Janice said to me, pointing at the painting I was fleshing out with undertones. “What gave you the idea?” I tilted my head and stared at the image. Inspiration had finally hit me at the beginning of class, and I’d furiously sketched the graffiti wall I’d seen on my walk that one evening. Something about it had resonated with me, stuck with me. I knew this had to be my last class project. I explained how I’d gone walking and had taken pictures of stuff I saw around Lakewood. “What a great idea,” she said, giving a nod of appreciation. Today Janice had on a flowing blue dress and her red hair was twisted into braids. She looked the image of a typical artist—or at least, what would have been my image before this class. Teni’s workshop—Matthew’s art—had changed me. Now I saw art in everything, the beautiful and the mundane. The ugly and scary and strange. It was exciting, the realization that inspiration lay all around me. “You should give it a try sometime,” I said.
