Painting & Writing Classes in Upper Arlington

A few weeks ago my retired artist friend, Ann and I embarked on a trio of classes offered by the City of Upper Arlington Parks & Recreation Department. Some are taught at the Senior Center, others at the City Municipal Center, and still others at various locations around the city.

photo from Crimson Cup Coffee website

Our first class was at one of these “other” locations, a local coffee shop called “Crimson Cup” which is on the corner of Lane Avenue and Northwest (if you’re local and want to visit). Although it was a bit of a rush to get there punctually for the 6pm start time, we were just about on time. Though this class was being taught at three different sessions, we only had three people in our October session. Not sure how well attended the other two nights were/will be.

The class was both a coffee sampling session (which I’m sure was meant to increase business to the coffee house) and a painting (with watered down instant coffee crystals) class. To me that’s the best of both worlds, though sampling several different types of coffee after 6pm seemed like bad judgement to me, but I still accepted each sample and finished every drop!

The three samples we had were:

1) Spiced Coffee

2) Nitro Brew (with hops, definitely not my favorite)

3) Chamomile Latte (decaffeinated)*

* this is one of their coffee cocktail innovations

The Chamomile Latte was so good that my classmate and I each ordered a full size one. Since I wasn’t sure if what we ordered had caffeine in it or not, I just sipped mine a little opting to save most for the next day (future me was very happy I made that decision : )

As far as the class content goes, our teacher instructed us to empty our small sleeve of instant espresso into a small cup, then add a little water and scoop a little out into each of the cups in the small paint palette we had. We kept scooping little bits of coffee and adding more and more water to each different cup so we had different strengths of the sepia-colored coffee mixture.

these are the instructor samples

I found it a bit difficult to differ the degrees of shades as it’s not quite as easy as when you do it with paint. Part of me was so buzzed on coffee and just happy to be out on a work night doing something fun, that I didn’t really care.

Although we could paint whatever subject we wanted, the instructor showed us examples of her coffee paintings and suggested perhaps we try painting a coffee cup full of coffee. My classmate and I were keen on that idea, so we tucked right in. My friend, Ann, the rebel of the group : ) opted to do more of a freestyle mixture of shades in a freehand design.

I liked how the first mixture, which contained more coffee, was thick like ink and was a good texture for outlining objects. It also dried shiny, which was kind of cool.

Overall I was happy enough with my finished product, though it’s hardly gallery or museum-worthy (but I will probably print a small version of it to put in my coffee notebook).

The second class we took together was a departure from our usual art class as this time it was a writing class called, “Journaling: Clearing Your Path to Peace and Plenty.” This class was mostly about the benefits of spending 20-30 minutes a day journaling so you have somewhere to pour out all the myriad of thoughts we often have swirling around in our heads. It was strongly encouraged that this be a morning activity – like first thing. 

I think Ann definitely enjoyed this class more than I did as I found a lot of what the instructor told us to be a bit redundant due to my dabbling in the field of Happiness research (including an online class at Yale University I took this spring). There’s not much I don’t know at this point and feel like a bit of an expert (albeit one who often doesn’t practice what she preaches, but I’m still working on that). Also, there’s no chance in hell I will ever set the alarm to get up before my husband. I value my sleep and our marriage more than the possible benefit of this writing exercise.

At least this class cost a lot less than the coffee class, and it was still fun to get out with my friend, so it wasn’t a complete waste of time.

The last class in our trio was a class about “Writing Your Personal Essay” being taught by Andra Gillum, a freelance writer and the author of three children’s books: Doggy Drama, Puppy Drama, and Old Doggy Drama. http://www.doggydrama.com/author/

photo from author website

Of the many samples of her writing she shared with us, I definitely enjoyed her First Person stories that were published in our local paper, The Columbus Dispatch. Funnily enough, I happened to read her latest piece entitled, “Halloween is a Monster” on Saturday when my husband and I were enjoying our lattes in a coffee shop in Westerville. As all good coffee shops have at least one newspaper lying around for its patrons to read, there was one at our table and I grabbed the Arts section (while my husband, always one for more serious news, grabbed the Nation and World section).

Ms. Gillum gave us a copy of her original version so we could compare it with the published version to learn how much editing is done before an article goes to print. You don’t have to tell me. As someone who majored in Journalism and had my fair share of articles in the newspaper, I remember how it goes, and why you always put the most important details first, because cutting starts from the bottom up.

Most of the class was spent with Ms. Gillum helping us brainstorm by giving us lists and lists of writing prompts and various writing tips. The rest of the time was spent either writing, reading our samples out loud, or discussing them.

I feel bad that my friend, Ann had to miss class (due to a sudden illness) as she would have definitely enjoyed chatting with my four other classmates including Diane, a former tax auditor (who grew up in Arlington and now lives in the estate next door to where I live), and another lady whose name I don’t remember, but used to teach what was once called Home Ec, but is now sometimes called Family & Consumer Science. Then there was Jane, a social worker, who wrote a really poignant piece about her dad commenting on the speed of which a nearby patron tore through his ice cream sundae at Howard Johnson’s; something to the effect of, “he devoured that sundae like Sherman marched through Atlanta.” Because her father had only died within the last year or so, her feelings about him were still raw. She got a little teary-eyed reading it. We all thought she should try to get published somewhere or maybe read something on the radio on a program like “Moth Radio Hour.”

Then there was Amy, a library administrator in Worthington, probably the youngest in our group. I don’t remember if she shared anything or not, but being a librarian of sorts, we asked her lots of questions about what patrons like to read.

I feel like I got what I wanted out of class, which was to meet new people, get inspired, and do a little writing. I think my friend Ann would have enjoyed it too (I sent her the hand-outs and notes I took), and she definitely has a lot of interesting stories to tell that she’s shared with me from time to time.