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you see." I recall that what some of my schoolmates saw occasionally surprised me. But Miss McDermott did not object if an orange came out looking like a pomegranate or the water color of a bouquet a shapeless montage. To that degree, she could be said to have been a precursor of a "modern" art. As we worked, she walked up and down the aisles, looking over our shoulders at the drawings. She might make a small suggestion here and there, but essentially she encouraged us to "paint what you see." I recognize now that she was endowed with an exquisite color sense and she helped develop mine. I can only hope that I have repaid my debt to her. 
Looking back to that time, the first lessons from Elizabeth McDermott, it is obvious that the twig already had been bent. Other studies interested my, English and History for example, but painting and drawing became almost a mania. I began carrying a sketch book. It soon filled with representations of objects that caught my eye, either because of the colors or the design, a green cactus plant, wild flowers in a setting of yellow wheat, a shaft of sun-