Today we’d like to introduce you to Rhonda Myers.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I grew up in a small MS town. Our high school was all sports and college prep, so they didn’t offer any art classes for any grade level. Bob Pittman who produced MTV and now owns Iheartradio, was in the class ahead of me, so there was always a very competitive vibe to the school. Everyone was expected to own a business, go to college and become a Dr., lawyer, or engineer.
I went to the local community college my mother had just retired from and planned on majoring in Art, as I designed and sewed custom clothes to earn spending money. Sadly, none of my art professors could draw or paint realistically and they didn’t know how to teach us. They just pushed Jackson Pollack as their inspiration and claimed no one wanted Classical Art anymore. I checked out all the want ads for artists and the pay was always $3 an hour or less and they wanted to see a portfolio, not a degree. I decided to leave school and worked for a hobby shop that paid $3 an hour plus commission and teacher’s fee. I learned counted cross stitch and other measured art processes. At 18 I married my current husband, and he taught me how to build furniture, and my mother taught me how to design and build a house. We started a furniture building side business after work. I was hired to teach furniture making at a small boy’s prison home and was paid more than my mother earned with a masters’ degree. It was a great time to be creative and help them design then build furniture and use all the power and hand tools, just using books from the library for instructions.
We moved to the New Orleans area and the want ads took up 2 to 3 sections in the Newspaper. I spent every Sunday reading the ads and applied for jobs that sounded interesting. Some I just did for 6 weeks to learn the business, but the opportunity to teach again came up, and I started teaching furniture making for a high school job training program. The pay was great, and I was home by 3, with 180 days off each year. Not having to work nights, weekends or summers gave us a chance to continue building furniture, hanging wallpaper, and trimming out houses for the 30 houses started every month in our neighborhood.
After studying for the NTE and passing it, I was transferred to middle school in an area so dangerous, that the school had 12 foot fences with barbwire. I taught industrial arts that included mechanical drafting and furniture building. I loved teaching there and had a lot of success showing providing students with skills that could legally earn them money. Again, I was home by 3, didn’t work nights or weekends and had 180 days off. I continued with my wallpaper business and my husband did the trim and welding. I ended up hiring many of my students and fellow teachers to help with all the wallpaper contracts.
One of my students brought his dad’s VIC20 computer to class and showed us basic programming. This sparked a new adventure, and I ended up opening 15 Summer program locations to teach students and teachers programming. We averaged 500 students a week, trained 200 teachers free, and donated all 200 computers plus to the schools that hosted our camps. The school where I taught would not let me teach programming during the regular school year as I did not have a degree, so they wanted me to teach their math teachers to use the computers I donated to them. Sadly, plug in video games became all the rage, and no one wanted to learn to create the games, just use the games. Programming should be required for all students just to teach logic and to provide more IT based to jobs to our graduates.
I started selling computers and training Architects and Engineers to use AutoCAD software, while I was building a house for a fellow teacher. I traveled all over the Gulf Coast and learned from each company and discipline in many industries from Oil and Gas, NASA, Construction, etc. I was offered a job that required us to move to NC so I could train teachers and college professors to use AutoCAD software. I sold and we installed labs from Wake Tech to WCU, and to almost every high school in the state, while designing and building a small neighborhood with my husband. This created all new opportunities.
Durham offered me a job teaching Architectural Drafting and Design for Northern High School and offered my husband a job teaching construction. What a great opportunity for us to work together, make it home by 3, and still build evenings, weekends, and Summers. Many of my students wanted to be Architects, but not everyone was accepted even with high SAT scores and perfect GPS. After talking to some of the design schools, I learned that they needed students to create outstanding portfolios in art or photography. I had to learn to draw and paint better so I could help my students succeed.
I found Frank Covino, a Korean War Vet, a former teacher for Norman Rockwell, and an amazing Classical Academic Art instructor. He showed us how to use math, science, and technology to create more realistic paintings as the Old Masters did.
I incorporated this into my classroom and in less than 3 days, every student learned to draw realistically just using grids. Students found that they could use their new skills to create realistic pencil drawings for money. I brought the new skills Frank Covino taught me into the classroom and we built it into the drafting class. Drawing and painting buildings around Durham to build their portfolios, and to cover the school walls with student work. Every student that applied for Architectural school was accepted because for portfolio,
My friend, Rey Arias was the manager of a restaurant that we loved to frequent. He let me know that he was opening a restaurant named Rey’s Restaurant. As he was from New Orleans and I was from New Orleans, I offered to provide all his artwork in exchange for exclusive rights to the walls. My students and myself created over 60 pieces of original art in less than 90 days. He invited the students to tour the restaurant with their work and provided them with a gourmet meal. Rey gave us display space in the hallway for student work, so many of them also were able to sell their paintings and drawings.
I opened a studio across the street from Rey’s with 3 other professional artists so I could offer a place for Frank Covino to teach when he came through Raleigh. After a successful Summer Camp, I started offering classes to students age 5 to adult. We provided artwork for Rey’s and sold work to raise money for Mrs. Zaytoun’s nursing scholarships. A local Art gallery owner, Robert Hensberry of Flink’s fine arts and framing started selling my artwork faster than I could create it. I owe all three of these men as well as my husband, for my success in teaching, painting, and selling.
I soon had over 60 students in the Cary Fine Arts studio just as I started teaching Architectural drafting for Apex High School. Many of my students lived close enough to come and help teach the 5 yr olds, along with Beth Reece and Nisa Foster. As I got closer to retirement, my husband converted our rental property into a 1500 sq. ft. art studio. Now we had more room to work and added sewing as well as painting to the mix. Morgan Smith joined us to work with our younger students and to help keep me organized. We continued to grow and expand up until the shutdowns. The students moved on to other pursuits, marriage, and college. I took in fewer students, we lost our wonderful Beth Reece, the heart and soul of the studio, to brain cancer, and the studio was never the same. We are slowly working on moving to a smaller space and turning my studio back into rental property. I will continue to paint and sew, and will work with one or two students at a time. My husband and I are planning on traveling more in our little RV between teaching and remodeling projects.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Not finding qualified teachers before meeting Frank Covino.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Portraits. We had 5 year olds creating Classical Academic portraits. We can teach anyone interested in painting realistic portraits or objects.
So maybe we end on discussing what matters most to you and why?
Excellence. After the disappointment of not having a college class that could teach me how to paint or draw, I believed that everyone should at least learn the basics of using math and science to create significant art.
Pricing:
- $40 an hour for classes.
- $100 for a set of tinted gesso in Verdaccio
Contact Info:
- Instagram: rhondamyersart@instagram.com
- Facebook: RhondaMyersArt@facebook.com
- Youtube: RhondaMyersArt@youtube.com
- Other: https://RhondaMyersArt.Etsy.com/listing/1524407418
