Published: November 13, 2009 08:03 pm      

Former art teacher still offering instruction

By RORYE O’CONNOR

rorye.oconnor@register-news.com

MT. VERNON— Retired art teacher Debbie Wilson helped a handful of community members get into the holiday spirit recently by teaching them a new craft.

At the C.E. Brehm Memorial Library, four community members took a class on making Christmas ornaments and learned how to create needlepoint creations on plastic canvas forms, a craft which none of them had done before, Wilson said.

Wilson, who taught art classes at Woodlawn High School for 33 years, now works at Cedarhurst Center for the Arts, instructing afterschool programs, and is also a docent at Mitchell Museum at Cedarhurst. Wilson has a master’s degree in watercolor painting from Southern Illinois University.

Wilson retained her school teacher demeanor as she showed people the steps to creating Christmas ornaments. At the library, Wilson showed Mt. Vernon residents Angie York, Tracy Adams and Dashawn Smith how to make a stocking ornament with plastic canvas and yarn, patiently demonstrating how to start a new color or start stitching a new row.

Judy Flota worked on painting a clothespin reindeer while the others learned needlework. All of the students said it was their first time attending an art class like Thursday’s craft instruction class.

York, Flota’s daughter, said as she stitched the “cuff” on her stocking that she felt the class was going well.

“I’m not the craftiest person,” she joked. “I’m better at serving coffee while other people do it.”

The small group sat at a table crowded with felt, glitter, glue guns and candy as they worked on their projects.

After the event, Wilson said she felt it went well.

“People seemed to enjoy it,” she said. “They’d never done it before and they learned how, so that’s the goal.”

Wilson hopes to teach another class for the library in the future, she said.

The class cost $5 to attendees. Bill Pixley, C. E. Brehm Library head librarian, said the next art class available at the library was scheduled for early next year— a program on how to make birthday cards will be offered on Jan. 28.