Argy Nestor – Retired Art Teachers: What Do They Encounter After the Classroom?

Throughout their careers, art teachers are shaped by countless encounters—the lessons they teach, the students who grow through creating, the pride in school art exhibits, and the students they see in the community.

For retired art teachers, leaving the classroom does not always mark the end of creative influence. For many, it simply opens a new chapter—one filled with fresh opportunities to share, connect, and keep the spark of creativity alive in their communities long after they clean out their classroom for the last time.

Kal Elmore: Continuing to Create and Connect

Art educator Kal Elmore retired ten years ago.

When I retired, I quickly realized that I had the time to pursue other interests and determine how I wanted to incorporate art into my days.

Kal is using her teaching and leadership skills to support her community and the arts. She is the chair of the Bangor Public Library Art Committee, which has expanded from jurying exhibits to curating dynamic programming. Recent shows include Americans Who Tell the Truth by Rob Shetterly and an exhibit featuring Waldo Peirce’s work.

Kal serves as a commissioner on Bangor’s Commission for Cultural Development, where she helps distribute grants that support visual and performing arts programs in Bangor.

Kal’s teaching has evolved: along with teaching a Zoom course for Penobscot Valley Senior College, she works with four distinct “art groups.” Sometimes Kal is teaching, sometimes facilitating, depending on the group’s needs.

1. Her watercolor group has experienced and serious painters who like structure, so each lesson has a focus. Each week they have an assignment suggested by Kal or a member of the group.
2. Kal’s “ladies group” are all new to art making. Each biweekly gathering is based on themes around which Kal designs an art lesson, often suggested by a participant.
3. The third group started as friends with varied backgrounds wanting to get together monthly. They start from the same “idea” and create artworks on that idea.
4. Kal’s largest group meets on Thursday. The eleven participants are mostly retired teachers who gather to make art, some in person and others remotely, working independently. They offer each other support and feedback. For the past three years during February, several took on the challenge to create an artwork each day. For the culmination they met for a pop-up art exhibit at the Bangor Library. Each June, Kal hosts “Art Camp” at her home—a four-day creative retreat shaped by participant input and full of shared meals, conversation, and artistic exploration.

All four groups have a hands-on component and include discussion. They explore the nature of art. The philosophical and complex thinking often leads to impactful changes in their individual art making.

For Kal, retirement was not an end to being a teacher but an expansion that includes teaching using different formats and techniques, while fostering different learners.

 

Catherine Ring – Grass Roots Arts & Community Effort, GRACE

Art educator and leader Catherine Ring helped establish GRACE in 2019 at Brown Hall Community Center in Bucksport. Catherine is not new to GRACE. In fact, many years ago she taught in a GRACE program in Hardwick, Vermont. She was happy to establish GRACE in Bucksport after retiring from teaching art on Isle au Haut.

GRACE provides free creative arts opportunities to seniors and other underserved populations. Participants are invited to explore and experiment through using a variety of materials to create art. No previous experience is needed.

“Be yourself and do it your own way,” is the GRACE philosophy. Catherine or a guest artist offers guidance or demonstrates a technique, but the focus is always on self-directed exploration. Participants share ideas and artwork, and provide feedback to each other. Each week, twelve to fifteen people gather in Brown Hall, which is filled with books, resources, and art supplies. Not only are they making art, they’re also connecting.

GRACE is part of Lighthouse Arts & Education, a non-profit which recently received funding from the Maine Community Foundation. GRACE has exhibit space within Brown Hall and two years ago created a collaborative mural for the Buck Memorial Library.

Board member and artist Charlotte (Cha) Bridges, who started making art at age 55, said about GRACE:

I want to be guided and have a chance to play and experiment. I can’t stand to have people tell me how to do every step. We all get so much from each other.

A Continuing Journey

For retired art educators, like Kal and Catherine, retirement is another meaningful encounter—an opportunity to engage with people, places, and creative ideas. Kal and Catherine and countless other retired Maine art teachers continue to teach, but more importantly, they continue to learn—proving that art is not only something we make, but something we live.