Teacher Speaks Children’s Language: Cartoons
The sound of waves crashing on the beach or birds chirping might be Curtis Visca doing his thing. “Sometimes when I’m drawing, I make weird sounds,” said the first-grade teacher and cartoonist who thinks cartoons are something “silly and simple.”
It’s no wonder a friend gave him the nickname “Wingnut.”
No matter. Visca often uses his cartooning skills to present an educational concept to his students at Truman-Benedict Elementary School in San Clemente.
“I teach kids how to draw, and the cartoons they make help them tap hidden resources,” he said.
For Visca, 23, a Cal State Fullerton graduate who is studying for his doctorate, cartooning not only became an infatuation but a chance for the big time.
“I was going to conquer the world because I thought I would be the next Charles Schulz (creator of the Peanuts cartoon). But I started getting rejection slips,” said Visca, who once worked at Disneyland as a sweeper and later in the art department. “That put me back in my place. And it hurt, because I thought I was something special.”
The central character in his cartoon is called “Wingnut.”
“Actually, I do myself in the cartoons,” he admitted. “It makes me feel good being able to draw something. It’s kind of a release for me at the end of a hard day.”
But the harsh reality of rejection led him to the greeting card business. “I wanted the big bucks and thought I could get there by using my artwork to sell things. It started out as fun, but it got more into just business, and I didn’t want that,” he said.
So at age 24, Visca decided he needed a career change and went back to school for his teaching credential, a family tradition. His mother and father and most of his uncles are teachers.
“I did some student teaching in elementary school, and I was concerned,” he said. “I didn’t think I could relate to them. But I found they didn’t have any hang-ups or worries, and I liked that.”
Visca oftens rewards good work in his classroom with a cartoon. “I think it makes the students happy to get a cartoon, and it makes me happy because I enjoy drawing them. I like to make people happy.”
In his early drawing days, his mother was not among the happy crowd. “I drew on the walls at home--and that really didn’t make her happy,” he said.
“I like to keep busy and keep moving,” he added, and that includes surfing. “My two escapes in life are surfing and cartooning.” He also continues to work as a free-lancer on greeting cards and T-shirts.
This summer, Visca is teaching cartooning to adults and children in the Dana Point Harbor Youth and Group facility, as well as for the San Clemente Recreation Department.
His students will know if he’s there. Visca’s license plate has the name Wingnut on it.
“Quilts are loving and keep people warm,” said Placentia resident Del Thomas, who is one of about 500 members of the Orange County Quilter’s Guild, which will leave its mark at the soon-to-be-opened Ronald McDonald House in Orange.
Each of the 36 beds at the facility, which will provide housing for out-of-area parents who bring their children to nearby hospitals, will have a quilt on it that was made by the group. In all, they will supply the house with 50 quilts.
Thomas said the guild can be seen working on a large, framed quilt on July 23 at the Orange County Fair. Thomas added: “Anyone who wants to take a stitch or two can join in.”
Acknowledgments--Registered nurse Janni Smith of Lake Forest was presented the Heart of Gold Award for her work with Nobel prize nominee Dr. Jerrold Petrofsky of Lake Forest, who is studying methods to benefit paralyzed individuals through the use of computerized electrical stimulation. The award was given to Smith, a critical-care nurse paralyzed from the chest down, by the National League for Nursing for her “professional excellence and exemplary dedication to nursing.”
