Fred Holt's Writings

    Art By Fred Holt We finally got an Art teacher. Miss Myrtle Langston came in 1943 to spend the summer with her sister. She brought her things from Monroe and made a studio upstairs at her sister's boarding house. She wrote friends before she came that she would do some painting and that she might take a few pupils We never had a regular Art teacher, unless you count Miss Allie Mae Temple and Miss Sue Martin. In Primary School, Miss Allie Mae taught us to make Indian teepees out of construction paper and Japanese umbrellas out of toothpicks. In the fifth grade, Miss Sue told us about artists like Winslow Homer and Grant Wood, and we all made Poppy Day posters for the American Legion Auxiliary.   But they weren't regular Art teachers. During school, Miss Allie Mae kept the auditorium and Miss Sue kept the library. Miss Sue taught Art at her house the summer before Miss Myrtle came. Harvey Donegan and I took from Miss Sue, together with some girls, in...

​ Rachel's Teachings   By Fred Holt  Rachel exploits me in her art teaching, but I don't mind.   This month, I did caricatures of folks attending the annual Cinco de Maya Festival at her school.   It raises money for the PTA. I also demonstrate cartooning a couple of days each year for her students. Her first art experiences were likely my cartoons, but she has moved much beyond them.   For years, she drew trees with big knot holes in them just like mine.   Mary Ellen and I collected most of John and Rachel's early work and pasted them on sheets of   butcher paper.   We have these yet. They are a capsule histories of their early maturation in art. I am a little uncomfortable doing cartoons for her class. I don’t think of cartoons as art, at least not art like Rachel and her students do. Rachel uses my demonstrations to show minimal line-drawing. I suppose that all Art teachers begin their classes using such primitive examples.   ...