The Art & Poetry of Mary Coleman

Finished my painting. 15 hours of work over 6 days.

Mrs. Carter, my fifth grade teacher. She went above and beyond what was required. When we were studying the body, she had her son, who taught at the medical school, bring in human hearts and brains for us to dissect. The rest of the fifth grade classes were doing owl pellets for science class. She got into a lot of trouble with some of the parents because several of the students nearly passed out and were quite upset by the idea of dissecting human body parts. So when we initially did human hearts, she didn’t send permission slips home, but when we did brains later on, we had to fill out permission slips and get them signed by our parents.

At the end of each season she would bind all our classwork into personal books to take home. She made us all personalized year books at the very end of the year with a shadow drawing of each student on the front of their yearbook. When we did art projects, she would bring in professional art supplies she purchased with her own money so our work looked extra good. I particularly remember her bringing in a set of Prismacolor colored pencils for each student, which are extremely expensive, but look beautiful when they are used. Really rich color.

Though she always was on my case about various ADHD related-issues I had little control over (disrupting the class, talking and distracting other students, not sitting in my seat and constantly getting up, being extremely messy and disorganized and forgetful etc…), she did ask me to have her sign my first book. She thought I was a promising author. I wish I could track her down and send her a signed copy of my poetry book when I release it. She was an amazing and inspiring teacher.