High standards & Holey Bears

Three “Holey Bear” ^ linoleum prints 

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 I love the art teacher, so I was surprised this morning that he said to me– speaking across the classroom room so everybody could hear – – he said,

“Fresca – – I told this student that I’m sorry I didn’t do what I’d said I’d do for her, but I told her she should get used to men letting her down, because men are always letting women down. Don’t you think so?”

“No, I don’t”, I said.

“You don’t?” he said, obviously surprised, like he was expecting I was going to jokingly go along with this.

“No,” I said. “I think humans let humans down, for sure. But men and women? We’re in this together. We should hold each other to high standards.”

“‘Hold each other to high standards’ he repeated, “– – I like that. But this weekend, somebody said to me that men always let women down…”

“That’s kind of a mean thing to say,” I said.

 “I thought so too!” he said.

None of the students said anything, so I have no idea what they thought – – but telling a room with a lot of 15, 16-year-old boys in it that men are always going to fail women and telling girls that they should expect it is pretty atrocious. 

And yet it’s the sort of thing people feel they can say… (Btw, the teacher is a Black man, in his fifties.)

I really do like and respect this teacher a lot – – and he seemed kind of relieved that I rejected his statement. Later he even said thank you. And he gave me a new linoleum block to carve!

So, here’s the third of the Holey Bear prints—portraits of thrift store-reject rescues.❤️

This is Unknown Bear. The lettering on all the prints is by my student. (He prints it out, I photograph and reverse it so I can carve it backwards. He doesn’t seem to care that I ask him to do this, but I’m not sure… He doesn’t mind, certainly.)