Posted: Sun, 17 Jan 2010 09:47 PM - 10,472 Readers
By: Alicia Mireles
According to Richard Florida's bestselling book "The Rise of the Creative Class," Austin ranks at the top of the nation's creativity index: a combination of talent, technology and tolerance.
Creative people are drawn to Austin's natural beauty, casual, inclusive lifestyle, and cultural diversity, as well as the University of Texas and numerous high-tech employers. Most of my family and I are included in this rising creative class composed of individuals who work with mathematics and computers, science and engineering, education, design, the arts and entertainment.
My family arrived in Austin long before Florida's book landed on the best-seller list; in fact, the author was just a toddler the first time our '50-something Plymouth sedan motored down Lake Austin Boulevard. I probably wasn't much older — just shy of my second birthday.
In fact, I don't actually remember the June day in 1958 when my parents moved our family into the original Brackenridge Apartments, the former Army barracks that UT recycled for affordable married-student housing. Our dad was an art student at UT, and our mother worked part-time as a registered nurse at St. David's Hospital
They paid $35 a month, including utilities, for our three-bedroom apartment shaded by towering pecan trees. Our porch overlooked acres of clotheslines perpetually strung with drying laundry; the air was full of the sounds of legions of kids pedaling squeaky tricycles and cooling off in blow-up wading pools.
The two-story barracks sat high off the ground, and my younger brother, Daniel, and I often played in the darkened crawl space beneath the first floor. Our mother lived in fear that we would encounter a rattlesnake. She spent as much time trying to coax us out of our hiding place as she did hanging laundry and taking care of our baby sister.
During the year and a half we lived at Brackenridge, my dad was enrolled in life drawing, art history and painting classes. This was also the beginning of my art education.
After dinner, our kitchen table became a studio. Art and anatomy books mingled with oil paints and linseed oil. I often sat near my father's easel and watched him work. He encouraged my interest, provided me art supplies and taught me about some of the blockbusters of modern art — painters like Matisse, Modigliani and Picasso.
My parents were amused by my knack for recognizing the works of modern masters. Like most kids, I enjoyed the attention, so I stuck with it.
Painting and drawing was something I did at home, but unfortunately, it wasn't a subject offered much at school. Years later, when my family bought a home in Tarrytown, I recall attending art classes at Casis Elementary School, but not often enough to suit me. To this day I still remember my disappointment when I discovered that our class went to the art room and made a "real" clay pot on a day I was absent.
When O. Henry Middle School provided me the opportunity to choose an elective, with no hesitation I enrolled in art. My art teacher, Mrs. Ohlendorf, was young, and her enthusiasm for art matched my own. I couldn't wait to go to her class each day, even though it meant a long trek out to the portable classrooms.
Despite my eagerness, my artwork wasn't remarkable. Often I was disappointed that my grades didn't reflect my interest, but I came to realize that I wasn't making art for the grade; I was making art because art was what I did. It was who I was becoming.
In Austin, we also had neighbors who were real artists. Once in a while I was able to peek into these sacred spaces where they kept their tools and worked their magic.
Betsy Warren, an illustrator for children's books, lived on the next block. Her studio was a tiny cottage tucked into her backyard.
A UT art professor and his wife, a batik artist, lived two doors down from our house. When I baby-sat for their daughter, I often stared in amazement at the yards of hand-dyed fabric spotted with dry wax — it would later be ironed away — stretched over long tables in her mother's batik studio.
Laguna Gloria Fiesta, a huge outdoor art show on the shores of Lake Austin, always seemed to fall on the rainiest weekend in May. Scores of art lovers braved the downpours and sloshed through the mud to attend this annual celebration of Austintatious art.
I purchased my first piece of art at Fiesta. There were food and drink booths scattered among the artists' tents on the grounds. Music pulsed from stages overlooking the lagoon. Multicolored papel picados fluttered over the kiddie corner, which offered face painting and egg cartons of cascarones, to be broken in showers of confetti.
Growing up in both a family and a city where art was practiced and celebrated influenced my own career decision. After graduating from Austin High, I followed my dad's example and enrolled as a studio art major at UT. A couple of years into the program, I opted to get my teaching certificate, taking a slightly different path into the world of art. I never looked back.
In 1984, I began my first teaching position at North Oaks Elementary School, located in Northwest Austin. Ironically, one of the girls in a fifth grade art class had the last name Ohlendorf. As it turned out, she was the daughter of Susan Ohlendorf, my beloved art teacher at O. Henry. Small world, but the artistic community in Austin keeps getting larger.
A array of artists, including Elisabet Ney, Charles Umlauf, Michael Ray Charles and Margo Sawyer , have made Austin their town. The annual East Austin Studio Tour is just one visual testimony to the diversity of our local artists and their work.
Today, I teach art at Cedar Park High School. I still consider myself a painter, but just as importantly, an educator. I know of no better place to support the creative triad of talent, technology and tolerance than an art classroom.
If Richard Florida's "creative class" has truly found a home in Austin, it is at least in part because the roots of our art community are deep. Artistic role models and quality arts education for all students in our local schools help nurture those roots and keep them strong.
Tales of the City
This is a continuing series of personal essays with an Austin connection. Submit your own tale of the city (900 words or less) to tales@statesman.com for consideration by our editors.
Betsy Murphy is an artist and teacher who lives with her architect husband, Mike, near Leander.
