Hi. All. My granddaughter, Sarah, who has been featured in many of my paintings, is also showing a lot of interest and potential in her own art endeavors since around the age of seven. Now as a junior, she had the wonderful opportunity to take classes at the local vo-tech which is associated with her high school(I will get the correct name to tell you later). Even more important is that the teacher for this class is so top notch that many times Sarah or her mom have called to tell me about the great teaching skills and the specific encouragement he gives his students. During this school year I have found myself recognizing an unquenchable urge to meet this person. It seemed a compelling wish for me to tell him thank you for his efforts and success. Artists seem to absorb by some unexplainable osmosis the passions and drive of certain others who create and so I felt the strong desire to meet Sarah’s teacher. That sounds simple enough,,,,, well maybe not. These professionals may easily be bombarded with requests from other ‘would be’ artists and so they must be cautious, especially in our day and age. Sarah’s mom had occasion to meet her daughter’s teacher who suggested an after school hello on a specific day. He suggested their might be a possibility for me to speak an encouraging word or two to the students as well. I packed up some early sketches, a small portrait or two and even two unfinished paintings so the students could see the process. I told Sarah later that meeting this remarkable man was one of the highlight events of my life. It would have been enough to give him my sincere thanks for what he is able to achieve with his students. But, no, it turned out to be the coming together of artistic soul mates or something of the sort. It was the kind of occurrence where you meet someone and instantly feel like you have known them for a lifetime. He enthusiastically invited me to speak to the class on the following day. My morning pain levels are terrible but I got up as early as I could in order to get loosened up and mentally prepared. I was not nervous because I raised five teens and also I knew my new friend would set the tone and God would set the agenda. It would be impossible to relate all our topics and discussions but when the time was up for the students to now go to a different class, they and their teacher had decided we would either do this again or they might consider a field trip to my modest studio. I was elated and so very thankful that this simple meeting had turned into a life marker! HalleluYah!