I was fortunate as a girl to be given piano lessons. Our church’s organist, Ms. Shimmels, would come to our house weekly and patiently work with me on theory and technique. I’ll admit that I loved it and hated it. I really wanted to be better at playing, but daily practice sessions were so hard to get excited about. It’s the age-old conundrum of the wannabe.
I loved to perform, though, so I did get excited about recitals. I practiced the heck out of my recital music, learning it so well that I would get to the end of the piece and not remember the details of having played it (like when you drive a familiar route on auto pilot).
Each year Ms. Shimmels’ students came together to perform for their families at the Fine Arts Association in Willoughby, and these photos are from our recital in the summer of 1978.
It was a really big deal to me, and my family treated it that way, too. My mom made this sweet yellow dress for the occasion (as she often did for my recitals over the years). And two of my aunts (Mary Lou and Rose) drove from Pennsylvania to be there for it.
I remember quite a lot about this special day, considering it was almost 37 years ago, and I’m grateful for everyone who worked together to make it happen.
Product/technique notes
I followed this Let’s Get Sketchy January sketch quite closely:
Most of the patterns I used are from Jillibean Soup’s “Chilled Cucumber Soup” collection. I designed the title and cut it on my Silhouette.
What a gorgeous page!! I love this collection you’ve used!!