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Teacher Squeezes Creative Juices

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By ELAINE MARKOWITZ Tribune correspondent

Published: January 26, 2008

Updated: 01/24/2008 09:46 pm

SUN CITY CENTER - Joan Shalleck's home in Sun City Center reflects the artistic spirit of the occupant.

Paintings appear on walls and easels, modern sculptures dot tables, colorful plants abound. The small home is bright with light and color and multiple forms of art.

The native New Yorker is an artist for all seasons. She paints, sculpts, writes and appears to revel in creativity of all sorts.

"People who have creativity as part of their personality are fortunate," she said one recent morning in her living room. "We have a constant way of regenerating our creative energy."

These days, regenerating that energy comes from inspiring others to tap into their creative center. As director of the arts at the SouthShore Regional Library and instructor of a life-story writing course at the University of South Florida, Shalleck urges others to let their creative juices flow freely.

At the library, Shalleck is honing the talents of the young. That goal has its roots in her childhood in Brooklyn, N.Y.

"From age 5 on I always drew and painted," she said. "My mother supplied me with blocks of clay and big, fat crayons."

The budding artists she guides are achieving success. One of Shalleck's recent undertakings has been the creation and sale of the young people's greeting cards.

This year the library sponsored a student art competition among elementary and middle school children and chose eight winners. The designs were then turned into greeting cards bearing the name and school of the artist on the back.

The cards are sold in packages consisting of all eight designs for $10. Proceeds are used to benefit the Friends of the Library.

"This will be an annual event," she said. "We'll get a new set of cards each time."

Shalleck said her love of nature will translate into programs as well.

"I'm working to get an expert on botanical art to come in," she said. "That's my thing - flowers and plants."

That spark lit at age 5 has remained with Shalleck. She graduated in 1955 from Cooper Union School of Fine Arts in New York City with a major in graphic design and then secured teaching credentials at Pace University in New York. She taught art classes to public school students in Ossining, N.Y., for decades.

Painting continues to lure Shalleck, whose preferred medium is acrylics. A member of the Art Club of Sun City Center, she recently completed a seascape painted from a photograph.

Several other pieces draw the eye. On an easel stands a large canvas in the works, featuring a lush purple hyacinth in full bloom. Another painting utilizes a multimedia approach, where Shalleck placed dried petals and leaves onto a watercolor background.

Writing, another creative outlet through the years, included stints editing Patterns, the literary magazine of Midwood High School in Brooklyn, and a job as a fact-checker for Time magazine.

Her love of writing was rekindled in 2005 by an article about a life-story writing class offered by the University of South Florida's Lifelong Learning Institute. She enrolled in the eight-week class, and the written word as a tool for creativity rose to the fore once again.

When instructor Carol Byrd retired, Shalleck was primed to replace her. The next session was hers.

"I just love to do it," she said. "It's spectacularly successful to the people who get involved in it."

Most students, she said, consider their lives boring, yet they show up for the class, which Shalleck limits to 12.

"Somewhere in their minds, many want to leave something to their heirs, even if it is cut and dry," she said.

She said that seeing their memories revealed on paper astounded her students. She likened their uncovered memory bank to a leaky faucet that won't stop pouring forth water.

"By the last session they can't turn it off," she said.

Students meet for two hours Friday mornings at the university library. The plan for the eight-week course has a loosely set agenda.

The atmosphere is essential, Shalleck said. Students sit in a circle in a quiet room with the door shut. She said they also sign a confidentiality agreement to ensure safety in revealing personal thoughts.

Writing assignments are varied and designed to trigger memories. Included are writing a letter to departed loved one, a story about a great love, a story about a child and an incident from one's own childhood. Students are asked to go beyond facts and recapture emotions associated with their memories.

Shalleck has submitted student memories to the Prime Time page of The Tampa Tribune as well. "They've been published 17 times," she said.

GET TO KNOW

WHO: Joan Shalleck

LIVES: Sun City Center
COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT: Director of the arts, SouthShore Regional Library; life-story writing instructor, University of South Florida's Lifelong Learning Institute

CREATIVE OUTLETS: writing, painting

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