Scapbook page made by one of my teachers
How do you remember preschool? I remember a small building where the scent of cleaning products hit you like a truck as you walked in. Fluorescent lights, tiled flooring, and colorful carpets that littered the rooms dividing each year. A large playground where I made my first friends through rounds of hide-and-seek, cloud gazing, and bug collecting. Blue cots where the teachers had us nap in various corners of the room; I remember counting ants on the floor instead of napping, too proud to waste daylight sleeping (I was envious of my younger self in high school for this). The strongest memory I have is of an afternoon of painting.
We were supplied with pungent tempera paint in tiny plastic pot sets. The teachers would turn off the fluorescent lights and play calming music. We painted on thick pieces of paper that warped when I used too much water. At a wooden classroom table, we painted in small groups, sharing our paint pots and brushes. This was the one time I hated sharing; I wanted the paint set all to myself. One of my teachers would scold me for double-dipping my brush, but she didn’t understand; I needed a specific amount of paint on my brush for my vision to come to life. I didn’t create any specific scenes, rather using a state of flow to create various shapes and seeing where they would take me.
I remember throwing a small tantrum one day. My precious painting time was interrupted by outdoor playground time. Do I know why I was upset? Not really; I usually liked the preschool’s playground. But I wanted to keep painting; maybe it was because my skipped naps were starting to catch up to me. However, the teachers were already cleaning the classroom, so we reached an agreement: I could sit inside and read picture books until my parents picked me up. Perhaps this was the first time I felt my calling to the “art cave”.
