Who Is Teaching Art Today? Van Gogh? Rousseau?

Pat Everett has such a strong feeling about 19th-Century painters Henri Rousseau and Vincent van Gogh that she becomes them.

“I think it would be fabulous to be famous like them and be able to produce tremendous amounts of artwork,” said the Fullerton housewife, painter and special contract art instructor. However, she did grumble about the itchy mustache she wears to impersonate Rousseau.

Until her own paintings make her well-known and wealthy, Everett said, she becomes the famous painters through makeup, clothes that she buys from a Salvation Army store, and also by talking in a deeper voice.

Her work with kindergarten through sixth-grade students in the Fullerton School District is financed by the parents and teachers.

“This gives me a chance to show young people what the artists actually looked like in person and how they dressed, acted and painted,” Everett said, noting that her impersonations are the result of a trip to a Colonial village where people dressed in period clothing. “I thought, ‘Now why couldn’t I do that and make artists come alive for children?’ ”

So last year at Acacia Elementary School in Fullerton, Everett made her first appearance as Dutch painter Van Gogh, clad in a vest, painter’s smock and hat. And she proceeded to show the fourth-graders whom she had been teaching for 6 weeks the way it was in the famous artist’s lifetime.

“I was nervous the day I did it,” she said. “I wondered whether the children would accept it.”

They did. And since then, Everett has taken on the role of others, including American impressionistic painter Mary Cassatt.

“It’s easier for me to be a woman,” said Everett, 36, a graduate of Chapman College and the University of Colorado and the mother of two girls. “I don’t have to lower my voice.”

Despite her discomforts, “it’s a kind of a high to become those (artists), and through them I can get satisfaction that I have exposed these young students to the world of art, color and fantasy.”

She also discovered that “I didn’t have to be perfect for the children for them to get something out of it.”

Everett said she doesn’t like to delve too much into the artists’ personal life. Instead, “I get more into style and the way they paint,” she explained.

Eventually, Everett said, “I’d like to get on with my own artwork and paint in my own style. Lately, I find myself going to the desert to paint landscapes.”

Fullerton Fire Department engineer and paramedic Rick Riley, 39, has been named Firefighter of the Year by the Fullerton Firefighters Assn. But there are some who might think he’s out of step with his educational background.

He has an associate of arts degree in police administration from Harbor College in Wilmington and a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice administration from Cal State Long Beach.

“I started out thinking I wanted to be a police officer,” the Irvine resident said. “But after a while, I decided it just wasn’t in keeping with my personality. It seemed like people only call the police when they are having a bad time with someone.”

Riley noted: “Everyone loves firemen.”

Acknowledgments--Registered nurse Arlene Warco, an 11-year employee of Coastal Communities Hospital in Santa Ana, was named Employee of the Year and presented a $500 bonus check. Warco is a Huntington Beach resident.