When Linda Prussick was a child she always did her drawings with her eraser close at hand afraid she would make a mistake. Today she welcomes "mistakes" and even encourages her students to make them! Whether teaching Painting, Drawing or Mixed Media to children, or Paper Pleasures, Papier Mach6, jewellery Making or Calligraphy to adults, Linda asks her students to let go and give themselves a chance. She sees that when they do, students excel beyond the preconceptions of their own abilities. Linda knows that "mistakes" lead to new possibilities.

Being open to new experiences and challenging personal boundaries is what brought Linda to teaching in the first place. While working as a graphic designer and illustrator for an advertising agency in Ottawa, she felt isolated in her work, always needing to please someone else. Linda left the agency and freelanced for a year before moving to Toronto to attend the Ontario College of Art. She completed the four year Communication and Design Program in two years and won a scholarship for Calligraphy and an award for gen- eral Design and Illustration.

One day while dying a scarf, Linda was drawn to the colour and pattern appearing on the blotting paper underneath the fabric and she started to play with the image. This experience sparked her ongoing love affair with paper. Why paper? "It's a modest material that offers so many opportunities ... it's a good medium for recording thoughts, for drawing, reshaping, lettering ... I like the way it feels." Linda became the editor of the Calligraphic

Arts Guild of Toronto's quarterly publication, a position she held for three and a half years. During this time she heard that a camp on Lake Simcoe was looking for instructors. Linda had never been to camp - this would be a new adventure. At camp, a new love affair began - teaching. In 1993 Linda started at the Avenue Road Arts School teaching a mixed media class to kids. "I see myself as a sort of enabler" she says, "someone who helps others access their creative self." For Linda, teaching is an opportunity to share and exchange, and from each student she learns something new. "Everyone has their own way of digesting, of seeing, and that helps me look at projects and ideas differently."

Linda teaches technique in a relaxed and fun atmosphere. She then helps her students use this technique in a way that suits their individual personalities. She helps them discover how the medium can work for them, even if this means making "mis-takes" along the way. Linda's approach to teaching is the same as her approach to life. The result is that she is a teacher who embraces new ideas, is committed to and genuinely excited about her students and their work, and has an infectious love for life. Linda smiles, "I am a work in progress" she says, "professionally, teaching is the best thing I've done ... so far."

by Skye Brain