Teacher Inspires Winning Effort by Art Students

No one in the Ventura High School art studio was particularly surprised when one of the young artists there took first place in the UC Santa Barbara art contest over the weekend.

Or when Ventura High students scooped up six of the 12 creative art fellowships the university awarded Saturday to students across California.

They credit Patricia Post, often described as half-teacher, half-philosopher, who has built an art program at the school over nearly 17 years.

Surrounded by the smell of pastes, paints, inks and melting crayons, students are infused with doses of Post’s philosophy, encouraging them to accept challenges, think critically and interpret the world they see through different mediums, be it charcoal or acrylic paints.

Each year, Post’s students gain admittance to prestigious art colleges, and win numerous art awards and scholarships. “She has more students taking the AP [advanced placement tests] in art than most schools have students in art classes,” Principal Hank Robertson said.

On Saturday, six students picked up $2,500 fellowships each that they can use if they attend UC Santa Barbara, with senior Monika Navarro placing first, and senior Tyler Neumann third. Justin Conaway, Rita Abraham, William George and Richard Davis, among about 100 students statewide who sent in portfolios, also received the awards.

Navarro, whose winning artwork includes a series of self-portraits as well as drawings and paintings of the human body, says that what she learns in Post’s class has applications in her other classes.

“In art, you have to be not afraid of failure and get out of the comfort zone. If you don’t risk failure, you’re also risking accomplishment,” Navarro said.

In Post’s class, “you’re not just copying or just doing busywork,” Navarro said. ‘You’re learning how to think. I grew because of all the things she taught me.”

Though students in her class have won numerous awards, Post says she does not gear her class toward winning competitions and, in fact, cautions teachers about it.

“You must be careful because competition can teach toward competition . . . Every competition asks for something different.”

She explained that rather than teaching toward competition, which asks for a “product,” you “teach something noble and human, teach honesty, ethics and creative courage . . . to build a community that understands challenge, and is comfortable with paradoxes,” Post said.