From Dana Perkins, who presented the following at Mom's Life Celebration .. about the Ripples of Influence of a teacher:    The video of Mom's life celebration includes this presentation: https://vimeo.com/867692984?s…

Dana:

"Thank you for the opportunity for me to take a few minutes to share the impact of a very special woman in my life and the lives of our family. Her name is Rosalie Barden.

Terrilynn and I had a discussion about the “Ripple Effect” that we can have on other people’s lives, and Rosalie Barden is a prime example!

I attended Gorham High School in the 1970s, which, at the time, provided NO financial support for the arts or theater because the school administration’s opinion at that time was that "there are no vocational opportunities in those areas". In MY opinion, that's not true, but I digress.

As I recall, Rosalie Barden finagled her way into teaching an art class at the high school for just ONE semester, and she literally taught the art class from a cart of art supplies she rolled around. The high school wouldn't even give her a room to teach the class in! Our art class met in a corner of the cafeteria, or in the hallway. She did the best she could with what she had.

As for ME, I was looking for an easy class to take, and I did the minimal amount of work I could do to pass her class. Rosalie was always polite, and somehow she put up with me and my minimal artistic efforts.

She always had an encouraging word for her students.

Well, her class inspired me, believe it or not, to go to Art School, where I earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at the University of Wisconsin. I mentioned the “Ripple Effect”, and that's Ripple Number 1.

While at college, I met my future wife Shari. We've been married 47 years (so far). She majored in Social Welfare, and she minored in Art. That's Ripple Number 2.

My Dad, who was a white collar corporate guy all of his life, admitted that me marrying Shari may have made it worth his investment in my art degree, after all. Later, we had two boys, and because of our art backgrounds, we recognized and encouraged their artistic talents by proudly displaying their artwork in our home art gallery, which was on our refrigerator door. In my opinion, if you want to see interesting artwork that’s straight from the heart, take a look at what proud parents have posted of their children’s art on their refrigerator doors.

I ended up working in commercial art, advertising, graphic design, and printing, which all used my art skills. That’s Ripple Number 3.

While we were raising our two boys, my wife was looking for something she could do at home for income, so I taught her how to do signs and truck lettering out of our garage, which used BOTH of our art skills. She was very successful at it! So that's Ripple Number 4.

One of our sons went to the Rochester Institute of Technology and majored in Product Design, so he took a mix of engineering and ART CLASSES. That's Ripple Number 5.

Our other son went to Syracuse University, where he majored in Illustration. Then he went on to learn 3D Computer Animation, which pushed the limits of his art skills, but in three dimensions. For many years, he worked for the "Big Boys" in Hollywood doing movies like Spider Man, Star Wars, streaming TV shows, and even a Super Bowl ad. Now he's working on animation projects for a new venue, known as “The Sphere” in Las Vegas. (I’ll let you look that up on Youtube.) That's Ripple Number 6.

My point is this: Amazingly, our ENTIRE FAMILY has earned good livings in fields that have "no vocational opportunities".

Regardless of the field, whether it’s Science, Agriculture, Medicine, Manufacturing, the Trades, etc., if there are no creative people to create and share their ideas through art and theater (which includes performing, public speaking, music, videos, movies, TV shows, commercials, etc.), then nobody else has a job.

Literally hundreds of thousands of people have seen, benefited from, or enjoyed our family’s creative work, and it’s Rosalie Barden’s legacy that continues through us.

So this is my huge THANK YOU to Rosalie Barden for having made such a big impact on not only OUR lives, but also the lives of the people who are enjoying our collective work!"