Tallahassee Democrat 11/29/2015 Page : D06

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T L H LO C A L

It’s hard not to smile when first en-tering art teacher Margie Grussing’sclassroom. An upside-down inflatableSpiderman carefully watches overdrying paintings and the walls are col-laged with master artists and fun, en-couraging posters. Shelves lined withsculptures and paint jars also host char-acters from Star Wars, Despicable Me’sminions, and Spongebob Squarepants.

“I like to think of my room as theidea room or the imagination room,”says Grussing, who connects with herstudents through pop culture. “I’vefound the more things I can put up toinspire them, the better.”

Grussing is a work of art herself.For the past 13 years, she’s broughtpaintings to life in Astoria Park Ele-mentary’s yearbook photos, posingsolemnly as the grandmother in GrantWood’s American Gothic and splatter-ing paint on her face to be a part of aJackson Pollack original. The biggesthit was her Vincent Van Gogh imper-sonation against a Starry Night back-drop with a bandage on her ear.

Playfully spirited, Grussing movedto Tallahassee at age 11, and took upmusic and theater while doing hobbyart projects on the side. She graduatedwith a degree in Art Education fromFlorida State, and was Sable Palm Ele-mentary’s Teacher of the Year in 2002.

Grussing is thankful for mentorslike fellow local art teacher JulieMcBride for imparting valuable teach-ing strategies. Along with her actingbag of tricks, all techniques come inhandy during her 45-minute art classes,six times a day, with approximately 570students seen each week.

“I’ll just start singing an instruction,and sometimes I’ll do a little accent,”laughs Grussing. “Of course they thinkI’m crazy as a loon but at the same timethey listen. It gets their attention.”

Grussing’s own elementary artteacher left a lasting impact on her bygiving encouragement to enter schoolproject fairs and the county fair in herhometown, Horseheads, New York. Alove for fairy tales manifested inprincess-story dioramas, like Cinderel-la and Sleeping Beauty.

One year Grussing even attemptedbaking with art, constructing a fantasycastle out of cake and icing. Warmmemories of her grandparents’ creativ-ity and praise helped her soldier on

when she didn’t win a prize for theexperimental piece. Her father, anevolving artist himself, was anothermajor influence as his constructionwork exposed her to new resources.

“I had always used paper, cardboard,and glue, but one year I did an Eiffeltower sculpture with twisted wire,”remembers Grussing. “He opened meup to some other materials that I hadnever considered to use in art beforelike wire, Plaster of Paris, and screen.”

Nowadays, clay is her medium ofchoice, with lively animal characters asher subject matter. She’s an avid bird-watcher, owls being her favorite, andhas volunteered with St. Francis Ani-mal Hospital. However, what reallymotivates Grussing to create is makingart as gifts for others. Her latest pro-ject was a light-heartedly painted piecefor her sock-monkey collecting friend.

Her artistic process mirrors whatshe teaches, and begins with a clearvision and sketches. Grussing enjoyssharing clay techniques with studentswith each grade getting a chance makesomething once a year. It’s one of herstudents’ most anticipated projects,though many enjoy drawing charactersinspired by video games, or even il-lustrating original fashion designs.Grussing channels their creativitythrough self-directed artistic expres-sions at the “Free Drawing Land” sta-tion, stocked with paper, supplies, artbooks, puzzles, and more.

“That is where they get to go whenthey’re done with their work,” saysGrussing. “It gives them that chance todraw something that they really like.

I’m just trying to reach them any way Ican.”

By using a smorgasbord of differentmediums, Grussing allows students toexpress themselves and flourish basedon their learning styles. She ties mathand language arts into her lessons whenpossible, her current project withyounger students using “goodie trays”filled with buttons, ribbon, and beads tobring alive snowmen from the book“Snowmen at Night.”

She sees value in merging with otherdisciplines while meeting state stan-dards, often collaborating with AstoriaPark’s music teacher as well. Herteaching philosophy is to open her stu-dents up to worlds unknown and posi-tively touch their lives through art,getting them “jazzed” up about newviewpoints.

“These kids really need art,” ex-plains Grussing. “They need it to dis-cover themselves, their peers, andother cultures. It’s just so excitingwhen they come in the room and theysee something and it triggers memoryor an idea.”

COCA’s annual Winter FestivalYouth Art Exhibition marks her favor-ite time of the year. The venue, lights,and music get Grussing into the holidayspirit for this cozy, family-friendlyevent. She is grateful to select andshow two outstanding student works inthe City Hall Art Gallery, with thisseason’s exhibition featuring her stu-dents’ unique, clay bugs. The eventgives local art students from Kinder-garten to 12th grade a chance to proud-ly showcase their hard work, and al-lows the community, and their peers, tocelebrate their creative accomplish-ments.

“I feel like every child should beexposed to art and creating art,” saysGrussing. “I think it’s good that thepublic sees how important it is for thearts to be out there and that childrenare creating and using their imagina-tions, too.

Amanda Sieradzki is the featurewriter for the Council on Culture & Arts.COCA is the capital area’s umbrellaagency for arts and culture (www.tallahasseearts.org).

AMANDA SIERADZKI

Students receive some pointers from Grussing during class.

Art educator inspirescreativity in studentsAMANDA SIERADZKICOUNCIL ON CULTURE & ARTS

IF YOU GOWhat: The 2015 Winter Festival Youth ArtExhibitionWhen: Public Reception and Awards Cere-mony is 6-7:30p.m., Friday, Dec. 4. Galleryviewing is 8 a.m.-5:30 p.m., Monday-Friday,through Jan.11.Where: City Hall Art Gallery, 300 South Ad-ams St.Cost: FreeContact: For more information, call 850-224-2500 or visit http://www.cocanet.org/city-hall/.

“This Old Man: All in Pieces”(Doubleday), by Roger Angell

You don’t make it to age 95 with-out seeing a lot of stuff. Or in thecase of Roger Angell, writing it.

Having delivered his memoirnearly a decade ago (”Let Me Fin-ish,” published in 2006), Angellcombed through six decades’ worthof work to put together this collec-tion: “This Old Man: All in Pieces.”

Much of it is reprinted from thepages of The New Yorker. Angell’s atrue craftsman, carefully pickingeach word and phrase and, like any

good editor,cutting out thefluff. The bestentries areabout base-ball, which hebegan cov-ering for TheNew Yorkerin 1962.There areobits for BobFeller, EarlWeaver and

Don Zimmer, tributes toJackie Robinson, Derek Jeter andBob Gibson, and game recaps fromrecent World Series victories by theRed Sox and Giants.

As Angell writes in the introduc-tion, “Readers are invited to … skipabout, make a grab, turn back.”

So first read the title piece nes-tled near the end if you haven’t al-ready. Angell wrote “This Old Man”last year and it deserves every acco-lade it’s received. Deeply personaland yet universal in its sentiment,it’s a marvel of the essay form.

Interspersed throughout the bookare non-traditional writings likehaikus about one of his beloved foxterriers and The New Yorker’s annu-al Christmas letter (”Greetings,Friends!”), as well as correspon-dence between Angell and the fictionwriters he collaborated with for themagazine — Ann Beattie, RobertCreamer and Tracy Daughtery, justto name a few. To Beattie, now one ofthe country’s most celebrated shortstory writers, he wrote in 1985: “I’msorry — extremely sorry — to saythat we’re sending back ‘AnotherDay.’ No one here could recognizethese people; they don’t seem to haveany connection with real life.”

The “Past Masters” is anotherhighlight. Angell offers literarycriticism of “Lolita” as he remem-bers Vladimir Nabokov, pays tributeto the eternal writerly advice of hisstepfather, E.B. White, in “The Ele-ments of Style” (”Revise and re-write,” ‘’Do not explain too much”and “Be clear”), and heaps praise onthe illustrations of William Steig,whose cartoons distinguished TheNew Yorker from other magazines.

What stitches together the col-lection is a sense of gratitude. Angellknows he’s lived a full life enrichedby family, friends and colleagues.He doesn’t know when his life willend, but came to terms with thatlong ago. (From “This Old Man”:“There’s never anything new aboutdeath, to be sure, except its im-proved publicity.”) It feels like heassembled this collection in greatpart to say thank you. But it’s hisreaders who should be saying it. Foras long as we have him and as longas he’s still contributing to TheSporting Scene and other fixtures ofThe New Yorker, we should appreci-ate his talent.

BOOK REVIEW

10 decadesand stillgoing: Angelllooks backROB MERRILL ASSOCIATED PRESS