It's my birthday and I'd like to pay tribute to my greatest teacher, Albert Polman, who died Tuesday evening of a heart attack on the couch of his Brantford home. I saw him this summer, visited him on a whim, with Kat, who tells me she could see how special he was in that one brief visit. I'm so glad I saw him. I'm glad he never had to vacate his art-filled kingdom, with it's vast lawn covered with trees and statues of little animals and icons of St. Francis.
And as fellow student Laurie Armstrong (whose image is reproduced above) wrote in her message to me about it,
Cheers to my fiesty, eccentric and ultimately lovable Sir!
Go visit the people that reminds you of.
p.s. when I visited him, he told me that in 92, a couple of years before he retired from teaching, he got very depressed. He was depressed for ten years. Then one morning, about 3 years ago, he woke up and it was over. He was full of the brio and zorba of life again. So the last three years were full of projects and his only regret was his age-old one that there just weren't enough hours in the day.
9 comments:
What a warm tribute to Mr. Polman. And I am charmed by the inclusion of my artwork, too -- encouraged, as I was by the man, to hone in on what would become my personal "impression of the world" (as he called it). He'll always be around my scritching, scrawling pens, pencils and brushes.
Thanks Laurie. See you at Christmas...
Well, I'm so glad to see this tribute..I really do wonder how many of Mr. Polman's past students paid a visit on a whim. I did the same many times.. I will never forget sitting and just listening to him speak as he'd "roll a cigarette" just as he did "in the back" for so many years with his pull-out ashtray. I feel blessed to have been taught and been friends with Polman. He was always quite against any talent being wasted. And would tell you so. I will miss him so much. Remember Fra Lippo Lippi..
:-( Tonya Lefebvre
Are you Dave and Ken and Philip's sister? You must be.
hi..i dont know if you'll ever see this. I had Mr.polman as an art teacher the year before he retired, and he was by far the best teacher i have ever had in high school. Now in my 30's and still doing art as a career, I will always remember albert as the grey haired man who helped me really look at art the way it was suppost to be.
Cheers!
Darryl Bisson
Yeah I saw it. Did you google Mister Polman?
yeah i did.
I just happened to google Mr. Polman and came across this blog. I too visited him on a whim the summer before he died. Mr. Polman is one of the reasons I am who I am today and I'm so glad I had a chance to spend a couple of hours chatting with him that one weekend.
Maybe that's why he didn't look so surprised to see me.
I googled him back then and found nothing. I wanted there to be something to be found.
Post a Comment