Personal Descriptive Portrait

I do not remember much of my first day in 7th grade, but the one thought that I can remember clearly is walking to my art class to the first time. The only time beforehand I was allowed to be in the school was 7th grade orientation which was two weeks before school, and gave us a chance to explore the school. I spent the whole time being yelled at by my father because I could not open my locker correctly. Likely the reason being he was yelling at me, as on the first day I opened it just fine. Therefore, I never got the chance to find my classrooms. Luckily, the school has 8th graders get paired up with 7th graders to show them around the first day. I got paired up with a kind 8th grader to show me around school, and automatically I was intrigued by the art classroom. The art classroom itself was positioned in a unique and even artistic way. Instead of turning the corner and having it be a straight-forward door to the classroom; the door was angled to the opposite you’d expect, surrounding the door were bricks and many pieces of art. As the 8th grader looked into the classroom and told me what it was all about I put my hand on a piece of art hanging on the bulletin board. It was thin paper, yet there were so many layers of paint. You could feel the detail itself, there was so much put into it that you could feel it. I’ve never seen anything like it.

“Ready to go find your technology class?” my 8th grade mentor said, adjusting her glasses and smiling sweetly.
“… Yeah, yeah sure.” I said quietly looking into the classroom.

She took my arm lightly and we turned down the hall and continued with the tour of the school. Lucky for me, all my classes were in basically the same region so I was done quickly. Afterwards though I was alone, as most of my friends I knew ended up on different “teams” of the school. I found myself going back to the art classroom to wait for the announcement that told us to go to our advisory classrooms, as the art class was just down the hall. I was of course scared, very alone in such a large place, yet I found comfort in the art. The thing I loved most about all the pieces are every single one was unique. In all the art classes I have ever had, every piece was identical with very little personalization. There were instructions that we had to follow or we got a bad grade. I have always hated instructions. The announcement came on the intercom telling us to head to our advisories, so I did just that. Advisory went quickly; I did however meet a new friend. Her name is Rachel; she had short brown hair, big brown eyes, and was wearing mostly black.

That’s another story, but I’ll leave it at we became best friends. Looking down at the piece of paper containing my schedule and scribbled directions to each class which I’ve protected with my life so far, Art was my first period class. I grinned wildly because I was dying to just get into the class. After a short welcome and introduction speech, it was time to go to our first period class. I lightly pushed my way through the extremely crowded hallway, not easily because of my petite height. It took nearly five minutes just to get through a short hallway. The sounds of excited talking, the feeling of people rubbing against me, the smell of sweat I hate so much from teenage boys. All of it was overwhelming, but replaced by other feelings once I walked into my art classroom. The smell was clean and smelled like markers, paint, glitter, paper, all things artistic. One of my favorite scents has always been paint. That’s when I first saw my art teacher. The name on the board read in messy, girly handwriting ‘J. Steiner’. Behind the desktop computer was a petite, beautiful woman smiling as large as a grin could possibly be. Her skin was tanned slightly and her eyes were a beautiful green/blue color, like the ocean.

Her hair was cut into a long pixie past her chin and spiked just slightly, beach brown with blonde highlights. She was obviously older which you could tell by her extreme laugh-lines but her age didn’t interfere for a second with her beauty. The class started to fill up with eager kids not knowing where to sit. Big kids, small kids, pretty kids, happy kids, unhappy kids; the whole bunch. Then Mrs.Steiner stood and grasped her clipboard to her chest with one hand, and swung one hand up in a presenting manner. “Welcome to art class!” Her voice was sweet and subtle, with just an undertone of extreme obvious happiness. She pointed to where everybody would sit in alphabetical order. I, like always, was first. I sat on the right side towards the front. It all started once everybody was seated, and her smile contagiously spread across the whole room. Even kids who were obviously utterly pissed beforehand were now smiling just from Mrs.Steiner standing at the front of the class smiling.

We started class off with Mrs.Steiner turning out the lights and opening the windows to let light in but not too much; all of the students thoroughly enjoyed this. I personally enjoyed this so much, I get headaches from too much light and I’ve always suffered through headaches during the day of normal school because teachers normally make the room as light as possible. I felt like Mrs.Steiner understood students so well. She handed out a piece of paper and said it was sort of a creativity test. Its instructions read to decorate the glass using pictured items. The page had simple images such as a penguin, skateboard, etc. After we were all done, she turned the lights up slightly and told us to go look around at everything. I saw some things which I liked, some which I did not like. I was very proud of mine compared to a lot of others; but I also respected that all art is different and beautiful, which I learned at a young age.

When she sat us all back down, she asked how many people stayed only in the glass, or only used items pictured. The majority of the class raised their hand. I was one of the few who went at least a little out of the glass and more onto the page, also using my own items. Mrs.Steiner then went on to give us a lesson… “It says in the directions to decorate the glass. It never stated anywhere that you must ONLY decorate the glass, or must ONLY use the items pictured. This is your first lesson of art; break the rules as much as you can while still following them.” Mrs.Steiner calmly said, smiling slightly and sitting in her chair at the front of the class. She raised one eyebrow and looked around the room; and winked at me directly. That’s when I knew she’d end up being my favorite teacher, and to this day, she still is.