Lux

Chapter 5

My first class after home room was art which instantly perked up my mood, I remember that Chasity hadn't been artistic in the least so I was fairly confident walking into class that I wouldn't have to deal with her. Miranda had a different class but Ivory was in art with me which also made me happy, we sat together at one of the tables and the class slowly filled up. But that still only accounted for about 8 other students, thankfully none of which were Chasity or Ethan. One of the drones of Chasity was in the class and she seemed to be glued to her phone the whole time. An elderly woman walked into the class room last and she was dressed in such eccentric colors and stuff it was a refreshing sight to see in this small town. "This is not an easy class nor is it a place too goof off! If you think that this is going to be an easy A than you are in the wrong place. Either you take my class seriously or I suggest you get out right now. Now for the rest of you even if you have no apparent talent if you do the work and apply yourself you will pass." She stared all of us down. "This is your one and only chance to leave my class, no judgement you have the next two minutes to leave otherwise welcome to advanced art!" She said with flourishing hand wave. 

Ivory and I glanced at each other but shrugged neither of seemed scared and we both stayed seated. One boy who seemed to be the nervous type bolted out of his chair and out the door I had to resist the urge to laugh and I could tell that Ivory was barely holding it in as well. Once he was gone the teacher stared at each of us making the silence completely awkward. Suddenly she clapped as if to gain our attention as if we all weren't already watching her wearily. "Right so my class is for advanced art students only, so you have to have some talent to be here. Now I'm not saying  you have to be an amazing artist but you do have to be able to draw a circle or straight line, now with that being said next class I want a small portfolio of your work. If you are a sculptor or work with larger mediums than you may submit pictures or a digital portfolio, I assure you I can work a computer even with my advanced age. I expect at least 10 pieces of work, you may include early work or work you even hate it is all art and it will give me a great insight as to what I am working with. We have some class work of art history which is worth twenty percent of your grade, we will have a few in class assignments worth another twenty percent of your grade, and finally the other sixty percent is all depending on your final project. It must be complete at the end of the year, I want it to be spectacular. Now with that said it can be anything you want but it must be the best representation of your abilities. I can offer guidance and assistance but you are responsible for your own ideas and executing them and having it done on time. If you don't think that it is enough to be good enough to count as sixty percent of a whole grade than you might want to rethink your idea. I will check in periodically about your project but I will never force you to work on it or and you will get some class time but I expect you to work on this in your own time as well. Right if you watch the screen at the front of the room I'll give you some ideas from previous years the tops and bottoms of marks. Each student has given me permission to use their art in this way but no names are attached to the pictures so if you recognize something wonderful but please keep the name of the artist to yourself if you don't mind. Also plagiarism is not allowed in my class if I find you have or have helped someone planarize any work it will be an instant zero in my class automatic failure that will prevent you from getting this credit and for most of you this credit is mandatory to graduate. Any of you that need this class for college I only give my recommendation to my top student so work hard, and hopefully we all have a wonderful year together."

I watched as she played her slide show of art, some was easy to tell as top marks and others were clearly fails but some left me wondering since she didn't speak she gave us a moment to take it all in and than moved onto the next picture. Art especially the abstract was more about the audience enjoying it and I felt would be harder to mark there is no clear cut technique to mark on. "Okay everyone for the remainder of class I want you to think about your final project start getting some ideas in mind you don't need it set in stone but you do need to write it down so I can see where you are thinking of going with this." She passed out a class syllabus but it was mostly just outlining how we would be graded and the units in art history we would be going over and test dates and the due date for the final project which was about a week before graduation.