Art History — By Tommy Purser

At Saturday’s Three Rivers Arts Festival, I was taking a look at some of the paintings on display inside the heritage center at the Towns Bluff Park when I was reminded of my first foray into the world of art.
I was a pre-teen, maybe 9 or 10 years old when my parents signed me up for art classes. The instructor was Mrs. Erkhardt. I don’t recall her first name but I do recall that she was a gray-haired, ever smiling lady with enormous patience with the young students under her tutelage.
I remember well one of my first assignments. I started art classes just like all the other youngsters, learning to make simple charcoal drawings and how lighting formed shadows. Mrs. Erkhardt made sure we drew our shadows consistently, directed by wherever the light source was coming from.
I later advanced to using pastel coloring, Somewhere stored away in some nook or cranny in my home is one of the first pastel drawings I ever did. It was a simple jug — a blue jug as I recall, sitting on a brown table with a light blue background, I think it was.
I was just on the verge of advancing to the use of oil paints when art tragedy struck.
I say “art tragedy” but actually it was a lifestyle change from which I never recovered. It was baseball. Then football. Then basketball. Then golf.
Years later, I took an art class in college and found that what I learned from Mrs. Erkhardt had stuck with me. I made an A+ in that class.
Yes, I hadn’t lost my touch.