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Asher: Students learn about themselves through art

Bethany Blitz | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 8 years, 3 months AGO
by Bethany Blitz
| October 23, 2016 9:00 PM

Pamela Asher’s classroom is busy, but in a calm way. Everyone is focused on their projects, adding small details here and there to sculptures, prints or drawings. The natural light gives the place a relaxed feeling and Asher herself makes the place very welcoming.

The Lake City High School art teacher has given her love to her art and her students. Last week, she got some love back.

Asher received the 21st Annual Mayor’s Award in the Arts for Arts in Education Thursday, Oct. 13. The award recognizes educators, individuals, businesses or organizations for their efforts to strengthen public arts education within the geographic area of the Coeur d’Alene School District.

When Asher found out she had been nominated, she said she was honored. She reached out via Facebook to past students and colleagues, asking for someone to write a letter of recommendation for her to get the award.

“Suddenly the inbox just started blinking. I got about 50 letters from people, students I had 25 years ago,” she said. “I just started sobbing. I told my husband, if I ever die, use these letters in my eulogy, you don’t need anything else.”

Asher’s students love her. Her classroom is a safe place where people can be themselves and express themselves freely, without judgment from her or anyone else.

Ryan Hamm, a senior at Lake City High School, has taken eight classes with Asher.

“I like that she is very open minded about everybody,” Hamm said. “She doesn’t limit anybody to anything and gives 100 percent to every kid.”

Shealyn McCune, a junior in Asher’s Sculpture and Three-Dimensional Design class, said she appreciates the independence Asher gives her class and was disappointed she couldn’t attend the award ceremony for her teacher.

“She built this class ground-up,” she said. “Everything she did, she did for us. I don’t think she gets enough recognition for how amazing this class is.”

The Press sat down with Asher to talk about art, education and the pursuit of happiness.

• • •

How did you get to Lake City High School?

Well, I started off in the airlines. Then my husband got a job in Rathdrum at Lakeland School District, so I finished my master’s degree in counseling and human services. I already had a degree in art education. And then I got a job at Timberlake. I was the very first art teacher in the school.

About four years later a counseling position opened up in the school and my principal offered me the job and I did it for a number of years.

Then I ended up going to Coeur d’Alene High, and I want to say I stayed there for about five years. And then I just really knew, that as much as I loved the kids, I just was not an office person.

That’s when I found out, just by a fluke — you know that moment in time when you are where you’re supposed to be — I was asked last minute to go to a luncheon and I met a woman from Lake City and she said there was an art opening.

I called the principal that day. I ended up with really what I think is the very best job I’ve ever had in my life. I’ve been at Lake City, I want to say about nine years.

What is it about art that you love so much?

The energy. The creativeness. There’s really no boundaries. You can just go for it, the kids can just go for it. They learn and they listen and they watch and they’re on their own. I don’t facilitate, I don’t tell them how to do something necessarily, maybe with drawing. I work with them on different techniques.

There’s just such a creative process and such an energy that is just exhilarating. And it’s that way with my own art, too, because I’m a working artist.

I do bronze and I do paintings and I show at Blackwell Gallery. And I feel very fortunate to be there.

I always give the kids extra credit if they go to Art Walk, but they have to go to all the galleries, that’s the deal. But they all stop by to see me and then they make their way down to all the galleries.

Some kids have lived here all their lives and never walked in an art gallery. So for 15 points that’s what we do. But it gets them out there and looking at other artists.

What’s your favorite project you do with your students?

Well, I love etching. My favorite project now is in my Sculpture and Three-Dimensional Design class where I show them all how to do the lost wax process. It’s what they use for jewelry design but it’s also the first part of making a sculpture. They do it either with plasticine clay or a wax and they build up their piece. From there we do a mold and take it to the foundry in Bozeman, Mont., and they get their pieces bronzed.

How we do that is, because we have an incredible low budget per student in art, it’s like a dollar and 50 cents a student. It doesn’t make pay for a semester for much. So I always do a bronze and I submit it to our school’s auction to raise money. I usually get just about enough money to pay for the trip.

I hear you’re going to retire soon?

I’ll probably retire in the next couple of years, I’m going to be 61, I’m old. But then I think, can I really not be with them?

You know, I’ve never grown up, I’m still in high school. But I’m more popular now than when was I actually in high school, not much, but more and my hair looks much better now.

What is a trait you most admire in somebody else?

Perseverance. Just, the follow through, the drive to go through what you need to go through to get it done. Kids have to learn that, too. There’s lots of stuff going on and they go through a lot of stuff in their lives and they have to learn how to get through it and come out on the other side OK. I admire perseverance. I always feel if you treat everybody with unconditional positive regard, period, especially my kids, then life is usually always great.

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