TEST OF ADMITION

     To describe my first day of class at the best Art University in Guatemala is to describe my mentor, a man who traveled to Europe to learn with the best of the best. He was an estranged man, an eccentric artist with a big heart who took a chance on me.

    I came really early to the art department; I wanted to see the class before anybody else to my surprised it was a big salon. The room was open it was to neat for an art class. To the right I noticed a big glass mirror maybe an eight by eight, it looked like one of those double size mirrors for an NCIS interrogation room. To the left I counted twenty chairs, very ergonomic for its time, like the ones you buy in Ikea this days. In the middle it was the biggest canvas I have ever seen, it was primed and ready to paint, in the small table were brushes, rulers, pencils, charcoal sticks and different types of paint.

    I went to the cafeteria for a quick breakfast, a lot of the fellow students were there and most of them were very polite smiling and I even hear to say “morning professor”, but it was to early and when I am nervous I hear things. I went back to the class five minutes before the class started, somebody told me that if you arrived on time to his class, he thinks you are late. People always talked about his methods of teaching they were very unconventional, for example one complete semester the professor had the students paint bricks on watercolor paper, yes bricks he wanted the students to learn about shadows and the way light bounces from solid surfaces.

    When I came into the class the twenty chairs were taken and a few students were standing , the only empty place was the professor’s desk. I entered the class and everybody stop talking, I was holding my laptop bag, which was full of paper and art supplies. I have a wit and a sense of humor so I said out loud “good morning class”, to my surprise the whole class answered “good morning professor”, what to do?, well I went to the desk, drop my bag to the floor and turn to my fellow students. I didn’t said anything, the empty canvas was there waiting like a mistress ready for a class in the art of love making.

    What was I thinking? I took my jacket off, took some charcoal sticks and began drawing like crazy on the white canvas until it was almost full, then I turned to the rest of the class and asked them, who else is an artist in the class? Half the class raised their hands. So what are you waiting for? Most of the class came and follow my lead.  We finished the painting in a couple hours, this class is four hours long. As soon as we finished the painting the real professor came into the class, he stood still in front of the painting without a word, I knew immediately who he was.

    After a while he turned around, went to his desk and pull a piece of paper from a drawer and said “All of you who painted this piece write your names in this piece of paper.” Everybody was looking at me and the professor, I know that they were asking themselves what that….is going on? He introduced himself and everybody’s job dropped faster than the dollar in an European market, they could not believe what just happened and the class was buzzing with rumors.

    He told us that the mirror was indeed one way mirror and he was watching and recording the entire class. This is my admission test for this semester. I looked at me and said “Vasquez” the class is going to finish one hour earlier starting today, you will stay and clean the class until further notice if you want to stay in my class, the rest of you I will see you next time. Class dismiss.

    Well it was worth it, I was not kick out of  school, and my classmates admired my sense of humor and my wit. I went to school for a month and dropped the class and  left the country in search of a better future. I never asked my mother the real reason I was sent to the States, maybe it was the internal war in the country, the kidnapping of the intellectual people, the doctors, the students and anybody who had something to say.

The End