Art Day on Cedar Mountain (1994)

Some kids have band, choir, or orchestra stories from their high school years. My fondest school memories revolved around the art guild.


The first big art contest of the school year was always Art Day on Cedar Mountain. At least half a dozen other schools in the region joined us for the contest at the University's lodge , commonly referred to as "the college cabin" by the locals.

This time of year the mountain aspens wore halos of delicate yellow and orange that floated between the dark pines, and the crisp air hinted at the freezing autumn nights that an elevation of 8,000 feet can deliver. It was an opportunity to be outside (except for the year it snowed) , to attend workshops taught by master artists, and to win competitions against our peers.

Up to this point in my Junior year, I had only won a single prize at an art contest: a third place ribbon in eighth grade at the Hurricane Fantasy Art Contest. But the crop of artists from our school that always won had graduated last year, and the field was open for the rest of us to finally try our skills.

On the bus ride up I sat next to *Leta, my best friend of the last few years. Our friendship had never been perfect- it was born through the gradual abandonment of the rest of our small middle school group until we only had each other. We shared a mutual interest in drawing, and similar experiences of rejection by peers in our youth. But the last two years it had become obvious this wasn't enough; our connection was precariously slipping.

I was trying to graduate near the top of my class and had little time for the awkwardness of social gatherings, she had started skipping classes to smoke weed in the parking lot with her new stoner friends. I was taking AP courses and working on scholarship portfolios, she was working hard at cultivating her new image.

But on art guild trips, none of that mattered. It was like old times and we were the cool girls in the boys club; we joked and pushed each other around, wondering if this year we would finally win something good. We knew we were both fair artists, we just hadn't found our niche yet.

At the cabin, we decided to join the pastel workshop taught by Arlene Braithwaite. In the past we'd always attended the figure drawing workshop (where you draw a human model), a rather foolish choice considering the surroundings. We thought we drew people best, but we were getting bored doing the same thing every year, and decided to take a chance.

The two of us followed the group out into the tall grass near the cabin, where the dozen or more students sat in chairs around the artist's easel. I had seen Professor Braithwaite's work on numerous occasions and highly respected her talent at rendering realistic landscapes in pastels. Nevertheless, Leta and I continued on in our lighthearted mood, poking each other and giggling through her presentation. I suppose I didn't realize that adults spent hundreds of dollars on these kinds of workshops...today I am still rather embarrassed at our lack of respect while she taught.

When the presentation was over, we were allowed to go find a place to sit and work on our own interpretations of the scenery. (I don't remember the exact time we were allowed to work- perhaps two or three hours?) Leta and I made our way to a secluded spot on the other side of a nearby hill, where we could rest our backs against one of the many zigzag fences that covered the mountain.

The air was getting colder and clouds were moving in, but we had both found perfect views for our drawings. She had the perfect vantage point to see a penned horse down below, and I had an almost unobstructed view of the bright trees across the meadow. Almost unobstructed, because a small quakie was right in my way. I didn't want to move off my rock because the ground was damp, and it was too cold to remove my oversized green plaid jacket to sit on.

Finally it hit me...duh, just draw the tree into the picture! It was brilliant, and I got to work immediately, sketching the white trunk and luminescent orange leaves onto my picture. I threw in a skiff of blue onto the trunk so that it wouldn't look so stark against the other colors.

We worked in companionable silence, our fingers starting to numb in the cool mountain air, and our breath coming out as steam. Suddenly I realized it was starting to rain, so we gathered our supplies quickly and ran back to the warmth of the lodge. We had to finish our drawings from memory but I had the important details already down.

When time was up, everyone laid their paintings and drawings out on the long tables set up in the main room of the lodge.

The artists and professors who had taught at the workshops were the judges, and we waited in the dining area of the cabin while they deliberated over our pictures.

Finally time was up. We listened through all the other categories, until they finally came to the pastels. Leta won second place! I was so excited for her. They read the first place winner and I felt a pang of dissapointment. I hadn't expected to win first place, but I honestly thought my drawing was better than a lot of the other ones, and the only thing left was Best of Show. That always went to a Senior.

You guessed it. I was hardly even listening when they called my name for the grand prize, and I stood in shock as they handed me the biggest trophy I had ever seen.

That contest was the beginning of a long streak of wins through the next two years. I learned that taking a risk was almost always the way to get the winning picture, and that many people will hate you when you win a prize at every contest.

But this first win was a good win. My best friend won a prize too and we could share our triumph together. Our schoolmates were (mostly) happy for us for winning honors for our school, and the mood was merry on our trip home. I annoyed Leta by having her repeatedly tell me what I looked like when they called my name, but it didn't matter.

I recently retrieved my old portfolio from my parents home, and this drawing was inside. It wasn't nearly as good as I remembered it being, but it was still a wonderful reminder of a beautiful day on Cedar Mountain.



*some names have been changed
ps sorry this was super long