. It has changed the AP students because you have a goal that you’re working toward to get everything done and you know that people from the public school board all those people are going to come look at that. And you want it worthy to stand by. Because you’re gonna be standing by talking about it and you know, and you want to be the best, so I think that is improved the AP art at the school. The first or second year I had that show 10 Kids, I had 10 Kids, all of them got fours except for one kid got a three. But I’m like, that’s pretty dang good. That’s pretty good ratio.
Q: If you could only use one artform for the rest of your life, what would it be?
A: Guess it would be painting because it’s versatile. I mean, you can always change the composition. Because the way I paint is how like a person writes a story. So, I take a story, and I make a painting out of it. I like to write stories. Sometimes I used to, back in the day, that was another thing in high school. We didn’t have art, we had literature, because you know, you can be creative and poetry and that kind of thing. Um…so I guess it’d be fine. But I do love sculpture. So, I don’t know… It’d be painting.
