During my senior year of high school, we had to get community service hours in order to graduate. The problem was trying to find places that weren’t already full up of my fellow classmates doing the same thing I was trying to do. Then an idea came to mind in the form of my first-period German class.
Scranton High School’s architecture is supposed to resemble an opening book, with each wing of the school being a page. Because of this, there are windows in most classrooms, including blinds. Unfortunately, these blinds are only meant to dilute the sun, not block it. This may be great for saving energy but not when the sun is on full blast directly in your classroom. My German teacher, Frau Grey, had a very colorful classroom save for her curtain. The previous teacher used her classroom had smeared black paint all over it to try to block out the sun, though her application of the paint left something to be desired. In short, it was an eyesore.
So, what was an aspiring artist needing community service hours to do? Well, I decided to ask Frau if there might be a possibility of me painting her window shade for her. I showed her my vision in the form of a little digital sketch I did on my tablet, a landscape dotted with fairytale characters from the Brothers Grimm stories done in the palette of the German flag— red, yellow, and black. She loved the idea but the only hiccup was getting approval from the janitorial staff and the principal. It took a long time to hear back but thankfully the janitorial staff didn’t mind it and the football team had a big win so the principal was in just the right mood to agree to it, just as long as I was able to finish it since I was a senior soon to graduate. Since I was staying local and going to Marywood, that was not going to be much of a problem.
During my final year at Scranton High, I would spend my lunches and any bit of free time I could manage going up to Frau’s room to paint this giant eyesore of a shade. I had no experience in creating a mural, just a largely self-taught skill and ambition. But with the encouragement of Frau and the students that came into her classroom, it was the spark to light the fire and I decided to go for it. They are still my motivation to finish this mural, and to this day, it is still unfinished. Between semesters I revisit my alma mater and paint the screen. Now that I’ve recently gotten my first car, I hope to visit sometime during my semesters so that I might hopefully bookend my senior year of college with that of my senior year of high school.
My early concepts look rough to my now trained eyes after attending Marywood’s Art Department pursuing my BFA degree in Illustration, and I’ve had to bridge the gap between past Abby and present Abby’s art. Rather than completely redoing the entirety of the piece, I’m inheriting the past and updating it with my new knowledge of design. However, the heart of the piece? I don’t think that’s changed; it’s just matured.