a tribute to pat passlof

i can't remember the first class i took with pat as i was rather shy and awkward then -she probably terrified me, but it wasn't a terror i held onto because i studied with pat for many,many years. or at least it seems that way. i was in love with her of course,and in the big word she held in her beautiful hands-the artist word,the word that tauunts and terrifies and beckons us fom afar, and although i think she called herself a painter, she was an ARTIST to me,the first real artist i had ever met. now that i've started i'm not sure what i should say about her-what do you say about someone who irrevocably changes your life, who takes you on a journey to a place you never even knew existed. who lights in you a flame that never goes out-in short a person who makes a blind person see, and she did all those things for me especially the latter. i was blind and she taught me to see. and as an added bonus she taught me to paint. she set me on the path i continue to travel today.and though i don't know what she would think of the work i've done in the last year or two, it doesn't really matter. i am on my own path now, the one she set me down on, and she will always be the most important art teacher i have ever had; and though i have studied with some fine teachers,none of them even come close to teaching me what she did. she turned me upside down and cracked me over the head with a look or a word or a paintbrush taken out of my unsure hands and into her capable ones, to demonstrate something there were no words to convey.i wish i could do that now- take a brush in my hand and convey what words cannot, to try and do justice to her, and to thank her for all that she taught me ,things i have no words for. i can only hope in some small way that i do justice to all that she gave me, and that she knows how much i love her and continue to learn more about all that she tried

to teach me all those years ago. to pat with love, brigid.