We all say we “owe” someone thanks… but if I were to truly drag a heartfelt ‘thank you’ from my gut, it would be for Gary Pillard. But how do you thank someone for changing your life for the better? For believing in you? For being the one teacher who did what came natural to him… teach. I love the English language because of its flexibility, nuance, and all around fucked-upness. But for this man, I have no words. To say that I love him would simply be an understatement. To say that he impacted my life. Again, not enough. Even to say that this man changed the course of my life… I truly cannot express in words what he means to me.
It’s highly likely that I owe Mr. Pillard my life. I remember when I was in 8th grade. There was immense pressure to perform. He graded us on one piece of art per week. He generally selected the media. And I remember one week… it was an ink drawing. He encouraged stippling and OH MY FUCKING GOD I hated it. Stippling is literally the most time consuming, hateful, shitty, go shoot yourself in the head technique. I broke down. I lost it. I could not finish or go on. It was the one week where I did not have a finished piece. Mind you, in 8th grade, I had already established myself as the star student. I was the cream of the crop, bound for greatness, gonna’ be a damn rock star. And I failed.
That week, I failed so miserably. I had a half-finished drawing. It was some farm scene from one of the photos I’d taken at a threshing bee. (We do that in Kansas and Missouri every now and then). And it was cool. It was the start of a good piece. But it was unfinished. Unworthy. Deemed unfit for a grade… at least in my mind.
I stood at the front of the art room, my drawing, taped to my art board. Unfinished. Unholy. Unworthy of critique.
And Mr. P said this, “Looks like you need another week.”
That was it. No further comments. Just… take another week. Listen, I had broken down that week. I was on my edge emotionally. I had told my mom and dad that I hated art and that I couldn’t finish the drawing. I was done. The semester could not have ended soon enough.
“Looks like you need another week.”
The tension flooded from my body. I could do nothing more than re-cover my drawing with the butcher paper that was taped to my art board and go sit at my art table. There had never been a more obvious form of forgiveness in my life. God knows my dad had demanded perfection from me. “Why can’t you hold that flashlight still?!” But my art teacher, Mr. P, Pill, Gary, Mr. Pillard… (such a fucking art name, right?) opened up a can of grace on me that day. “Looks like you need another week.” No judgment. No ridicule. No need to grade it at this point.
I finished that ink drawing. It earned a blue ribbon at both the Mother’s Day Art Show at MJHS and it got a grand champion ribbon at the county fair and a blue ribbon at the state fair. And to top it off, I sold that motherfucker for a whopping $50 to some lucky SOB who I can’t even remember. You’re welcome, by the way. I signed it. Maybe you can ebay it for a couple $100 or something. I don’t even know. It ended up being a good drawing. But the lesson I received was grace. From a man to whom I owe so much.
The thing is, it wasn’t just his grace or his attitude about art. He gave me a job. It was the first job I’d ever had that had set hours and a set hourly wage. And it was $10/hour! In the mid-80’s this was what poor people called rich. What did I do? Did I have to make amazing art? Did I have to prostitute my design skills? Ummm, yeah, no. I had to pug clay. You might ask what that means, and sure, I’ll try to give you the synopsis. Basically, we took five gallon buckets of leftover unbaked clay, added water, let it sit for a bit, then shovelled it into a machine called a pug mill. The pug mill augered it, squished it, and squeezed most of the extra water from it, then produced a long cylinder of new clay that we bagged in weights of 5 pounds. And I got paid $10/hour to do that. In the 80’s. I was… finally… rich. Thinking back, honestly, I’d probably go pug clay for that wage any day, even in this day and age.
My whole point is this. Mr. P gave me a job that I could be proud of. That I could not only earn a bit of scratch from, but also learn a bit from. The process of reconstituting old clay involved different processes. Kind of like life. We gather our old bits. We take our wisdom. We put them all in a bucket and we mix them up. Then, we shovel them into the pugmill of life, which mushes it all up, squeezes it, and pushes out the excess stuff and we get some new things with which we can create some amazing things. In short, the pugmill clay is just as good as the new clay we get, but it comes at the price of history, knowledge and wisdom. And that’s a good thing.
But this is supposed to be about Gary and what he’s meant to me. It was more than a job. Mr. Pillard taught me that cheating isn’t cool. It doesn’t advance you. And it was a hard fucking lesson. In one of my other blogs, I mentioned the physics test. I cheated on it and when Mr. Smith and Mr. Pillard found out… I lost my chance to be a part of an art show that could have changed my life. There was something to be learned about integrity there. I figured it out for the most part. Of course, I’ve made mistakes since, but goddamn that is a huge reminder for me. And it hurt. I was devastated. I should have been in that show. I don’t even know how it could have changed my life. Paths not taken, or maybe mistakes that force us onto a different path. I don’t know. But it had an impact on me.
The Art Club Hall of Fame
I’m not a part of the Marysville High School Art Club Hall of Fame. Nor will I ever be. And I’m sort of okay with it. It kind of sucks because I wanted it for my entire high school career. I was a Freshman when Mr. Pillard created it, and I’d hoped that by the time I had been through college, I’d return to Marysville, accept my spot in the HoF, and life would be grand. But, as I moved into my Junior year, my plans changed drastically, and there were also rules.
Rule 1. You must be an art club member in good standing for 4 years.
Rule 2. You must graduate from Marysville High School.
Rule 3. You must pursue a career in the arts.
Those were the basic rules that were required in order for one to be admitted into the art club hall of fame in Marysville Kansas. And I lost out because of one rule. Rule 2. You must graduate from Marysville High School.
The thing is, I left Marysville after my junior year of high school. Things had become pretty awful for me. Some of it was my own doing, and some of it was because of my station in life. Some of it was because of how so many perceived my father and my family. Marysville is a small community. Everyone knows everything about you. And in the 80’s, bullying wasn’t really treated in the same manner it is now. We grew up having to “tough it out” knowing that “whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” and “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me”. But words actually do hurt you. Bullying can lead to hating yourself, or doing things you wouldn’t normally do, or even worse. I was running scared by my junior year, and I needed to get out.
So I did. I went to Manhattan, KS, attended my senior year at Manhattan High, and lived in Jardine apartments with my mom while she went to K-State to finish her Master’s degree. And in so doing, exempted myself from the Art Club Hall of Fame. It is, to this day, the one regret I have about moving from Marysville. All the other qualifications are there. I have a career in the arts, and I was an art club member in good standing for 3 years (would have been 4 had I not moved, I assume). I know it wouldn’t have really opened any doors for me within my career, but just having been a part of it would have meant a lot to me. However, if I had to do it over again, I’d likely choose the same path. Bullying is a powerful persuader.
So, where does this leave everything? The same place it began. Gary Pillard was an amazing teacher. He was the teacher who I look back on who had the most impact on my life. He was fair, he cared about what was happening in his student’s lives. And he made a difference in my life.
To my knowledge, Gary still lives just south of Marysville, and was present (at least for a short bit) during the demolition of the art annex. That’s obviously a whole ‘nother blog post, because to be honest, that place was like a second home for me, and when I found out they were razing it, I cried. Gary also has an art piece in the permanent collection at Highland Community College called “Nature’s Patterns”. Gary’s wife, Vicki, passed away in 2013, and I can’t even imagine the heartbreak Mr. P has endured because of that event. To me, at the age of 60, she was young, and having had her as my English teacher during my sophomore year… hell, she meant a lot to me as a student as well, so I simply can’t imagine how hard that had to have been and continues to be for Gary.
So how do I finish a post about someone who meant so much to me. Someone who continues to influence me to this day? I don’t know if I can. I mean, the last sentence will come, but will this post ever be finished? Not likely. Gary Pillard is an amazing human being and was a great teacher. He still would be a great teacher had he not retired. My one regret is that when I left Marysville behind, I left Mr. Pillard behind, as well. Since I rarely if ever go back to Marysville, I wonder if he feels that way, too? That I just… escaped and never returned or acknowledged him. I hope not. So this is for you, Pil. I love you. You were my second father, and you taught me so much. I am an artist because it was born into my blood, but I am also an artist because you helped cultivate the artistic soul within me, and helped it grow into what it is today. I owe you a lifetime of debt.
-Neal