I hope you all are hanging in there and enjoying the last bits of summer. Honestly I love summer so much I tend to get a little blue hearing about school starting.

When I think back, I am pretty sure I hated school, at least until I got into Baltimore School For the Arts. Until that day came I always had a lot of anxiety going to school. I cannot imagine what school must be like today. Hats off to all the parents dealing with the Covid school issues.

I attended Grace & St. Peters School in Baltimore city from kindergarten until 6th grade. I liked it there thanks to my uber cool art teacher/renowned artist Susan Lowe and my lifelong friend Greer and her family. The friends I made in those years have continued and we all consider each other family, even though there have been a few upsets along the way. Like I said, family!

After 6th grade we all had to find new schools. Everyone pretty much went in different directions with most going on to private schools. Getting into a private school was tough. You had to be a good student and be able to pay a steep tuition fee. I certainly was not a good student even though I excelled in art and English comprehension. Thankfully, I had been working on a plan of my own.

While I was at Grace and St Peters school I started taking after school TWIGS drawing and painting classes at the Baltimore High School for The Arts. That high school happened to be backed up to the playground of GASP and every day during recess I would stand at the iron gates dreaming of a day when I might be able to go there too! Preschool to the end of sixth grade is a long time for a kid to aim for one specific dream.

I asked my Dad if I could apply and he was not as excited about my dream as I was. Back then I didn’t understand why he was not so supportive of my dream. Now that I am older I understand. The life of an artist is intense and unpredictable. I know now that he did not want me to suffer. Of course, nothing ventured, nothing gained. I have always been determined, hard working, and capable so I continued to obsess and plan how I could get into BSA. I ended up going to Saint Paul's School For Girls for 7th and 8th grade. The school was way out of the city and seemed like a completely foreign world to me. The girls there were mostly mean, smart, skinny, and rich. I was none of those things so fitting in sucked but now I realize it was just the fuel I needed to keep working on my plan! In the meanwhile I knew I needed an ally and I had just the right person for the job. I spent many many many weekends with my Granny, my Mom's mother. We were thick as thieves.

She and I would spend the weekends talking, reading, and playing the card game Memory. We liked all the same TV shows. Friday night was Fantasy Island and The Love Boat. Saturday night was The Incredible Hulk and The Dukes of Hazard or maybe it was the other way around. She would sit in her chair drinking her vodka on the rocks, smoking her Benson and Hedges cigarette, and swinging her one crossed leg all the while laughing. She was my gal and I was hers. We understood each other. I told her of my plan of going to BSA and she said she would handle my Dad.

Game on... Now I just had to get in. The application and test to get in was grueling. It was in two parts: the first part was a two hour still life drawing and the second was a mixed media color collage all done in a quiet classroom with 30 other incredibly talented children. I was so nervous that day that I can still remember the serious butterflies in my stomach and how sweaty my palms were. They told us we would be notified by mail in several weeks. I gave them my grandmother's mailing address and I waited, waited, and waited.

One Saturday afternoon while at my grandmother’s house she called me in from playing outside. “Manda,” she would call me, “time to come in.” I came to the door and she was holding a white envelope. She handed it to me and I read Baltimore School for the Arts Admissions on the top right corner. My hands were shaking and I was short of breath. I handed it back to her and asked her to open it. She got her letter opener which was a red Harakiri knife that I was obsessed with. In her long southern Virginia accent she began to read my acceptance letter to reveal that I got in.

It was the best and biggest thing that had ever happened to me. We both stood their smiling until my heart sank thinking that I would not be allowed to go. I hadn’t thought past this point. Granny looked at me and said do not worry about your Dad, you are going to that school. I never heard or knew what she said to my Dad but that September I found myself climbing the student stairwell and attending BSA. I remember my Dad saying the first semester was a test. If my grades did not improve I was going back to Saint Paul. That first semester I went from a C, D, and F student to an A and B student. My second year I became an honor roll student and was happier than I had ever been in my young life. My dad appreciated how dedicated I was to this path and ended up becoming my biggest fan, even helping me to pay for college.

It is these memories that I recall during times of trouble. I am calling on that same determination, focus, and faith to keep my head up and persist as an artist and a gallery owner. My father and all of my family and friends offer immense support and we are very grateful for their love and encouragement. We are also grateful for all the clients and customers that have shown their support with online and in gallery art purchases!

If you’re still reading, I thank you for letting me share this story. As a treat, I have new art work on the store!

To Granny’s Everywhere (RIP Mary Caroline Stewart), born 1920 - the year women got the VOTE!

- Amanda J.

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