ArtsLIVE in Ventura County

Op-Ed / Essay Submitted by Maggie Kildee

Art … surprises

One day, when I was in the second or third grade, I was skating in those clamp-on rollerskates (Remember those?) when I spotted my mother sitting on the driveway with something in her lap.

When I stopped to get a closer look, I saw she was using colored chalk to create a picture of the gladiolas that were blooming along our driveway. I was so impressed she could just sit down and create something on paper that was so beautiful.

She instilled in me the belief anyone – even my mother whose profession was teaching – could create beauty.

When I was in fourth grade, the size of my hands and my reading ability played a major role in introducing me to music. The teacher picked four or five of us who were good enough students to miss a reading class once a week and sent us to the music teacher. He asked each of us to hold out our hands, and he looked at the spread of our fingers. Based on that, he asked if I would like to learn to play the cello. That led to opportunities to perform with school orchestras in both junior high and high school. There are still many classical pieces I recognize to this day because we played them during those years. 

Those two incidents led to a lifelong appreciation for the arts in all its forms. As a housewife, a mother, a teacher, a Ventura County supervisor, a full-time volunteer and now a sculptor, I have never stopped believing I could create beauty around me.

I learned to appreciate music by playing it, and I learned to be a sculptor by doing it. I found mentors who could teach me, because I believed I could do it. And all of that has been the foundation for my involvement with Studio Channel Islands Art Center and with the Camarillo Art and Jazz Festival. The mission of both those organizations includes helping young students develop their creative abilities.

If I can help teachers have the same impact on their students as my early teachers, including my mother, had on me, perhaps, one day those students will be the community leaders who find creative solutions to the myriad problems facing our world.  

– Maggie Kildee is president of the board of the Studio Channel Islands Art Center and a former Ventura County Supervisor.  

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