Volunteer Explorer

Simple life forms become more complex over time; a life of complexity yearns for simplicity. Beautiful artwork is food for the soul. Respect can become a habit.  My students expressed these ideas in the paragraphs they wrote about our trip to the Akron Art Museum last week. They all enjoyed themselves and seemed to get something out of the experience, even Van who exceeded her own minimum standard of three sentences. “I guess there are ten,” she said, “but they are short, simple sentences.” “Did you do that so you wouldn’t make any mistakes?” I asked, half joking. She nodded with her usual mischievous grin. Luz Alba’s prose was the most poetic, discussing how artists express their “states of mood” through vivid colors and abstract scenes. Hers was the phrase about art as soul food, a line that brought to my mind Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and music as the food of love. Santos, the newest addition to our class, had a lot to say about the origins of life an...

The Akron Art Museum was not as crowded as I had expected for a free-admission Thursday evening. A handful of people strolled through the quiet rooms of the permanent collection; another half dozen or so roamed the open spaces of “Beauty Reigns,” the current modern installation of pieces by a variety of international artists.  My husband and two of my school friends had joined my three most reliable conversation class attendees at the library before crossing High Street to enter the museum. Luz Alba also brought a friend, Santos, a Mexican doctor here to study medical hypnosis. His limited English vocabulary did not keep him from attempting to engage in lengthy explanations of his history, the education he was gleaning in Ohio, and his love of particular paintings in the permanent collection that reminded him of his home in the hills of Mexico.  After donning paper bracelets at the front desk, we moved as a group into the Mary S. and David C. Corbin Foundation Galler...

“An ‘Eeyore’ is someone who always finds the downside,” I said to my class last night. One of the three students who showed up had mentioned knowing someone who is always complaining about something. “Another name for that is a ‘Debbie Downer.’” Then I did my impression of the Rachel Dratch character from Saturday Night Live . Van and Luz Alba nodded in solemn recognition; Yuwei chuckled and looked a little confused.  My story about seeing a large cockroach ambling through the eating area of a local public space (which I will not name here) garnered a more enthusiastic response. "What is a ‘cockroach’?” Yuwei asked. I drew a little picture on the white board, and he instantly understood. “I see a big one one time,” Luz Alba said, getting up from her chair to act out her experience. “And I get a rock to... because they are hard,” she pointed to her back to indicate the shell on the pest, “and I squish it.” She mimicked picking up a heavy rock and placing ...