Things happen in life that sometimes you may not like. Things that will bother you. Hurt you. Anger you. You would want to find peace somewhere. Somewhere other than home. Maybe because home isn’t quite home at the time. School probably wouldn’t be someone’s first place to find peace in. It was for me. A class to be specific. Since freshman year, I’ve always looked forward to going to this class and do my best, and actually enjoy myself. Only possible because of Mrs. Covert.

In freshman year, art class was not what I expected. I actually was not very knowledgeable about Dickinson at all, back then. I imagined the class to be overwhelmingly professional for me; big room, nothing but art equipments, every day we’d be assigned something to do, and of course with a strict, not-so-fun teacher. I was wrong. So very wrong. The class was so gratifying with so many fun things to do. Sure, we had to do some writing and note-taking about art history. But I learned so much about art in general, and enjoyed the class thoroughly. Every A day I would look forward to my last block. To go in and relax and do what I love doing the most. Draw.

I personally didn’t talk to Mrs. Covert that much, but being in her class calmed me a lot. Her mellow and collected personality and quiet class was nice to be in. Our class would sometimes be the complete antithesis of boisterous, so we’d have to turn music on to have something to listen to rather than each other’s breathing. As always, students would sometimes try to press her buttons, but she was always very tolerant, very patient with everyone and would help them as best as she can. Especially with me. I would constantly complain about using color. Every time she would ask us about what we want to do as our next project, I would be the first to suggest something that had no color. I hated color. Mrs. Covert was persistent, but never forceful. I tried it once, but said “never again” after. I was never good with it, and I never wanted to try it again. At the end of last year, Mrs. Covert assigned us to do whatever we liked but go out of our comfort zone for our final project. I decided on drawing a snake, since I always wanted to try my patience and really challenge myself. I was determined to put in my best effort. I was jesting, clearly. There was no way I was going to color a snake. But Mrs. Covert told me I had to do it, not so facetiously. In the end she did teach me various methods on how to use color pencils and paint, helped me apply it in some projects and realize that I am not so bad with it after all.

I would just like to thank Mrs. Covert for being such a great teacher. Her class helped me go through some tough times in my life. Just the serenity and with the friendly people around me was more than enough. She taught me many techniques and helped refine my prior skills even further. I still read over the written notes we took in class and apply it in almost all my artwork to this day. Now I can be somewhat proud of my work and feel good about it. And I am quite ecstatic to be in her class next year.