By Kiana Caranto

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Fine Arts teacher Ruth Ravina-Koethe has been exposed to art her whole life and uses it as a medium to communicate what cannot be put into words. She now shares her knowledge and experience with students enrolled in her Drawing and Painting course at MHS.

“The first day in college I went and sat down in my first art class. I didn’t know what was going on. I thought they were speaking a different language,” said Ravina-Koethe, “I told myself if I ever became a teacher, I would make sure that my students didn’t have that kind of feeling.”

As a child, Ravina-Koethe remembers creating art more than anything else. She carried this inspiration for art through high school and graduated college with a degree in Fine Arts Drawing and Painting. After college, Ravina-Koethe began volunteer-work teaching art and decided to get her teacher’s certificate. “When I was volunteering, I felt like I could (do) this and I enjoyed sharing my passion for art,” said Ravina-Koethe.

Ravina-Koethe loves sharing her knowledge with her students and follows the motto: it’s always wrong before it’s right. “It’s okay if it’s not right at first. It might take practice or it might take another coat or it might mean doing it over to get it right. And it might not get right for years. It’s okay,” said Ravina-Koethe, “I think that’s one thing I tell my students, that I don’t expect them all to be the best artists, but just to try hard.”

Her passion is evident in her teaching and her students acknowledge this. “She’s taught me appreciation for art. She loves to talk to her students, like I’ve had a lot of good conversations with her,” said Senior Tess Cramer, her student of two years, “She’s just so passionate that it inspires me to be more passionate about art.”

Today, Ravina-Koethe continues to practice art in many mediums. She prefers two-dimensional art, specifically charcoal, pastels and colored pencil for drawing and oil paints for painting. She takes her inspiration from things around her but also finds it within herself. “A lot of times I am inspired by nature, but there’s typically something within. I always have an inner voice,” said Ravina-Koethe.

Art is a huge part of Ravina-Koethe’s life, whether it be helping her students with their pieces or creating her own pieces to give to others; but above all, she does it for personal enjoyment. “Art is a way of communicating a sharing your feelings and for some people writing or speaking is a good way to do it, and for others art is. So I think that’s why I like art. It’s to share my feelings and my thoughts about certain things,” said Ravina-Koethe.

Ravina-Koethe hopes to continue to produce art as a means of expression and to pass on her love for art to her students.