Patsy Fata local Otara artist... thank you!

Featuring today a photo print that was gifted to me by my artist friend Patsy Fata, a very gifted artist whom I've known since I first started teaching in high school. I was a newbie English teacher and she was the resident art teacher. I remember thinking at that time that being an art teacher must be the best teaching job because you'd get to teach what you enjoy and students liked being there in listening to the latest music and creating what they wanted.

Patsy was also the Art, wardrobe and music directors of the 3 high school productions that I wrote for the high school that we both taught at of "Maui and Sina", "Tagaloalagi" and "Su'e the lost son" (the latter play now to be released early next year). In fact, it was pretty much a 2 woman band as we were both single, very passionate about the arts and believed in the students and their potential. And the community rallied behind with sold out performances and lots of positive feedback for the students from their friends and families. I was also told that having original performances like that were unprecedented at the time which was encouraging to know about.

It's now neat to see that the plays have now come full circle with the scripts now dusted off my bookshelf and published for next generations to read, perform or view. I've now have the plays at the University of Auckland library, University of Otago with interest from Waikato University in my books and growing.

And that's the thing that I've learnt from being a teacher of English in that it gave me a good basis from which to study and teach literature by a variety of authors and to share about what I'd learnt and now I can write about what I feel passionate about too and encourage other talented individuals around me to do the same too.

So now looking forward to seeing more of Patsy Fata's works of art out for the public to enjoy and share in. The world is your oyster...