Jess Reynolds Photo

Thumbtack?

Since I’m stuck in bed with mono, I’m trying to take advantage of the downtime to get caught up!  I’ve received a few emails in the past from a website called Thumbtack, and decided to give them a go.

Here is my profile, Jess Reynolds Architecture & Interior Photography, on Thumbtack.

Has anyone else used their services before?  Let me know how you like them!  I’m excited to see how it turns out, and I’ll be sure to let you all know!

Thank you, Ken Drake.

It was the summer of 2009, and I was on a train from Paris to Avignon.  As I watched fields of flowers go by, I reflected on the 10 days I had just spent in Paris.

I was especially touched by the artwork and the museums I had the opportunity to see in person.  Rodin, Picasso, Calder, Giacometti…  It was a humbling and inspiring experience.  And there in my thoughts the entire time, was Ken Drake.

Ken Drake was the sculpture teacher at my high school.  Two of my older siblings had previously had him and absolutely adored him.  By the time my senior year rolled around, in 2000, I decided to give his class a shot.

There were so many things that made Ken Drake truly special.  

• What he taught.  Art.  How is it that after 12 years of school, I was for the FIRST TIME hearing names like Picasso?  Art class before that moment was essentially craft class.  Pottery and finger painting.  This was the first time in my life that an art teacher focused on the history of art.  I was 18 and literally did not know anything about it.  

• How he taught.  His stories.  We’d have slide shows studying his favorite pieces by his favorite artists.  Yeah, this would be on the test, but it wasn’t about memorizing and cramming, only to forget it after the test.  Take Alexander Calder for example.  Dude invented the mobile.  INVENTED THE MOBILE.  He was so excited, that he HAD to call his wife.  So he “Cald ‘er!  Alexander Calder!”  Bet you think of that next time you see a Calder piece.  But these stories.  They stuck.  With all of us.

• How he spoke with you.  He joked with you.  He aligned with you.  He opened himself up to you.  I’d go as far as to say he shared his vulnerabilities with you.  He was a real person that treated YOU like a real person.  With respect.  He was one of the only teachers I had met at that point that did not write you off because you were weird/ugly/smelly/quiet/”bad”.  In fact, he embraced you even more!  He let you know that it was okay to be you, exactly the way you were.  He worked side by side with each student, pulling the best out of them.

Going to his class felt like going home.  A place of comfort, laughs, good times.  We were a family of misfits, and it felt great.  

I honestly feel that it is because of him that I am where I am today.  I never even exercised the idea of art being something I was good at.  One of the first in-class assignments was to copy a Picasso line drawing.  We had flipped it upside down, and covered it with a piece of paper.  Little by little, we’d pull the paper down, revealing more of the drawing.  The assignment was about using your eyes to draw.  Drawing exactly what you saw.  Not thinking to yourself, “well this is an eye, and an eye looks like a football, so i’m just going to draw that.”  No.  Draw what is there.  Look at the lines.  That’s why we were copying the drawing upside down.  I was about halfway through, and he came past my table.  He stopped for awhile, silent.  He said, “…did you trace this?”  I said… no.  He said, “…you’re very good.  You see very well.  Good eye.”

…no one had ever told me that before.  Shit, I’d go as far as to say that NONE of my teachers had ever even complimented me before.  He walked on to the next student, but I just sat there looking at my piece of paper.  Silent, but there were butterflies of excitement in my chest.

So there I was on the train, knowing damn well that if it wasn’t for Ken Drake, I’d have never appreciated the Calder exhibit I saw.  I knew that if it wasn’t for Ken Drake, I’d walk right past a Giacometti without even thinking about it.  And I knew that if it wasn’t for Ken Drake, art as *I* knew it would be nothing.  Because until I met him, it WAS nothing.  It had no meaning.  Because no one had ever stopped to share it with me.

Fact, Ken Drake ruined other teachers for me.  Every other teacher by comparison seemed to not care, because he cared SO much.  When I went off to college, I’d silently judge some professors thinking, “Mr. Drake would have taught this so much better…”  I can count on one hand the amount of other teachers I had who were at his level, and I hold them all very close to my heart.  He set a very high standard, and I am just extremely thankful that I had the opportunity to know him.

After I returned from France, I went on a mad google hunt to find him.  After emailing several people, I finally got in touch with him.  It felt so good to be able to tell him how much he effected me, how much he meant to me, and how he really is a part of my every day life.  It felt so good to be back in touch with him.  It felt so good to see him this past summer.  Whenever he’d compliment my photo work, I’d get those same butterflies of excitement that I got the first time he told me I did well.  I’ve received praise from some very important photo editors, but none of their compliments meant nearly as much to me as his did…

But hey.  These are just words on a screen, and I honestly feel like they do zero justice to who he was and his character.  He was a big deal.  Not just to me, but to everyone who knew him.

How do you pay homage to someone who changed your life?