A Safe Haven in Art
Competing responsibilities, conflicting emotions and the search for belonging are just some of the factors that make adjusting to high school tough. Like many others, Andrea Reed - or Blue Water, as she prefers to be called - struggled during this time of her life. And then she found her outlet in art.
While this Sanbornville, NH resident has been interested in art ever since she “picked up a pencil,” art became Blue Water’s “safe haven” in high school. It also gave her direction.
“My mom always told me I’d make a good teacher… but I was hesitant,” Blue Water admits. After a while, however, she found herself noting the positive and negative aspects of different teaching styles in her classes. Then, after working as a teacher’s assistant for both a freshman English and a Djembe class, Blue Water realized she had what it took. “Most of all, I feel strongly about art,” she says. “And no matter what, a teacher needs to be passionate about what he or she is doing.”
As a junior in the Progressive Program, Blue Water aims to earn her BFA with a K-12 certification in education. Afterwards, she wants to either become a high school art teacher so that she, too, can create a safe haven for struggling high school students, or she wants to continue her education to become an art therapist. “Art’s very therapeutic…both the process and the product. It can help people convey ideas that they wouldn’t be able to convey in other ways.”
Blue Water’s other passion is farming. For the past four years, she has spent her summers working on a vegetable farm and apple orchard near her home. This past March through May, Blue Water also took a GMC block course at Brunnenburg Castle in Dorf Tirol, Italy. While there, she studied agriculture, food production and consumption, and other topics that helped her connect with the environment and learn more about sustainable farming.
Blue Water has also spent time working at the Cerridwen Farm and is the president of the sustainable living floor. She hopes to incorporate these interests in farming and sustainability into her plans, too. “My main goal when I came to Green Mountain was obviously to get the degree—but I also wanted to find a community of people I have things in common with so that eventually we can be artsy together and live as a little family on a farm.”
By Nicole Ainsworth '09
